The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-05-03 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

The brains of the dirty fellow who sent us the sawdust query
are composed, we should imagine, of that wooden material.
If the writer who proposes a discussion with the two parties
whose letters recently appeared in the columns of the
STANDARD will affix his real signature to his communi-
cation it will be much more likely to be attended to.
A paragraph appeared in our last headed " Blowing Veal,"
in which it was stated that a person of the name of " Wil-
son" had been brought before the magistrates for that
reprehensible practice. The name of the offender was
"Thomas Gilkes," and the error is the more provoking
as there is a highly respectable gentleman of the former
name in the branch of business to which the paragraph
related.

In correcting the errors of our contemporaries, in giving a
report of the accident on the river, our compositor mistook
the manuscript, and the thickness of the plank of the boat
was stated to be five-eighths instead of five-sixteenths of
an inch. A correspondent who has addressed us on the
subject wishes the young gentlemen attached to aquatic
sports to consrruct their boats on the plan of a man-of-
war's gig, and then they might race with safety.

Ein Kiberpoot etanbarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 3, 1842

This evening, we observe, is fixed for the appoint-
ment of the committee, moved for by Mr. Ferrand, for
the purpose of inquiring into the prevalence and the
effect of the truck system at present in operation
throughout the manufacturing and mining districts.
That a vast mass of fraud and injustice will be brought
before the public through the labours of that commit-
tee we cannot doubt. The practice of paying the wages
of the labourer in goods prevails extensively in every
branch of industry. Our own town is not exempt
from it. In many trades carried on in Liverpool, the
hardworking operative is mulcted of a portion of his
wages by being compelled to receive the dear and
trashy goods of his employer instead of money; and
we trust sincerely that our own town will not be per-
mitted to escape the eye of the committee and the mal-
practices which prevail in it, because small, perhaps,
when compared with the giant impositions which will
be developed in other places, be left unvisited with the
notice they deserve. ,
We have little hope certainly that any merely legis-
lative measures will ever put down effectually the prac-
tiee into which it will be the duty of this committee to
inquire. The utmost that we look for from it is the
prevention of the offence when openly practised, and a
full authoritative exposure of its extent and operation.
Dishonest masters will always be able to evade an en-
actment for the prevention of an evil which is alike
injurious to the fair trader and the industrious work-
man ; and the only effectual remedy, we are satisfied,
is to be found in the determination of respectable mas-
ters and their workmen to expose the practice in every
case where it comes before their notice. The British
public, however enamoured it may be of puffing traders
and cheap goods, is at heart a just public, and will not
bestow its patronage upon those whose gains al', ung
by fraud from the pocket and from the scantily sup-
plied table of the industrious workman.

When we expressed last week the mingled pain and
amazement with which we had learned the decision of
the board of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway to
adopt the junction with the Leeds Company at Hunt's
Bank, we were confident that no defensible grounds
could be urged for the course which they had taken.
Certainly, at the meeting of shareholders no such
grounds were expressed—nothing to warrant the sud-
den and, to the public, unaccountable change in the
determination of the majority of the directors; and all,
the enquiries which we have since made have thrown
not one ray of light upon the matter.
It is, we have no doubt, perfectly true, as was urged
by the chairman and Mr. Moss, that the Liverpool
Board experienced too little support from the other
railways in Manchester:to enable them to carry out the
proposition for a southern junction ; that the Man-
chester and Birmingham Board were hostile to the
project, or, if not hostile, at least, too deeply pledged
to the Leeds Company to allow them to move in the
direction required. The snug family party who con-
stitute the Leeds Board are, we dare say, perfectly
ready, and perhaps able, at present, to drag the Bir-
mingham Company in subjection at their heels ; but
that is surely no reason why Liverpool, also, should
succumb to their insolent dictation. Grant, that the
southern junction was unattainable under existing cir-
cumstances, such a fact would be a sufficient reason
for not pressing it at the present moment ; but it is
surely none for the hot haste in which the Liverpool
board have:embraced the counter project.
The duty of that hoard was perfectly simple, and
their course perfectly clear. By the admission of the
Deputy Chairman, "a junction of the different rail-
ways in Manchester" with the Liverpool line, "so as
to effect one continuous line of railway communication
between the towns and coasts of Lancashire and York-
shire," was " amongst the public necessities of the
present day." We have no doubt that the legislature
would have been precisely of this opinion, and would
have supported the Liverpool company in any effort to
advance a consummation, so desirable, against any pos-
sible amount of opposition. But when that company
comes down from its lofty position, shuts out of view
the " public necessities" of uniting itself with these
railways, and throws the facilities, which should be
afforded to all, into the grasp of one only, it abandons
the direct line of duty, and the public have a perfect
right to suspect that the ground of action is ill-judged
and indefensible.

