The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-02-08 00:00:00

such flattering colours

From the very hour that these poor creatures leave
their cherished home,—amongst the bogs or the moun-
tains of Ireland, in the green wallies of England, or
amid the densely thronged population of our manu-
facturing towns and villages—the feet of the spoiler
pursue them to the hour of their embarkation, to
snatch from them, shilling by shilling, the wretched
pittance, the produce of the sale of their little farm-
stead or fireside, upon which they rely to hear them to
the unknown land which they seek. Fraud surrounds
them on every side. The wily " crimp" dogs them
at every step. The specious "agent" pours his flat-
tering tale into ears ignorant of his practices—holds up
a glittering picture to eyes which cannot see the empti-
ness which is beyond it—and, in nine cases out of ten,
the wretched victim never learns that he has been
duped and plundered until he is thrown penniless and
helpless upon a foreign shore ;—unless, indeed, which
is no rare occurrence, he is awakened from his delu-
sion by the discomforts which he experiences, or by
the exhaustion of his slender stock of provisions du-
ring his long and tedious passage.
'l'o provide a remedy for this state of things, which
we need not more particularly describe, and to afford
an effectual protection to the poor emigrant from the
villany of the land-sharks by whom he is surrounded,
is the object of the measures which the Colonial Se-
cretary brought before the House of Commons on
Friday. Upon the score of humanity," alone, those
measures are urgently called for; and we trust that no
fear of making them too stringent will interfere to pre-
vent the legislature from making them effectual to re-
press the evil against which they are directed. The
appointment of a government inspector of emigration
in the various ports, by the act of 1833, of which Lord
Stanley himself was the author, has to some extent
checked the malpractices previously existing. Fraud
and dishonesty, however, though cloaked more sedu-
lously, are still rife throughout the system; and his
lordship, we are satisfied, will not stop short until it is
thoroughly reformed.
Of a similar nature, and with the same object in
view, is the measure introduced by his lordship for the
survey and sale of lands belonging to the Crown, in
Australia and New Zealand. If it is desirable that
persons about to emigrate should be placed out of the
power of deceit and imposition, before embarking from
this country, it is equally desirable that they should not
be misled with respect to the qualities, the location,
and the cost of the land which they set out to colo-
nise. Under a just and wise system of management,
Great Britain holds in her colonial possessions the
means of settling annually, in comfort and prosperity,
countless thousands of her surplus population, of em-
ploying to advantage her surplus industry and capi-
tal, and of founding vast markets for the employment
of her suffering people at home. In thoSe particular
colonies to which the present measure of Lord Stanley
is directed, we possess already the nucleus of a vast
amount of future benefit to the commerce and industry
of Great Britain. From New South Wales alone—we
quote his lordship's figures—the exports in 1835
amounted to £682,000 ; in 1840 they had increased to
£1,251,000. The imports of the same colony, two-
thirds of which were of British manufacture, were, in
1835, £727,000; in 1840 they had increased to
£2,606,000! In 1830 New South Wales exported to
this country, of wool alone, 900,000 lbs; in 1836 the
export of the same article had risen to 3,611,000 lbs.;
and in 1840 it amounted to 7,660,960 lbs. ! The im-
portance to Great Britain of possessions thus growing
in productive and consuming power, even under the
disadvantages of a vicious administration of their re-
sources, which has deterred rather than encouraged
the transport of additional capital and industry from
this country for their developement, must be suffici-
ently obvious ; and it is therefore with pleasure that
we see a statesman, such as Lord Stanley, directing the
energies of his powerful mind to the task of removing
the obstacles which intervene to shut us out from the
full benefits which possessions so valuable are calcu-
lated, in due time, to confer upon our country.
Such measures, effectual and practical in their cha-
racter we look for at the hands of Lord Stanley. We
look for the developement of the colonial resources of
the empire, than which, we have ever maintained in
the columns of this journal, no more efficacious and
permanent remedy exists for the state of disorganiza-
tion and suffering in which Great. Britain is unhappily
plunged. In her colonies, greater in extent and in popu-
lation—greater in their fertility too—than those of all
the world besides, this country surely possesses " ample
verge and scope enough" for the employment of her
redundant population—for the exercise of all her in-
dustry and energy, vast though they are ; and we ask
only that the efforts of our government should be di-
rected to promote the growth, in prosperity and
strength, of those noble possessions ; that the foster-
ing hand and the watchful eye of the legislature should
be extended over them ; that the fertilizing stream of
industry and capital should be permitted to flow to-
wards them, and be protected and guarded in its flow;
and, if such things be, we fear not for the prosperity
and the happiness of " Old England"—the centre and
the source of their strength—the mighty heart, from
which emanates the vivifying blood which is destined
ultimately to infuse life, health, and the blessings of
civilization into a yet unpeopled world.

At a late hour last night that unhappy Radical, Mr.
William Rathbone, in the name of the Reform Asso-
ciation, placarded the walls of the borough with a state-
ment of their reasons for not venturing to contest the
representation at the present election. That pure body
having, in 1830, by their own confession, bribed hea-
vily the poor freemen of this town, and having expended
some thousands in the vain attempt to foist a repre-
sentative of their own pure principles upon the borough
last year, have at length been seized with a holy horror
of the evils of bribery, and are unwilling, by an oppo-
sition to Sir Howard Douglas, " to gratify the venal
constitr:,ency of the Borough of Liverpool, by the ex-
penditure of money, which must he the result."
Pure souls ! how we pity the unhappy state of mind
from which has emanated this atrabilious effusion !
Radicalism could not for once lie down quietly, and
allow the ascendant principle of loyalty to assert its
supremacy in the borough, without this sneaking at-
tempt to spit its venom upon those whose only crime
it is that they are disgusted with its corruption, and
will not be seduced to listen to its hollow pretensions.
The loyal freemen of Liverpool, against whom, in espe-
cial, the fierce hate of Liberalism is directed, can well
afford to despise its libels upon their character, and to
compassionate the pitiable condition of the opponent
which can descend to assail them with these handfuls
of the mud into which they are fallen. Poor Radica-
lism !