The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-08-26 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

A proof of the general accuracy of the LIVERPOOL STA/4-
DARD has been unconsciously afforded by the extraordinary
fuss which has been made by several of our contemporarieS
relative to a report of a fire which we stated on Friday
last had occurred on board the Oriental [steamer on the
outward voyage to Malta. No such tire has taken place
on board the Oriental steamer; and we regret the mis-
take the more, as we know every precaution is used to
prevent such casualties on board that magnificent vessel.
The fire to which we alluded occurred on a sailing vessel
of the same name, on the outward voyage from Liverpool
to Buenos Ayres, and under circumstances similar to those
described in the paragraph referred to.

Elie Ltbcrpoot gPtanDarTi.

FRIDAY MORNING, AUGUST 26, 1842.

Most deeply would the present Conservative Go-
vernment have failed in its duty to the people of

England if it had neglected to institute a strict inquiry
into the origin and the progress of the recent distur-

hances in the manufacturing districts. Such an omil-

sion, however, cannot now be laid to their charge.
By the Manchester Guardian of Wednesday we are

informed that a Government Commissioner—a Mr.

Gregory—is already in that town, engaged in pursuing
the inquiry in question ; and, if we may judge from
the promptness displayed by the Cabinet in despatch-
ing this official to the seat of the disturbances, we may

safely prophecy that it will be one of the most vigorous
and searching character. Such, indeed, it must be, or
it can never satisfy or calm the excitement which the

events of the past fortnight have produced in the

public mind.

With respect to the origin of the recent turn-out of
'working people, it is possible that we know already as
much as we are likely to be made acquainted with.
We may not be able to trace the riotous conduct of
the factory population throughout the district to its
real instigators—the League millocracy. But most
certainly, if the enquiries of Government are conducted
as we trust they will be, the people of England will
have 'submitted to them a picture of reckless crime
such as never attached to the character of any party in
this country. If we have not brought home to the
League millocracy the infamy of having personally
excited to the destruction of property and life which
we have just witnessed; if the League millocracy
of Manchester shall not be proved to have aided
with their purses the proceedings of the lawless insur-
gents; still, we are satisfied, it will be abundantly
proved that they have aided them, and with quite as
much effect, by a wicked and deliberate neglect of
those means and precautions by which such pro-
ceedings might have been put down.
In this opinion we are confirmed by the evidence of
a host of observers, and by the admission of the Man-
chester Guardian itself—the organ of the " Liberal "
party in Manchester; and when that journal backs
out from the support of its friends, depend upon it,
they are in a black case! It was known in Manches-
ter, says the Guardian, that the town was about to be
invaded by the insurgent workmen of the neighbour-
ing district. The " Liberal " magistracy of Manches-
ter had full previous information of the illegal purposes
of the rioters ;—that the factories were,to be forcibly
stopped, and the merchants intimidated upon their own
Exchange ! And yet " What," asks the Gunrdian,---
" was done for the purpose of preventing this alarming

invasion? There was an adequate military and police force
in Manchester; there was ample time for arresting the pro-
gress of the rioters at a distance from the town ; there were
positions peculiarly favourable for that purpose. What use
was made of these advantages ? Why, none ;—or at all
events none that was in any way effectual for the purpose
intended. There was undoubtedly an array of military and
police—a parade of officers and magistrates—after the rioters
had entered the town, and after they had commenced the ex-
ecution of their lawless purpose. There was an attempt to stop
them in the streets, where the flanks of the military were turned
by twenty different passages ; and, in spite of all the efforts
they could make, the rioters spread over the town, turning
out the workpeople at their pleasure. In short, so far as re-
garded the arresting of their progress, the magistrates, and
the military, and the police, might just as well have been at
Liverpool." !!

Can any one, we ask, with such an admission be-
fore them, coining from such a quarter, doubt for a
moment that a wicked toleration of the spread of the
turnout from Stalybridge, where it commenced, to Man-
chester and other towns, was exercised by the League
millocracy of Manchester, and other magisterial Anti-
Corn-law brawlers ? Can it be doubted that by many
of such men " a row," whatever its cause or its-result,
would be welcomed as a convenient instrument of of-
fence against a Conservative Government ? They had
full information of its approach. They were warned,
we know, by the qgicer in command of the police force
of Manchester, Colonel Shaw, of the necessity of promPf
resistance. Yet they did nothing ! They waited for
the sacking of the town, which they were sworn to
protect, in the hope of being able to convert such a
calamity into an argument for the repeal of the Cots'
laws !