It cannot be maintained that any unfavourable change
of circumstances, with respect to this question, have
taken place since the arrogant demands of the Leeds
Company were at first rejected, to warrant the present
course of the Liverpool Board. On the contrary, the
demand for, and the prospect of, a Southern Junction,
to accommodate all the railways in Manchester, is
greater now than it has ever been previously. When
the first stand was made by the Liverpool Board, they
possessed but one ally—the Sheffield Company—and
that one apparently in a state of hopeless embarrass-
ment. But how stand the facts now ? The Sheffield
line has emerged:from its state of difficulty; its shares
have a market value ; it is now able to take up its bor-
rowed capital ; and, by the approaching formation of
the branch to the North Midland Railway, it has be-
come one of the most important trunk lines in the king-
dom ! Such a change is surely not a reason why the
directors of the Liverpool line should give up the pros-
pect of a connection with Sheffield and the east coast
of Yorkshire, however excellent a reason it may be for
the increased bitterness of tone in which the Leeds and
Manchester gentlemen have urged on their exclusive
project.

It may be said, however, that the threat of a com-
peting line between Manchester and Liverpool was a
circumstance which ought to have been taken into ac-
count; that the fear of this project being pressed on,
Justifies the Liverpool hoard in conceding to their late
opponents. Why—does any one believe that, with all
their loud professions, the shareholders of the Leeds
and Manchester company would throw away their
money in such a mad attempt ? Have these gentlemen,
regardless as they may be of money, so plentiful a
supply of that commodity that they can afford to
squander it after so wanton a fashion ? No, no. Pas-
sionate men may talk, in lofty strain enough, of deepen-
ing rivers, and making competing lines of railway;
but their tone is a little lowered when they are called
upon to put their hands into their pockets, and to carry
their threats into execution. The people of Manchester
have had a little experience in such matters within the
past few years, and are not nearly so reckless of the
price which they pay for their whistle as the Liverpool
board appear to have thought them. The threat of a
north line to Liverpool, our readers may depend, is, in

reality, a piece of as complete absurdity as was ever
put forward, even from the lips of so distinguished a
propounder of fiction as Mr. Robert Gill.

As little reason is there, we are satisfied, for the fear
which seems to have been entertained, of any serious
opposition to a southern junction from the Manchester
and Birmingham Company. The directors of that
company, however dovetailed in interest they may be
with some of the Leeds.. Board, would never be per-
mitted to embark in a serious 'opposition to a junction
so valuable as this would he to their own undertaking.
On this head we state, advisedly, that the Liverpool
Board have been completely misled, as they have also
been with respect to the feeling of the public of Man-
chester, which we can assure them is anything but one
of approbation of the course which they have pursued,
or of strong liking for the Hunt's Bank project.
We dare say we shall be told that it is too late now
to canvass this question ; and certainly the rapidity with
which the Leeds gentlemen are pressing on their opera-
tions would favour such an opinion. Already the con-
tracts for the formation of the branch from the present
station of the Leeds Company to Hunt's Bank are
advertised, and we have no doubt the Liverpool Com.
pany will be immediately pressed to commence upon
their portion of the junction. We do sincerely trust,
however, that they may yet be induced to pause, before
hopelesSly entangling themselves ; for it is impossible
to shut out from our mind, or from the mind of any
man acquainted with the locality, the conviction that,
sooner or later, a junction line by the south of M an-
chester, and the formation of a general station in a
part of the town more central than Hunt's Bank, will be
loudly called for, and must take place ! It is a manifest
impossibility that a line with the traffic which the
Sheffield line will have upon it, when once completed,
can be permitted to remain isolated ;—that a break in
the direct communication, which would otherwise be
formed between the east and west coasts of England, can
be permitted to occur for the want or a junction line
through Manchester to the Liverpool Railway. It is
scarcely possible to believe, either, that Stockport,
Macclesfield, and other towns upon the Manchester
and Birmingham line will long submit to be deprived
of an uninterrupted communication with Liverpool,
the great mart of their staple. material, merely.to gra-
tify the prejudices or the absurd fears of a few selfish
proprietors in other lines. This communication, we
repeat, must he made, and by the Liverpool company
too, if they consult the interests of their own underta-
king ; and it is surely ruinous and absurd policy, with
this fact before them, to attempt embarking in a pro-
ject which will involve an outlay of £300,000 without
doing any more than connecting themselves with one
out of the three lines which must be provided with such
communication !

