The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-02-18 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

We have received a poetical effusion signed "A Fallen Star,"
and addressed to " M. J. C.," which we may perhaps find
room for next week. We wish the young lady, whose
beauty draws forth such unqualified praise, and whose
accomplishments are of so high an order, had been a native
of this county instead of Derbyshire, of which we presume
she is, the fine scenery of that county being so often al-
luded to. We cannot understand the allusion to the sprig
of myrtle and a tulip, though no doubt the lady to whom
the lines are addressed will be able to do so.

the 7.ibtrpool Atanbarb.

FRIDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 18, 1842

After a three nights' debate, distinguished on the
part of the Conservative ministry and its supporters
by a display of business talent and eloquence which
has not been witnessed in the House of Commons
since the passing of the Reform Bill, or indeed within
our memory, the motion of Sir Robert Peel was carried
yesterday morning by a majority of 123, the num-
bers being on the division—
For the original motion
For the amendment

Majority

349

.. 226

123!!

We need scarcely congratulate our readers upon this
glorious triumph of Conservative statesmanship. The
noble bark, which bears within her bosom the cause
of the British constitution,—of British agriculture—
of native industry—has passed the shallows and the
hidden shoals amongst which it was so confidently
predicted that she would founder; and she now floats
proudly in the deep waters, rejoicing in the clear eye
and the strong hands of her pilot and her trusty crew,
and defying, alike, the rocks ahead, " the Battle and
the Breeze." Long may she thus proudly breast the
waves ! Long may a gratified and confiding people
look up with pride and unbroken trust to those ener-
getic spirits, whose honest and determined efforts have
at length brought about, for our country and her in-
stitutions, this happy consummation !

When Lord John Russell stooped to become the
" utensil " of the league, and to lead on the forlorn
hope in the House of Commons in its factious opposi-
tion to the government Modification of the corn laws,
we do not believe that any great amount of surprise
' was felt by the country. The memory of the compact
with the mendicant impostor of Derrynane, and of the
tenacity with whiCh his lordship held on, through years
of shame and defeat, by the tail of that " blatant "
plunderer, was fresh in the minds of most men ; and
few indeed tiiere were, even amongst the venal follow-
ers of his fortunes, who could picture to themselves a
depth of political degradation to which he would not
willingly descend to subserve his "had ambition." To
honourable minds it might and did appear a humiliat-
ing office to lead on- a host avowedly ready, should suc-
cess attend their efforts, to turn upon their leader; a
host with three-fourths of whom he could hold no opi-
nion in common, and whose views, denuded of the
cloak thrown over them for the hour, be is bound, in
consistency, to oppose. But to the little mind of Lord
John Russell no such elevated feelings can find admis-
sion. Wrapt up in the sordid selfishness of faction,
his lordship is content to tread in any path, with any
allies, to dare any impunity, to embrace any degrada-
tion, if such a course will bring him one step nearer

to the object of his dreams, by day and night,—
PLACE, PAY, power for good or evil, for himself and
his feeble faction an hour's triumph, if even in the next
it be followed by the ruin of his country !
With such an opinion of the actuating motives
which led to his lordship's motion on Monday night,
it will scarcely be a matter of wonder that the public
have viewed his very feeble performance with an apathy
almost contemptuous. And yet, we must confess that,
WE have wondered that from the lips of a statesman

who has occupied so large a space in the world's eye,
so-flimsy a tissue of contradictory absurdities could be
allowed to fall under any circumstances. If it could
ever have entered into the mind of any man that at
any future time the name of Lord John Russell could
be enrolled amongst the illustrious of his party—side
by side with those of Fox or Burke, Sheridan or
Brougham—the exhibition of Monday must for ever
dispel the illusion; and whatever his lordship may
himself imagine, with respect to his ability to lead the
shattered forces of Whig-Radicalism in, the present
day, the world, depend upon it, will pronounce, from
henceforth, a judgment which it would be only folly
and presumption in him to attempt to bear up against.
He has fallen, with the party which he once led ; and
for the future he must give place to more active and
determinate spirits. Henceforth let him creep beneath

the protecting shade of the " chained bully," whose
energies were once devoted to his service ; and sink
with him into contempt and obscurity. His lordship
will never more be the chosen leader of a powerful
party. Peace to his manes !

