The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-11-29 00:00:00

Top CORRESPONDENTS.

" A Member of the Church of England" will find a .corn-
munication in another column on the subject of his letter;
but we fancy the affair to which he alludes is not yet •
sufficiently ripe as to warrant such a demonstration as that
suggested. We give this opinion, however, without being
aware of what proceedings have yet taken plaCe.

Ei
Kitcryczil A9tatillarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 29, 1842•

We publish in another column a proclamation from
Lord Ellenborotigh, which is scarcely exceeded in im-
portance by the victories which have been achieved
by the British arms. Our troops in possession of
Affghanistan will now be withdrawn within our own
frontier, and the Governor-General leaves it to the
Affghans themselves to create a government which, his
Lordship states, he will willingly recognise if it appears
desirous and capable of maintaining friendly relations
with neighbouring states. We refer our readers to this
important document, on which we shall, in all proba- •
hility, have occasion to remark further. In the mean-
time, however, we refer with pleaeure to the following
extract, from the London Times of yesterday :
It is not often that we see a successful army recalled from
the scene of its triumphs upon having performed simply the
task for which it was destined. Men are not often content
with success; and they say they cannot safely rest under de-
feat. They seem to consider themselves bound by a kind of
inevitable necessity—a kind of obligation of selfishness—to
prosecute any just or unjust advantage, as they. dare not re-
main under the stain of an unavenged disaster. The man
who pauses in the one case is called a fool, in the other a
coward. And wars of subjugation—wars to the knife—wars
which can only terminate with the political existence of one
or the other party—arc the results. Such was the prospect
with which we were threatened by the opening of hostilities
in Affghanistan; such is the course of policy to.which manY
thinkers and writers of the present day would unscrupu-
lously pledge us. We are most thankful to find that it 10
not and cannot again be the policy of the present Govern-
ment. And we fervently thank Lord Ellenboreugh for this
determined announcement of his resolution, while establish•
ing and enforcing peace, to remain satisfied with the already
too ample limits of the British empire, and no longer to
waste in distant warfare those energies which might be em-
ployed to enrich and civilize at home.

The prospects opened to our commerce, by the im-
portant events which have just taken place in China
and Affghanistan, are at this moment occupying the
attention of the great mass of our mercantile com-
munity. By many, it is possible, too sanguine hopes
are entertained, of immediate as well as permanent
benefits to result from them. By some, and by the
Anti-Corn-law party in particular, the hope of revived
prosperity from such a source, or from any, save the
adoption of their own favourite nostrum, is openly
scouted. The increased activity which has already taken
place in almost every description of trade is, however,
before our eyes. If the feeling in our cotton market
be any key to the feeling in the cotton manufacturing
districts, revived commerce there is, at least, ap-
proaching; nay, if brisk markets for cotton goods be
not the most deceptive of commercial barometers, that
feeling has pervaded the length and breadth of those
districts. Our woollen trade, too, if the markets of
Leeds, Bradford, &c., are faithful indices of its con-
dition, has materially improved. In fact, look where
we will, there is scarcely a branch of industry which
has not felt the genial effects of the settlement of our
eastern entanglements, and of the concessions which,
in China at least, our victorious arms have wrung
from the late enemies of our country. •

Still, we submit, it is of vital importance that we
should not allow ourselves to be misled, either by an
over sanguine temper on the one hand, or by weak
fears, produced by the representations of designing
men, on the other. We have no wish to see acted
over the commercial calamities which have
attended former extensions of the limits of our com-
merce ; and we wish, therefore, to direct our mercantile
readers to a calm and Candid examination of" the real
circumstances in which, by our recent successes, we
are at present placed. And, first, with respect to the
trade with China.

By the opening to that trade of four new ports,
most advantageously situated for an intercourse with
the heart of the :Chinese empire, a vast prospective
busness is held out to us. It must be entered upon,
however, with caution ; for at present we know little
either of the tastes of the people, whose wants we are
called upon to supply, or of their mode of making
payments for our goods. Still, the very extent Of
their population, their reputed wealth, their rich pro-
duce, and other favourable circumstances, warrant us
in the expectation of an extensive and profitable inter-
change of commodities between us, so soon as a little
experience shall have guided our transactions into 3
proper channel. Meantime, the stimulus given to
native industry by the mere experiment of an un-
restricted intercourse with China, will be a seasonable
relief indeed to all classes of our fellow-countrymen;
and we earnestly trust that that intercourse may be
cultivated by us, in the first outset, with care and
prudence.
In addition, however, to the new sources of traffic
opened to us in China, we anticipate a material benefit
from the cessation of war with that country and with
Affghanistan. Of any commerce with the latter emir]."
try—of the realization of the absurd dreams of Lord
Palmerston with respect to such a commerce—we have
little hope. We look for the benefit to accrue in India
herself', now almost prostrated by the heavy drains
which we have been making upon her resources, for
the support of our armies in China and beyond the
Indus. We see, by a despatch of the Governor-Gene-
ral, Lord Ellenborough, which will be found elsewhere,
that from the latter country those armies are about to
be withdrawn; we know too, by previous information
respecting the policy which it is the intention of his
Lordship to pursue, that his efforts will be directed,
not to the extension of our Indian frontier, but to the
extension of the capabilities of that empire itself—to in-
ternal improvements, of its soil, its roads, its water
communications, and the condition of its people. And
upon the carrying out of such a policy, we build ao
earnest hope that India, with its vast capabilities and
population, is at length about to prove that fertile store-
house of wealth to the British merchant, and that en-
during source of employment to British industry which,
under wise legislation, it is so eminently calculated to
become.

Viewed in all its circumstances, then, we hail, as a
great commercial boon, the pacification of our eastern
empire ; and we feel satisfied that, when time has been
given them to reflect—when time has been given then
to feel the benefits resulting from the eastern policy
of the present government,—the conviction will force
itself upon our fellow-countrymen that it is not by
aggressive wars abroad or agitation at home, but by"
the cultivation of peaceful intercourse with foreign:
countries, by an extension of the resources of oar
magnificent colonies, and by energy, perseverance,.
and, above all, prudence on the part of British ma',
chants, that the commerce and the name of England'
are to be restored to their once proud pre-eminence'
amongst mankind.

A paragraph has, it is well known, been recently
going the round of the papers, to the effect that the.
Government of Sir Robert Peel has directed the
attention of the law officers of the Crown to the or
ings and doings of that seditious body, the Anti-corn"-
law League, with a view to the adoption of measures.
for the preservation of the peace of the country, which
is endangered by its frantic proceedings. To this'
report the Albion of yesterday addresses himself, in'
his usual self-sufficient strain ; and proceeds to de'
monstrate, apparently to his own perfect satisfaction,.
that any such measures, on the part of the Govern'
ment, are not only unwise, but likely to be fruitless-
" Assail the Leauue with success"—remarks our con-.
temporary—" what then ? You have still the press to'
gag. Silence the press, and what will you do with the'
House of Commons ? There we have you. Agitation,•
driven from Manchester, would fix its bead quarters in.
Westminster, and thence send forth its inspiring note

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