The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-03-01 00:00:00

the death of two pat
Crediton, in Devon
that the it

seeking for inquiry not

before the assistant poo

g an investigation connected with
the workhouse of the union of

Lord ‘VIIARNCLII,FE defended the commissioners, though
he thought some portion of their conduct improper, and im-
puted the excitement upon the subject in the neighbourhood
of Creditou to the desire of the party complaining to render
himself notorious, and thus serve himself in his profession as

an attorney.
After some observations in reply from the right rev. pre-
late, their lordships adjourned.

HOUSE OF COMMONS-THURSDAY

Lord ELIOT obtained leave to bring in a bill to legalise mar-
riages solemnised in Ireland by presbyterian ministers be-
tween presbyterians and members of the church of England.
Mr. MuNTz moved that at future divisions of the house
neither the strangers in the house nor the reporters shall be
required to withdraw, excepting by special motion for that
purpose.

Sir R. PEEL thought that no sufficient grounds had been
advanced for altering the ancient customs of the house.
The motion was negatived by a majority of 187 to 51.

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER reluctantly con-
sented to a motion of Col. Sibthorp's, for a return of the
number of days on which Lord Monteagle, as Comptroller of
the Exchequer, attended at the office of the receipt of Exche-
quer, from the time of his appointment to the sth January,
1812 ; also for a return of the number and amount of the se-
veral Exchequer bills signed and issued by Lord Monteagle
himself, and the places and periods at which such bills had
been signed and issued by him. His only reason for agreeing
to the returns was a fear that if he refused there might be a
suppositiion that there was something to conceal.
The adjourned debate was then resumed by Mr. JOHN-
STONE, who contended for a total repeal of the corn laws,
and was followed on the same side by Mr. V. STUART and
Mr. AGLIONBY.

Mr. HENEAGE was opposed both to a fixed duty upon and
a total repeal of the corn laws. Formerly there was a popular
outcry against the fundholder, and the only thing talked of
was a sponge ; but now popular invective was turned against
the landholder, and the remedy was a repeal of the corn law.
He would vote against a motion so ruinous as that of Mr.
Villiers.