We are far from being sorry that this exhibition has
been made, although we had no wish to witness the
political extinction of this once illustrious scion of the
house of Russell. We rejoice, because the result of
the motion of his lordship, and the spirit which has

seen manifested during the debate upon it, in the

House of Commons and throughout the country, must
effectually and for ever dissipate the illusion that upon
this question of the corn laws and free trade there is
any tenable middle ground between an adequate pro-

tection of the interests of native industry, by means of
a sliding scale, and the absence of all restrictions. The
fact was admitted by his lordship—at the very time
when he was moving that the measure of government
should be condemned, because of its containing the

principle of a sliding scale—that a fixed duty could not
be maintained !---that the system of averages could not

be dispensed with—that any duty imposed by the le-
gislature mast be withdrawn when the price of wheat
advanced to 735. or 745. What then would a fixed

duty—say of Ss.—as proposed thus to be remitted
when the state of the averages required it, be, other

than one containing the worst features of a sliding
scale—viz., its sudden transitions and the encourage-
ment which it holci,s out to extensive frauds upon the
revenue, the consumer, and the producer ?

Upon this point we cannot resist quoting from the
able and convincing speech of Mr. W. E. Gladstone,
in which the fallacies of his lordship were held up with
irresistible effect to the ridicule of the house and the
country

" What was now," asked Mr. Gladstone, " the objection
to a fixed duty ? It was not merely that its advantages were

much less than was pretended ; it was not merely that it dit]
not attain any in fact of those objects which were representet]
as its inevitable result; but it was this—that it was, in point

of fact

—(loud cries of hear, hear,)—that it could

not be maintained,—(hear, hear,)—for_ this reason, for this
one, single reason—that it was impossible for the legislature
to sustain ought beyond a merely nominal duty on corn when
prices rose to a high rate. (Hear.) The noble lord, whom
he did not wish to disturb, (Lord John having been thus

caught napping,' some laughter ensued)—the noble lord had
said, and had amused the house by saying, that a sliding scale
was a very slippery thing. (Hear, and a laugh.) But a fixed

duty was a still more slippery thing,—(hear, hear,)—because
under the pressure of high prices it would be impossible for
the legislature to retain such a duty. (Hear, hear.) Ap-
preciating as he did the authority of Mr. Canning (the best
representative of Mr. Huskisson's commercial views in 1827)
he would declare in that statesman's words, When you
have famine in the workshop and in the cottage, it is out of
the question for any government to dream of levying a tax
upon that food by which alone life can generally be supported.'
(Cries of hear, hear, from both sides of the house.) But why,
indeed, should he appeal to authority so distant? Why should
he not satisfy the house by an authority added, and in the
most gratifying manner, to-night? (Hear, hear, and a laugh.)
It stood upon the admission of the noble lord himself,—(hear,
hear,)—courageous as was the noble lord in debate, skilful as
he was in the tactics of that house, able as he was in support
of his arguments, be they what they might,—(hear, bear, and
a laugh,) the noble lord himself had said that night, that he
abandoned his former `fixed' position. (Hear, hear.) The
noble lord had declared, and most truly, that it would be
impossible to levy a duty beyond a certain price. (Hear.)
There must be a provision, said the noble lord, enabling
the government to fix a minimum price for reducing the
duty in case of high prices ; the only question was in the
mode of adjustment, and, notwithstanding the noble lord's
abhorrence of frauds,—(a laugh)—notwithstanding all the
noble lord had said and written upon the subject of a sub-
stituted fixed duty and its excellencies, the noble lord now
was ready, it appeared, to embrace,—to swallow—the average
system, and to have a minimum price fixed. (Hear, hear.)
The jumps' of the present scale were great, by 2s. and 35.,
but the noble lord surpassed them all in jumping," and
poSitively leaped Bs. at once." (Hear, hear, and laughter.)