We believe firmly that the Liverpool Company are
not aware of half the influences which have been at
work to induce their committing themselves to this
Hunt's bank project. The whole of the water com-
panies of Manchester see in this untoward step the
prospect of securing to themselves the valuable traffic
from the south and east—from Stockport, Ashton,
Duckinfield, Hyde, Staley Bridge, Mottram, Glossop,
Sheffield, Barnsley, New Mills, &c., which must either
travel the entire distance by canal or he set down at
Store-street, to find its way, by the various carrying
companies, to Liverpool,instead of coming at once, and
inevitably, upon the Liverpool line. And, after all,
what, we ask, has the company gained to compensate
for this sacrifice ? Have they any additional security
that the same threats of a north line will not be re-
peated, and even be attempted to be carried out?
Have they any security that the rival water convey-
ances—the deepening of the river Irwell—will not still
be held over their heads ? Can they urge, in opposi-
tion to these or any similar schemes, that they have
endeavoured to supply to the public all the facilities
within their reach ? Undoubtedly not. We are con-
fident that concession here is the most injudicious step
which the Liverpool board could have adopted; that it
will be the fertile source of many similar attempts at
dictation ; and we lament it the more, because it places
for the first time the direction of one of the best con-
ducted undertakings in the kingdom in an obviously
false and humiliating position.

The debate in the House of Commons, on Friday
evening, upon the motion of Mr. Roebuck, must, we
think, have satisfied all reasonable men that, between
an adherence to the proposed income tax in something
like its present shape, and its abandonment altogether,
the government has no alternative. The member for
Bath proposed—and the same proposition has been
mooted in many quarters—that the tax upon income
derived from trades and professions should he 31d. in-
stead of 7d. " Perfectly just and reasonable," exclaim,
perhaps, not a few of our readers. " The shopkeeper,
the merchant, or the professional man, whose income
is precarious, has no right to he taxed in the same pro-
portion as the landholder or the fundholder, whose in-
come is fixed and permanent." The plea is plausible
enough ; and yet the exemption of this particular des-
cription of income from the full proportion of the tax
would involve, perhaps, as much injustice as it is pos-
sible to conceive.

For, is it a fact, in the first place, that income de-
rived from land is permanent ? A large portion of the
real property in Great Britain is only held for life, or
even for shorter periods. It is also burthened with
jointures, settlements, and other claims ; and yet, the
tax being collected from the tenants, the landowner has
no opportunity of setting off these abatements, but
must contribute upon his gross rental. What is more
precari,ous than mining property ? and yet the land-
owner must pay upon his total receipts from such pro-
perty, when any profit which he may derive in one year
may be swept away the next. Again ; with what jus-
tice is the rich banker or merchant to pay on only half
his income, when the clergyman, the military or naval
officer, the widow, dependent upon a life annuity,
or the clerk in a mercantile establishment or a pub-
lic office, is to be taxed in full ? Is the capitalist
more an object of compassion than the holder of cot-
tage property upon a life interest, who may any
day be called upon to expend his entire rental in re-
pairs ? A hundred different cases might be put, all
tending to establish the same fact, that no modifi-
cation of the pressure of the tax, upon particular classes,
can take place without involving equally as great injus-
tice and inequality as it professes to remove.
The proposition of Mr. Roebuck was certainly as
plausible, and apparently reasonable, as any which
could have been selected. It was ably argued, too, by
that gentleman and several others of his party ; and its
rejection by a triumphant majority ought really, we
think, to convince the endless talkers in the House of
Commons, and the grumblets out of doors, of the folly
and wickedness of attempting to impede the passing of
a measure upon which, confessedly, the interests and
safety of the empire now hang, by useless cavilling at
petty details. The principle of Sir Robert Peel's mea-
sure may now be regarded as accepted by parliament
and the country in its original form ; and the attention
of all parties ought now to be directed solely to the for-
mation and correction of the machinery by which it is
to be worked.