This damning inertness—this wicked tampering
with outrage and disorder—will be established by the
inquiry now pending; and the punishment which
ought to be meted out by a government determined
to protect the lives, the liberties, and the property c'
Englishmen, we need not even hint at. But can
inquiry stop here ? It can not I The Government are
bound, we say, to carry their investigation into the
character, the political connexions, and the past history'
even, of some of the gentlemen (?) who adorn the
magiSterial bench in Manchester. If there are toeh
upon that bench who are avowed agitators of the
worst class, can a Conservative Government pert
such men for a moment longer to remain on that bench
to which a venal Government, for purposes of its owrb
advanced them ? We answer fearlessly, No ; and we
are convinced that such will be the answer of the
f
Government under whose judgment the conduct C
these men will shortly be placed.

The bulk of the expenditure of the past year se
course that incurred for the " new works" in cour
of formation. We should have been glad, and tie
e,
public would have been glad, to have been told Oil
thing in detail with respect to this outlay—how tnen
yards of excavation, of river or dock wall, of Payidno
and other matters, had been done, and how "'ile
remained to be done ;—what proportion, in fact, t,O
cost thus far of the works in question hears to
original estimate. We have no such informatl°,o
however, afforded to us. Again, with respect to t"ii
lesser item of the gross amount—the expenditure °lli
" old works"—we are equally in the dark. The °lie
conclusion, indeed, which presents itself, is that to
drawn from the frequent use of the words "
" rising," &c., viz. that the expenditure under t
head is in great part created by the necessity of fee
ing errors and completing "botches."

We have not had either space or leisure lately t
notice the doings or undoings of the Dock Committee
and their surveyor. It certainly was our expectatio:
that some answer would at least be attempted to tb
charges brought against the latter gentleman, by Or-
selves and by Mr. Chapman, in his letter to the chair
man of the committee. In default of this, however'
we must conclude that these charges are admitted;
and with respect to the charge of Mr. Chapman'
relative to the laying of the temporary railway alone
the docks, we can only say that we have had ti`i,
original working drawing, for a compliance with chic
an old servant of the:committee was dismissed at ad
hour's warning, measured by a competent party,
t"
that that working drawing, which would prove
fault to be the surveyor's, and not the poor man's 1-10,0
whom punishment has fallen, can be produced to tr'
committee at any moment.
We have now before us the yearly report of bt
engineer, and the usual statement of accounts accolly
parrying it; by which it will be found that the
penditure during the year, from June, 1841, to Ml'
1842, has been, upon new works, £125,585 19s. Su''
and upon old works, (we presume repairs, alteratil
&c.) £24,803 17s. 9d., being a total expenditure r/.
£150,389 17s. sd. We have endeavoured, from till!
document, to arrive at the detailed cost of some Party,
cular works about which we feel an interest; WI
alas ! our perceptions are quite unable to pierce
through the dense fog with which the surveyor or We
clerks contrive to mystify their statements. A 111°1.,
complete jumble of figures never came under our °or
servation; and all that we can say, after an hour
two's examination of the various items of which tit Je
are composed, that, with respect to the cost of any
of the works to which they relate, we are just as Nis
as we set out.

Amongst the detailed items, we have two, however,
Which are somewhat more intellible than the rest. We
allude to those of " the completion of the Toxteth
Dock, including excavations, quay walls, gates, and
machinery" £9,500 4s. 4d.; and "excavating, form-
ing, and paving the quays of ditto," £590 Bs. 2d. ;
making, in all, an expenditure of £10,090 for the com-
pletion of this pretty wash-basin. We should really
like to know—and a surveyor's statement might
inform us—what has been the total cost of this affair,
and what was the original estimate. Again, we have
the cost of houses for the dock masters, seven in
number, and completed at an expense of £5,820; the
cost of sheds—the best laid out money in the state-
ment—amounting to £8,909 15s. 6d., and various
other similar items ; and it would be infinitely satis-
factory to the public to be furnished with the cost origi-
nally put upon each of them by the dock surveyor. In
fact, we have, from this report, no means of knowing
Whether, in all this vast outlay of £150,000 in the past
year by the dock estate, three-fourths of it, or a half,
or a quarter of it, has been executed, as all such works
ought to be, by contract thrown open to the tradesmen
of the borough,—has been completed under or over
the estimate,—or has been executed, in the ordinary
loose mode, by the surveyor himself.
Upon the new dock-yard—the last new dock-yard—
an expense has been incurred of no less than £7,454 !
We would much rather that the committee had given
this sum to the surveyor himself, as a bonus, to induce
him to give up his obstinate affection for the particular
site upon which it is erected. Let the revenue which
would be derived from the appropriation of this land
to useful dock purposes be calculated, and the dock-
yard will be found to be a dear bargain indeed !
But let us come to the conclusion of this unsatis-
factory report. The best portion of a lady's letter is
said to be the postscript; and the best part of Mr.
Hartley's report may, to those who understand it, he
the N.B. which concludes his statement of expendi-
ture. Here it is :