The idea of a fixed duty, then, determinable or not
at any given point, is evidently totally untenable. In
the one case, it opens the door to frauds upon the ave-
rages equal to any which have been carried on under
the present " jumping " scale, holding out as a pre-
mium upon the success of such frauds, the remission
of the whole duty, at once, whatever it may be. It
knocks down, too, the most forcible argument in fa-
vour of a fixed duty—viz., that its greater certainty
will place the distant markets of Odessa and the
United States upon an equality of advantage with the
nearer markets of the Baltic. On the other hand a
fixed duty, not determinable, holds out every induce-
ment to the endeavours of agitation to overawe the le-
gislature, and must be swept away entirely on the first
occurrence of popular discontent and co-existing high
prices.

The question, then, as to the modification of the
corn laws must, for the future, rest, except as to trifling
details, between the supporters of the ministerial mea-
sure and the total abolitionists. The leader of the
House of Commons, upon this question, is no longer
Lord John Russell, who is now virtually deposed from
his usurped prominence, and must either fall back into
the ranks of the supporters of protection by the slid-
ing scale, or follow in sullen and ignominious subjec-
tion, at the heels of the Cobdens and Villierses—the
ultra section of the House of Commons—and join in
the cry for " total and immediate repeal." " Protec-
tion or nos protection"—" native agriculture" or " the
dependence of Great Britain for the bread of her peo-
ple upon the corn growers of foreign states" must for
the future be the questions upon which the battles of
party must be fought ; and relying, as we do, firmly
and unhesitatingly, upon the stern good sense of the
British people, we have no fear of the result, let agita-
tion do its worst.

We adverted in our last to the state of demi-lunacy
which had been manifested amongst the anti-corn-law
gentlemen of Manchester, on first learning the nature
of the ministerial corn-law measure. We did then feel
a hope that time and reflection would shortly alleviate
the symptoms, and that ultimately our good neigh-
hours would cool down into something like a surly ac-
quiescence with the government views ; but we have
been sadly deceived in this expectation, and we regret
to say that the complaint appears now to have become
permanently• seated. It pervades alike male and fe-
male, the leaguers and the ladies ; and unless kept
down by the strong hand by shaving and blistering, or
by strong doses of the pump, is likely to lead to some
awful catrastrophes.
To enable our readers to judge of the extent of the
mania, we shall give a few specimens of the proceed-
ings of the afflicted, from the columns of the Manches-
ter Guardian, Who, by the way, has at length become
seriously alarmed for the results of the madness which
in his very last publication he was so strenuously en-
deavouring to excite. On Tuesday last a GREAT Bo-
ROUGH MEETING was held at the Town-hall, Man-
chester, convened by the Mayor, upon the requisition
of one thousand and eighty-six (.9 individuals and firms,
and including " a great number of the principal mer-
chants, manufacturers, bankers, tradesmen, &c., of the
town. From such a meeting, of course, something

like rational and respectable proceedings might have
been anticipated ; and the public will therefore be a
little surprised to see "merchants, manufacturers, bank-
ers, &c." deliberately "going the whole hog" of the
wildest CHARTISM, and applauding incendiarism to
the echo.

Our readers have, we dare say, heard of a gentleman
of the name of Brooks—John Brooks—and of his
somewhat uproarious proceedings as a delegate to the
convention in London. Of the frantic condition in
which he has come home to his counting house and his
calicoes let honest John himself speak :

" He had been to London last week, and he had come back
resolved to unite with the working classes. He had signed
the document in favour of universal suffrage—(cheers)---be-
cause he was convinced that all their agitation was in vain ;
that they never would gain any measure till there was a
cordial union between the middle and the labouring classes."
(Renewed cheers.)