We cannot leave the subject without noticing a sin-
gular inconsistency of argument which was yesterday
displayed by a London contemporary, the Morning
Herald, whilst advocating the propriety of acceding to
the supposed demands of the commercial public upon
this occasion. The commercial classes are told, ex-
claims our respected contemporary, that "the tariff
will relieve the severity of the new tax." But the re-
lief in question, he argues, will only be in proportion
to the expenditure of each ; and as the landowner
consumes more of his income than the trader, the for-
mer will be the most benefitted, and this relief, there-
" only increases the injustice of schedule 11. It
may compensate the squire and the fnndholder, who
live up to their well-paid revenues, but it will not
equally compensate the hardworking- tradesman." A
more unfortunate argument than this it is scarcely
possible to conceive; for obviously the stimulus given
to commerce by the tariff is of itself no inconsiderable
benefit to the trader, whilst the reduction in the price
of consumable commodities—as beef, mutton, pork,
grain, fruit, &c.—is directly taken, along with the in-
come tax, out of the pocket of the landowner !

We are not disposed so far to underrate the wisdom
and foresight of the promoters of the Birkenhead Im-
provement Bill as to imagine that that measure is not
calculated to effect very considerable (and probably
to them highly advantageous) changes on the Cheshire

eof our river. When it is generally known (which
believe at this moment is not the case) that this
, clothed in the specious garb of the Birkenhead

" Improvement" Bill, has for its real tendency objects
of infinitely greater importance than those of mere lo-
cal " improvement," and such as are opposed to the.,
best interests of the town and inhabitants of this bo-
rough, it may well become a subject for serious re-
proach how it should happen that this measure should
not have received that bold, active, and determined op-
position to which, from its highly injurious tendency,
it was so deservedly entitled. We have not had an
opportunity afforded us of going, carefully, through
the details; but we gather, from its sense, that two
distinct objects are attained by it. In the first place,
the Chester and Birkenhead Railway Company have
disposed of a ferry, which, however valuable under the
new arrangement it may prove to the inhabitants of

Woodside, they themselves, as a company, have no de-
sire whatever to retain, and, if report be correct, was not
to he considered as a source of much revenue ; and,

in the second place, a power is granted to the same
company to form a tunnel, connecting the terminus of
their railway (distant about half a mile) with the side
of the river at Monks Ferry. To this latter point it is
impossible, as we conceive, not to attach considerable
weight ; for, how can the hotel and shopkeepers fail to
observe that here, surely, in some small degree, their
prosperity is hazarded ? Can they, or any other set of

men, be blinded by supposing that the mere avowed
object of securing a cheap and permanent means of
conveyance between Woodside and Liverpool is in re-
ality the motive and meaning of this bill ? On the
contrary, we view it otherwise. Up to the present pe-
riod the Grand Junction Company have kept clear of
any engagement to permit trains from Birkenhead to
run on their line from Birkenhead via Chester to

3iriningliam, and, if they continue in this course,

much may be done to avert the evils we otherwise an-
ticipate; for will it not be admitted, that to passengers
arriving from Scotland, Ireland, and coastwise, an im-
portant point would be conceded by finding themselves
landed on the site of the Monks Ferry, "where" an hotel

is provided and their railway journey to commence ?
Nay more; will it not be an object of pecuniary sav-
ing, especially if contrasted with the present practice—
first, of some occasional delay in the steam-boats en-
tering the Clarence Dock waiting for the tide ; after-
wards procuring a carriage to proceed to an hotel, pos-
sibly at some little distance, where, being deposited,
when the hour for departure arrives, another carriage
is required as a conveyance to the railway station in