" N.B.—ln the foregoing account there is dispersed
over the different docks "—(this " dispersing " is one
of the very things we complain of)—" the cost of pa-
ving and repairing the various quays, containing an
area of 519,870 square yards, equal to a line of road
29 miles 947 yards, 10 yards in width, in which 2,223
tons of granite pairing-setts have been used, the whole
cost of which, including labour and materials, is
£2,197 Is. 6d."

What is this, we ask ? What does it mean ? Is it
A PUFF upon the exceeding cheapness with which Mr.
Hartley does the work of the dock estate? Does this
paragon of surveyors mean us to infer that he has
" paved and repaired " " 29 miles" of quay with 2,229
tons of granite setts, at an expense of £2,197 ls. 6d. ?
Or is this only a piece of inflated bombast worthy of
another Munchausen ?

We leave the question for the solution of the gen-
tlemen on 'Change, and of the especial admirers of
the engineering department in our dock management.
By the way, as the surveyor is rather fond of "reports
on 'Change," we take the opportunity now to accom-
modate him with the latest, which we put in the con-
venient form of a direct question, in the hope of being
favoured with a direct answer. "Is it true that the
Salthouse Dock-gates, when put together, were found
to be each three inches too long, and had to be taken
in pieces again, and the ribs shortened ? "

STATE AND PROSPECTS OF THE COTTON

TRADE.

Whatever may be the opinion of parties in the manufac-
turing districts with respect to the prospects of a revival of
our trade, the merchants of Liverpool appear to entertain
the most sanguine anticipations of the future. Notwith-
standing the present disturbances between masters and men,
the gloomy accounts of financial affairs in America, the
unsettled, or apparently unsettled, state of the tariff ques-
tion, the prospect of an abundant cotton crop, (whilst we hold
at present in the country a stock of that raw material equal
to twenty-six or twenty-seven weeks' consumption), the
buyers at our markets have been for the past few days un-
usually spirited, and an excellent business has been done.
On Tuesday, 5,000 bales were sold in a firm market ; on
Wednesday, 8,000 bales were sold ; and yesterday, 6,000 to
7,000 bales were sold at an advance, generally, of one-eighth
per lb. upon last week's prices.

Our speculators appear to be acting in the anticipation of
a large business being done when the mills recommence their
operations ; and we confess we do not think they do so with-
out some show of reason. After all that we have heard of
warehouses in Manchester, " groaning under the weight
of their piled up stocks," the experience of the last
week has shown that goods on hand are by no means
to an unusual amount. Many agents during the recent
disturbances were actually without stocks to execute
their orders. There appears a certainty, too, that if,
as we confidently and upon the best information
anticipate, the scale of import duties in the United
States is fixed at 20 per cent., we must shortly have
an extensive demand for our goods, and for fabrics to the
admission of which the former tariff was absolutely pro-
hibitory, from that country. American manufacturers cannot
compete with us in medium qualities of cotton goods, and
must shortly, to use a vulgar expression, " shut up shop !"
Our own excellent harvest will give a stimulus to the home
demand ; and, in addition to all these concurrent favouring
circumstances, we may reasonably hope that the recent de-
Pressed state of trade from India and the East, generally,
will before long take a turn to our advantage.
Most sincerely do we hope that these anticipations may be
realized, and more than all we pray for such a consummation
for the sake of the labouring poor. Cheap bread will be a
miserable mockery to the working man, if he is not enabled,
by liberal wages, to enjoy his share of what will then become
a blessing. Let us seriously impress this consideration upon
the millowners of the manufacturing districts, and urge them
to come forward now and meet fairly and considerately the
demands of such of their distressed hands as are willing to
separate themselves from chartist and other agitation.