From a man who was a few years ago chairman of
the committee of a Conservative candidate for Man-
chester, this will perhaps be considered tolerably good.
A Mr. It. It. Moore rhapsodizes at the same meeting
in the following style :
" Oh ! I beg of you, as you value your rights, as you seek
to take the power from your oppressors, be united and peace-
ful,—resist no power, but support no power. Don't serve
as soldiers or sailors or police ; don't pay taxes in money.
(Cheers.) Some of you, lam sure, have heard it already ;
but I will repeat it for you :—On Friday last, about thirty or
forty ladies in the bazaar signed a pledge not to pay assessed
taxes in money, but in goods,—(applause)—and not to use
taxed luxuries until the people obtained their rights."
(Applause.)

Pretty good again ! and especially that part of it
which relates to the ladies. They will pay no taxes,
sweet creatures (!) except in goods; and we trust the
collectors will he gentle with them, and let them off
easily, as all ladies ought to he. The lords of the creation,
we are sure, will readily subscribe, rather than that a
bailiff should rudely distrain the china, the work-bas-
kets, or the scissors, thimbles, or needlecases of these

fair politicians.
But let us see what says Mr. James Howie, who is a

Radical of the first water :

" For himself he might remark, that he was no new advo-
cate of universal suffrage. Ever since 1815, since the passing
of the corn bill, he had been persuaded that the great source
of all our political evils was the want of a government truly
responsible to the people, instead of a government, like the

present one, which depends on the will of the landed aristo-
cracy. (Cheers.) He had lately happened to see, in a book-
seller's window in this town, a print representing ' Auld
Nick' sitting in council in pandemonium ; and he could not
help conceiving the artist to have been a bit of a wag, for he
had so contrived the picture as to make it look exceedingly
like the House of Lords in 1815, at the time when the corn

ill was passed. (Laughter and cheers.) In the first place,

there was a strong resemblance between his satanic majesty
and the Chancellor of the House of Lords ; and it so
happened, that on the right hand of that personage there sat
a row of fiendish-looking councillors, who reminded him
very much of the venerable bench of bishops."

No doubt the comparison of the " venerable Bench
of Bishops" to " a row of fiendish-looking councillors"
was received with tremendous " laughter and cheers"
by the many " good churchmen " who were present
at this meeting; but on this point the chronicler is si-
lent.

One other quotation and we are done. The speaker,

we may mention, is a Mr. Duffy—of course an emi-
nent paythriot of the death's-head-and-cross-bones
school of oratory :
" Let him remind Sir Robert Peel, that not ten years had
elapsed since the masters of Paris closed their shops, shut up
their places of labour, and threw the population into the

streets, which sent a tyrant king about his business. (Hear.)
If the master manufacturers of Manchester, of Sheffield, and
of Birmingham, these great hives of industry, acting with all
concord, and in the spirit of Christian feeling and good

citizenship, were to close their mills and shops, and to tell
the people, we cannot employ you, because we cannot reap

any fruit from your labour,—we cannot secure to capital,
skill, ingenuity, and labour, their just reward,' the great body
of people thus thrown out of food and employment in the
face of heaven, would soon vindicate their rights, and send
the tories to the right-about." (Cheers.)

The " true spirit of Christian feeling and good fellow-
ship" of the course here recommended "beats cock-
fighting," and is a flight above the great Daniel him-
self !

We may remark, in conclusion, that at this and
other meetings tile monomaniacs have come to the re-
solution not only to refrain from the consumption of
exciseable commodities but to refuse payment of all
government taxes. Be it so, we say, gentlemen of the
League ; refuse the payment of assessed taxes, poor-
rates and all, if you like, and be struck off the burgess
and parliamentary registers for your pains ! Have
these frantic people taken this contingency into their
sage consideration ?