Lime-street ? And in the same manner with goods
coming by steam-boat, the owners of these would
gladly seek not to be exposed to the expense of cartage
and porterage from the Clarence Dock to the railway
station at the King's Dock. And yet acknowledging,
as all must do, these disadvantages, with the exception
of an attempted opposition on the part of the corpora-
tion, this bill was permitted to pass both houses of
parliament (and has since,a is said, received the royal
assent) without one single step having been taken by
the different trades of the town to thwart it !
The fact is, the spell was broken when the Cheshire
coast was emancipated from the payment of dock dues
by the passing of Mr. Alderman Evans's dock ware-
house bill. The Roman Catholic ship-lumpers fore-
told, as they thought, a downfal, when the application
of the steam engine was, by that measure, destined to
supplace their labour and the winch. They were in
wrath at the idea, nor is it to be wondered at that they
should have been so. And now the inhabitants of Liver-
pool may by the same means have bitter cause to lament
also ; but much, as we have said, will depend on the
Grand Junction Railway Company. On them, very

probably, it may be urged, that a saving of some eight
miles in distance will be gained, by travelling via Che-
shire, both to the public and to the company ;
that additional security to the passenger may be
depended -on, from the use of a line, where the

terminus is not common to other railways ;—to such
arguments, if ever offered, we hope the Grand Junction
company (as tiley may be from past experience) will
be prepared to give their answer, and adhere to
the motto, "to let well alone ;" in fact, the town
has fostered and fed both the Liverpool and Man-
chester and Grand Junction companies, and to these
companies the inhabitants of Liverpool look with
confidence for a firm and determined preservation
of their rights and interests, which have so far pro-
gressed together, and we trust will long continue to
do so.

We are informed, by the notice of motions issued
by the council, that on Wednesday next it is the in-
tention of Mr. Francis Jordan to move (in case of the
adoption of Monument-place as the site for the new
hayinarket) that the equestrian statue of George 111
be removed from its present position to Great George-
square, the locality for which it was originally intended.
There can certainly be no question that, in case of the
market being transferred to London-road, the re-
moval of the monument will be inevitable. The council
might at the same time remove a goodly number of the
houses by which it is surrounded, and even divert the
direction of Pembroke-place. We are scarcely satis-
fied, however, that Great George's-square is the best
position which could be selected for his majesty's
equestrian exhibition, unless it is thought that the
venerable monarchs should be sent into retirement; and
have a fancy that St. George's Crescent would be to the
full as fit a locality to possess' the honour of his ma-
jesty's presence.

'We have no doubt that Mr. Jordan possesses a very
keen perception of the proprieties, and is sufficiently
loyal to wish that the statue of his majesty should not
be obscured by the near proximity of carts of coal,
hay, and other similar vulgar materials. There is
certainly something incongruous in the association
and yet that eminent local sage would scarcely, we
hope, go the length of arguing that the rustics, who
are in future to assemble in the neighbourhood in
question, should be deprived altogether of the embel-
lishment with which it is at present occupied. Take
away, we would certainly say in any case, the statue
of the monarch, and of his horse as well; but would it
not be well to leave the pedestal, and erect upon it the
figure of an humbler quadruped, from which an eminent
alderman, in congenial bronze, might survey the im-
provement effected by his transcendant genius, and
luxuriate in perpetuo upon the prospect of the fodder
around him ?

We merely throw out the hint to Mv. Jordan. Some
day or other, after Mr. Alderman Evans shall have
removed all our markets, remodelled all our docks,
translated our exc'•ange, and, finally, removed himself,
we shall probably have to perpetuate his fame by the
erection of some permanent memorial ; and we can see
no more fitting opportunity than is here presented, of
doing that in his lifetime which must be infinitely more
gratifying than if done when the restless improver is
no more.