The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-02-01 00:00:00

THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN

VERSUS THE

PORT OF LIVERPOOL

We showed in our last publication, (in reply to the studied
endeavour of the Manchester Guardian to misrepresent the
cost of transit of merchandize from Belfast, by way of Li-
verpool), that the whole charge for freight and port dues of
20 firkins of butter weighing 15 cwt. 1 quarter, which the
Guardian had told his readers was 20s. Bd., would only
amount to 10s. 11d. We made this statement upon the
authority of the two respectable agents in Liverpool, of the
Belfast packets, who, we dare say will feel happy to receive
as much freight as our Manchester friends can give them at
these charges ; and having given such au authorized state-
ment against a mere gratuitous assumption of the Guardian—
having proved the assertion which we originally made, that
that assumption was not warranted by fact—we hoped that
we had done all that was required from us.
Our contemporary, however, is not at all satisfied to have
his house of cards thus knocked down by a plain statement.
Respectable merchants in Liverpool don't know, it would
seem, their own charges—cannot sum up the figures in their
own day books—one half so well as the wiseacre of the
Guardian. We are told now, too, for the first time, by this
ingenious gentleman, what we all along suspected, that the
two cases of charge, by way of Fleetwood and of Liverpool,
were not parralle cases at all ,—were not cases upon which
a fair comparison could be instituted. " The quantity of
butter, writes the Guardian, with most amusing gravity,
" was not 20 but 30"—what, good reader? Why, thirty
" crocks." And the sum of all the Guardian's discoveries
is simply that 30 " crocks" of butter, weighing but 15 cwt.,
conveyed from Belfast by way of Liverpool, cost nearly as
much as 30 firkins, weighing 22 cwt. by way of ,Fleetwood !
that a "crock" of butter, weighing ha/ a cwt. costs as much in
freight as a firkin weighing three quarters of a cwt. ! 11 rally,
after this, we cannot but suspect that our contemporary does
not know the difference between a " crock" and a firkin ;
and we must therefore inform him that the former is an
earthenware vessel—is of various size—and is conveyed ge-
nerally, as any carrier would assure him, at a higher propor-
tional rate, than a firkin, which is wooden, easier to stow and
not liable to break.

The dishonesty—we can call it by no milder a term—of
instituting a comparison of the cost between the two ports,
whilst suppressing the very material fact that the article
conveyed was in one case made up in a description of pack-
age, of itse?f, more expensive in carriage than in the other,
must, we think, be apparent. But the Guardian is not
content to earn the imputation of dishonesty, but is anxious
to add stupidity and obstinacy to his other characteristics.
Notwithstanding we have assured him that the port charges
on 20 firkins at Belfast and Liverpool are only Ild. (and
those on 1`) " crocks" will not be 6d. more than this sum),
our contemporary will have it that they amount to ss. Bd. ;
and that in Liverpool alone " the dock dues and town dues
and what not—all the six or eight items of which he is in-
formed the Liverpool port charges are made up—would
amount " (with " cartage from the dock to the railway") to
five shillings. We tell the Guardian that his persisting in
such an assertion, after it has been proved to be utterly un-
founded, is an instance of more shameless mendacity than
we had previously given him credit for. In the first instance,
a reference to his original statement will shew that cartage
was already charged in a separate item of Is. 4d., besides his
20s. Bd. " paid on." In the second place, there arc no " six
or eight items." There are no " dock dues " charged upon
the article at all. In fact, there is but one " port charge,"
which is the town dues ; and, upon 30 " crocks " of butter,
these dues would not exceed Bd. or 9d.

The whole of our contemporary's ingeniously fabricated
case breaks down, therefore, by the very evidence which he
himself brings forward to support it, the only fact which he
has proved being that the freight upon butter in " crocks"
is greater than upon butter in firkins! We shall not com-
ment upon the dishonesty of the Guardian in representing,
in the statement with which he has furnished us, the 30
packages previously admitted to be " crocks " as firkins ;
for we set that down to his riot knowing that there is any
difference between the two terms. The Guardian's igno-
rance of most subjects is quite upon a par with his presump-
tion.