If we were not well acquainted with the ordinary
tactics of the Liberal faction ; if we were ignorant with
what -facility rabble gatherings are magnified into
"great demonstrations," we should have been satisfied
to pass over the pitiable exhibit ion which took place on
Wednesday last, at the Amphitheatre, with its fitting
contempt. We should have permitted the rump of
our local Radicalism to chuckle in its frothyness and
feebleness; and left to its Jupiter Tonans—the amiable
William Rathbone—the enjoyment of the pleasing de-
lusion that his nod had shaken Olympus, and his
screech-owl notes had frighted tile stars into eclipse.
We know these gentlemen however—their tricky dis-
honesty and their unscrupulous mendacity—when a
party object is to be secured. 'We know, how readily
tee pen of "liberal" journalism can -magnify a wren
into a falcon, an owl into an eagle, the twitter of a
dung-hill sparrow into the voice of the' thunder; and
we are, therefore, compelled to reduce this farce, and
the small beings who performed in it, into something
like their proper dimensions.
First, then, let us ask, who were mighty movers in
the scene ? Who were the platform people ? Why,
the battered remnant—the ultimate and penultimate
joints of the tail of the defunct Whig body in Liver-
pool. Rathbone, the rejected, Holland, the rejected,
Mullineui, the rejected, Blackburn, the rejected—in
fine, the rejected all,—the refuse, the sweepings of the
council chamber, with a sprinkling of dissenting reve-
rends, with all the respectables of the anti-monopoly
association and a hired itinerant of the anti-corn-law
league—the eloquent George Thomson ! The aristo-
cracy of the Liberal party of Liverpool—where were
they upon the occasion ? We could have enfolded all
that we saw of them in the skirts of our " Down. the-
Road."

But who were the audience—who were "the meet-
ing" in fact ? Ithprimis. A few, a very few ladies in
poke bonnets, of that cut peculiar to the females of the
Society of Friends; a few ladies in other descriptions
of attire, all of whom we should much have preferred
seeing in their various kitchens or drawing-rooms,
ruling the roast and boil, sewing, knitting, or even
novel reading. These, with a few male tabbies in
attendance, composed the box audience ; and as for
gallery, pit, and circle, " motley was your only weacr
A Punch and Judy show would have attracted pre-
cisely the same audience—which consisted of working
people going to, or returning from, their dinners ;
office boys, idle carriers from the adjacent fish and
fruit markets, and other similar enlightened politicians;
and an exhibition of Mr. Acland, the bottle conjuror,
would have succeeded in doing what George Thomson
and William Rathbone, who are no conjurors, tried in
vain—viz., filling the theatre.

We will not attempt to characterise the rant and
fustian of which the various speakers were delivered
upon the occasion—how 'Wm. Rathbone was almost
carried off in a whirlwind of passion, and " grinned
most horribly a ghastly grin" at something or some-
body "in nubibus ;" how Mr. James Mullineux
roared like the wind rushing past the bunghole of an
empty gin vat; how Mr. Charles Holland, having
hammered his head in vain to beat out an idea, took to
hammering his hat crown, whicli, from the sound pro-
duced, seemed equally empty ; how Mr. Shiel mouthed
and spit out a vast quantity of beautiful brogue; how
Mr. Lawrence Heyworth, the king of the tee•totallers,
turned up his eyes, looked unutterable things at the
ladies in the boxes, and forthwith burst into a torrent
of eloquence, which flowed for awhile like the stream
of a garden water-engine or a temperance tea-not, then
trickled and dribbled, and at length run itself dry;
how a very nice young gentleman—a Mr. Roberts—
repeated from a paper some very witty things ; and last
not least, in his own estimation and that of the ladies,
how Mr. George Thompson "spoke daggers" and rebel-
lion "for two hours, by Shrewsbury clock," whilst we
went to dinner. All these things will, no doubt, be
Chronicled and Journalized—borne by our "winged
Mercury" to the ends of the earth, and further, as the
proceedings of the GREAT LIVERPOOL ANTI-CORN-
LAW DEMONSTRATION. We, however, shall content
ourselves with merely whispering to the world that the
whole affair was a pitiful farce—a thing "full of sound
and fury, signifying nothing"—a " demonstration"
which is worthy of exciting just as much serious notice
as the contortions of a galvanized goose or the efforts
of a skinned eel to upset the dripping dish.