Mr. HORSMAN, in supporting the motion, said he could
not supply a parallel to an occurrence which took place in
England four years ago. Some merchants, having a large
quantity of corn so far gone as to render even the expenses of
warehousing for an uncertain period a loss, petitioned to be
allowed to take it out of bond to destroy it. Their petition
was acceded to, and under the supervision of the excise the
corn was sunk in the Thames, while many of her majesty's
subjects were starving in other parts of the kingdom.
Sir H. DOUGLAS said at the period of his election, being
aware that measures of vast national moment would be
brought under the early notice of parliament, he had deter-
mined that on none of those questions should aught of doubt
or suspicion rest on the accordance of his views with those
of his constituents. (Hear, hear.) He, therefore, had taken
care fully to explain his principles and opinions on them all,
relating whether to the agricultural, the commercial, or the
manufacturing interests ; he had declared explicitly that he
was, and should continue, a firm supporter of the "protec-
tive" system ; he had gone into the commercial history of
every country in the world for the purpose of showing that
in no country where the free trade principles thoroughly car-
ried out ; thence deducing the certainty of great and danger-
' ons evils arising from the abolition, as to agriculture, of pro-
tection. With these declarations he had offered himself a
candidate for Liverpool, and had experienced the honour—
' he might call it the singular honour—of being elected with-
out even a contest. (Loud cheers.) He had a right, there-
fore, to conclude that the opinions on which he was prepared
in that house to act were agreeable to his constituents. He
begged it to be distinctly understood, that he considered him-
self there not as the representative of any particular " class"
or " interest," but as one bound to consider the general in-
terests of the community. (Hear, hear.) The hon. gentle-
man opposite, the member for Wolverhampton' had called
the attention of the house to the geographical position of
these countries. He spoke of these islands as being placed
between two great continents—the old world and the new ;
and then the hon. member represented us as refusing to both
a supply of our manufactures. " Continents" was a term
of wide signification, and, perhaps, it would be hardly neces-
sary that he should trouble the house by examining very mi-
nutely into the systems on which the several nations of the
continent of Europe conducted their commercial relations.
He should not then waste the time of the house by recapitu-
lating the heads of the Russian, Prussian, and Danish tariffs,
but he should observe that the consumption of British manu-
factures by the populations of those countries varied between
31d. and 54d. for each individual per annum. It was not
necessary, as he before said, to occupy the time of the house
by any detailed investigation of our commercial intercourse
with those countries ; but he should rather come at once to
the position in which we stood towards France. It had been
said in the course of the present discussions, as well as on
former occasions, that we shut our doors against French pro-
duce,—shut our doors ! Had we not twice altered the duties
which we charged upon French wines? Had we not opened
the ports of our West Indian colonies, and had we not given
the French people coals, iron, machinery, and tools? But to
us they made no return—no diminution of duty. The fact
was, that articles of British manufacture were positively pro-
hibited, with hardly an exception. Eleven pence per annum
for each individual composing the French nation was about
the average value of the manufactured goods imported by
France from this country. (Hear, hear.) Pass we then to
the United States of America, and here he paused for a
moment to refer to the sentiments of the noble lord the
member for London, previous to doing which, however, he
wished to express his regret that that noble lord was not in
his place, as he entertained for him great respect. He re-
spected his abilities and his character, and, remembering
the relation in which they recently stood towards each other,
he could not refrain from expressing his high sense of the
kind and generous manner in which he had been supported
by the noble lord. Though he was the nominee of a different
ministry, yet the noble lord had, with the weight which be-
longed to his office, sustained him (Sir H. Douglas) in his
administration which he rejoiced to think had proved satis-
factory to the government at home, beneficial to the lonian
people, and not discreditable to himself. (Hear, bear.) The
noble lord had said that the manufactures of this country
were shut out from the Unite States of America, because we
refused to take the productions of the new continent. He
desired to learp upon what foundation such a statement
rested. The facts known to the pubic, and of which he in
common with the rest of the world possessed evidence, could
leave not a shadow of doubt upon the mind of any man that
this was a statement resting upon no solid basis. What were
the facts ? In the year 1840, there were imported into the
town which he had the honour to represent 1,160,000 bales
of cotton; nearly the whole of the cotton used for manu-
factures in this country came from the United States of Ame-
rica. Under such a state of things it was absurd beyodd
measure to say that we shut out the produce of America.
(Hear, hear.) It could hardly fail to be in the recollection
of every gentleman who heard him, that we had lowered
the duty on American cotton to please the merchants and
manufacturers of Manchester ; that was received as a boon,
and in the next breath the government were told that they
were shutting out the produce of the United States. (Hear.)
In the course of these discussions, and on many similar oc-
casions, free trade had been in the mouth of almost every
speaker; but he confessed himself one of those who thought
that what people called free trade was a sheer abrurdity. It
was the opinion of all men who exercised common sense
upon political. subjects, that a new country exporting raw
material to a highly civilized and manufacturing nation ought
in return to take back some portion of its own productions
when converted into manufactured goods. Now he beg-
ged of the house to look at the position in which we stood
towards the United States of America. We took their
raw material, but they refused to take our manufactured
goods. (Hear.) Considerable importance had been attached
to a judicious observation made by the American President,
when he said that no country ought to permit itself to depend
upon foreign supply for the necessary articles of life, and
least of all for the food of the people. Such waa the lan-
guage now held—such were the principles upon which the
government of America was now carried on, but they were
not contrary to the principles adopted in the earlier days of
republicanism. The system was unchanged, it was the pro-
tective system, and whatever alteration of circumstances
might arise. it was the fixed resolution of every successive
government in America neither to abolish nor relax their
exclusive regulations. To support this opinion he had made
brief extracts from the annual message of every President
since the days of Washington, and with the permission of
the house he would read them. (A laugh.) The first, of
course, was from a message of Washington's; it was his
eighth annual message, and bore date the 7th of December,
1796. It was in these words :—" Congress have repeatedly
directed their attention to the encouragement of manufac-
tures. The object is of too much consequence not to insure
a continuance of their efforts, in every way which shall ap-
pear eligible The next extract which he should read to
the house wa from the eighth annual address of Mr. Jeffer-
son, dated November the Bth, 1808, and was in the following
terms :—" The extent of this conversion is daily increasing
viz., the application of industry and capital to internal ma-
manufactures, and little doubt remains that the establish-
ments formed and forming will, under the auspices of cheaper
material and subsistence, the freedom of labour from taxa-
tion with us, and of protecting duties and prohibitions, be-
come permanent." Such was the language of President
Jefferson. Now let the house listen to the words of Mr.
Madison in his seventh annual message, dated December 6,
1815. These were his words:—" However wise the theory
may be which leaves to the sagacity and interest of indivi-
duals the application of their industry and sesources, there
are in this, as in other cases, exceptions to the general rule.
Besides the condition which the theory itself implies of a re-
ciprocal adoption by other nations, experience teaches that
so, many circumstances must occur in introducing manufac-
turing establishments, that a country may remain long without
them, although sufficiently advanced, and in some respects
very peculiarly fitted for carrying them on with success.
Under these circumstances, giving a powerful impulse to
manufacturing industry, it has made among us a progress,
and exhibited an efficiency which justify the belief that,
with a protection not more than is due to the enterprising
citizens whose interests are now at stake, it will become
at an early day, not only safe against occasional com-
petitors from abroad, but a source of domestic wealth,
and even of external commerce." He now came to Presi-
dent Munroe, who on the sth of March, 1817, addressed
Congress as follows :—" Our manufactures find a generous
encouragement by the policy which patronizes domestic
industry ; and the surplus of our produce a steady and pro-
fitable market by local wants in less favoured parts at home."
In a previous message (his first annual message), on the 2d
December, 1817, he says—" Our manufactories will require
the continued attention of Congress. The capital employed
in them is considerable, and the knowledge required in the
machinery and fabric of all the most useful manufactures is
of great value. Their preservation, which depends on due
encouragement, is connected with high interests of the na-
tion." The same president, on the 3d of December, 1821,
proceeds, in a similar spirit, to say, that " Possessing, as
we do, the raw materials in such vast amount, with a capa-
city to augment them to an indefinite extent, raising within
the country aliment of every kind to an amount far exceed-
ing the demand for home consumption, even in the most un-
favourable years, and to be obtained always at a very mode-
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success in every branch of domestic industry may and will
be carried, under the encouragement given by the present
duties, to an extent to meet any demand which, under a fair
competition, may be made on it."
,Again w hod him say-
ing—" It cannot be doubted, that the more complete our
internal resources, and the less dependent w
powers for every national as well as domesticareurponosete
foreign
greater and more stable will be the public felicity. By the
increase of domestic manufactures will the demand for the
rude materials be increased, and thus will the dependence of
the several parts of our union on each other, and the strength
of the union itself, be proportionably augmented." He
should now, with the permission of the house, read an ex-
tract from the first annual message of President Jackson,
which was addressed to Congress on the 18th of December,
182:—The general rule to be applied in graduating duties
upon articles of foreign growth or manufacture, is that which
will place our own in fair competition with those of other
countries; and the inducements to advance even a step be-
you,
d this point, are 4outrolling in regard to those articles
t time of war " From the
which are of primary necesa y m •