The somewhat crotchety gentlemen, who compose
the majority of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce,
have already memorialized the House of Commons in
opposition to the measure of corn laws brought for-
ward by her Majesty's Government; and their voice
has been backed by the yell of the frantic meeting held
on 'Wednesday at the Amphitheatre. We have certainly
not much fear that the opinions of these bodies will
materially influence the determination of Sir Robert
Peel, sanctioned as his measure has now been by a
triumphant majority of the House of Commons; yet
we cannot but suggest to the Conservative merchants,
and the Conservative inhabitants, generally, of the
borough, that it is not less their bounden, than it ought
to be their gratifying, duty to strengthen the hands of
the right honourable baronet by some expression 'of
their confidence in and approval of his policy. When
certain men combine good men should unite ; and
earnestly, then, we call upon the Conservative body
of Liverpool to let their voice be heard upon this
question within the walls of Parliament, and throughout
the country.

We need not suggest the mode of proceeding, or say
with what satisfaction such a movement of the Conser-
vative merchants and people of Liverpool would be
welcomed—aye and echoed too—throughout Conser-
vative England.

We have never anticipated for the states of the Ame-
rican union any permanent adhesion. The agitation
of the " nullification" question, at the settlement of the
tariff in 1833, displayed in strong and startling vivid-
ness the smouldering embers of future disruption; and
although the events of the last ten years have, to some
extent, changed the current of feeling in America with
respect to the policy of maintaining the union, and the
threat of dissolution now comes from an opposite di-
rection, its realization is not less imminent, and the
fragility of the bond which cements the north and
south is not less apparent. Conflicting interests, each
requiring a different commercial policy, still remain ;
and they are only held together now by the tenacity
with which the southern states cling to that system of
internal slavery, which they fear will burst in ruin on
their heads whenever a dissolution of the union throws
them back upon their unaided strength.

We pointed attention briefly, in our third edition of
Tuesday,, to a meeting which was held on the 28th
ult. in Boston, at which resolutions, of the strongest
and most determined character, were directed against
the existence of slavery in the district of Columbia.
We noticed at the same time the violent tone in which
the right to petition for a dissolution of the union had
been discussed in Congress. In the agitation of these
questions, and in the virulence of spirit displayed on
both sides, we confess, we see strongly developed the
symptoms of an approaching embroilment amongst the
different states of the union; and whenever that cala-
mity shall arrive, it is impossible, we think, that it can
pass over without producing events, ultimately perhaps
calculated to be beneficial to the human race, yet cer-
tain to be attended with scenes of bloodshed and horror

which the mind shudders to contemplate, That the
southern states, in such an event, with the freed negro
population of the West Indian islands and British
Guiana within sight almost of their shores, will
be enabled to hold in subjection their own overwhelm-
ing slave population, is too problematical to be hoped
for, even if hope could be justified in such a-case; and
however much, on Christian grounds, or on the grounds
of humanity, the liberation of the negro race through-
out the world may be ardently prayed for, we are not
prepared to welcome such an event, achieved by means
of the desolation and ruin which must attend a slave
insurrection.

We yield to no one in our desire to see the system
of slavery put down throughout the world; but we
cannot view with satisfaction that consummation ef-
fected by the devastation of half a continent. Such a
calamity, however, we are satisfied, now threatens the
southern states of America ; and in the tone of solemn
and friendly warning we would urge upon our trans-
atlantic brethren to be beforehand with the evil—to
throw from them the evil thing which presses them
down into dependence, and to take their stand upon
the wise and holy admonition—BE JUST AND FEAR

NOT!