The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-07-15 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS

We shall perhaps profit by the hints of " A Conservative.'
The letter of " A Convert" is not adapted for publicity.
We have received Mr. Rumball's communication.

tlit Etberpool &tantatt.

FRIDAY MORNING, JULY 15, 1842

The New Tariff Bill, which passed the House of
Lords on► Friday night, having at once received the
royal assent, was forwarded to our Custom-house in
time to admit of its being put into operation at the
opening of that establishment on Monday morning.
Before the usual hour of commencing business the
officers and clerks of the Long Room assembled to
prepare for the merchants and others who have for
some time past been waiting for the passing of the bill
before releasing their goods, and were soon immersed
in the bustle occasioned by the numerous entries which
were pressed upon them for examination and comple-
tion. During the whole of Monday and Tuesday the
Long Room was in a state of the greatest animation,
and we certainly never saw it more thronged upon any
fOrmer occasion.

The payments on coffee, turpentine, and other re-
reduced articles were very numerous; and upwards of
2270 entries were passed in the first three days, being
an increase of about 930 upon the number ordinarily
made. In the multifarious assessments of a general
tariff some errors and obscurities might naturally he
expected and have certainly, we find, occurred. Some
difficulty was experienced in ascertaining the weight of
wine and spirit bottles, which are now chargeable by
the cwt. Some doubts were also entertained whether
the reduced rates on staves and other woods mentioned
on the same page of the act (623) did not come into
operation at once. It has, however, since been ruled
that these rates do not commence until the 10th of
October, as is the case with respect to the article of
timber generally. The smelting of foreign copper, the
export of coals to British possessions, and a few other
minor points, seemed to occasion some differences of
opinion ; and the difficulty to inexperienced persons of
having to search for their articles through the seven-
teen tables in which they are dispersed, instead of be-
ing alphabetically arranged, was felt here quite as much
as the Times represents it to have been in London. In
addition to these temporary difficulties, the pressure
upon the collector and gentlemen of the Long Room
at the present juncture has been materially increased
by the necessity of guarding against the receipt of
light gold, and by the collection of the income tax
coming simultaneously upon them. The admirable
arrangements made have, however, we are glad to ob-
serve, obviated any serious inconvenience to the
public.

We may mention here that the relief afforded to the
mercantile interest by the cessation of the half per
cent. duty payable upon exported articles has given
very general satisfaction ; and in our opinion, as one
of its results, we shall for the future be much better
able to depend upon the correctness of our Custom-
house return of exports. These documents have often
been noticed as presenting features somewhat anoma-
lous; and we have no .doubt that when the temptation
to false entries is withdrawn, we shall have to notice
a material increase of the estimated money amount of
our foreign shipments.

A London evening paper (the Globe) of Monday
last contained the following announcement :

" We hear, from a quarter which is likely to be well in-
formed, that in the event of the Sudbury Disfranchisement
Bill passing the House of Lords, Sir Robert Peel intends to
propose that an .ddit;onal member each be given to Middle-
sex and to Liverpool; thus preserving to the House of
Commons its present number of members, and effecting an
approach to a more equal numerical proportion between the
representatives and the constituents."

With respect to the truth of the Globe's discovery
we know nothing. 'We doubt it, however, greatly;
and half •suspect that the report has been got up by
the journalist for the purpose of enabling him to in-
dulge in the following spiteful fling at the constituency
of this town, which, be it remembered, had, not long
ago, the audacity to flout at the claims of the venera-
ble dandy who occasionally vents his impertinence in
its pages to represent them in parliament :
" To give another member to Liverpool," remarks the
Globe, " would serve only to raise the price of votes in that
town, and thus to afford additional encouragement to bribery.
The old freemen of Liverpool are among the most venal of
their tribe. Their voracity is absolutely frightful. With
them the semblance of public virtue is cast aside as an in•-
cumbrance. The determination to render the franchise they
possess a source of personal pecuniary profit, and conse-
quently to obtain for it the highest price which the oppor-
tunity afforded by the state of parties will allow them to
exact, is the actuating motive of that influential portion of
the Liverpool constituency. In this respect they were not
surpassed by the Sudbury freemen, from whom the privilege
of selling their votes to the highest bidder is to be taken
away."

It is somewhat amusing to see this organ of the most
corrupt party which ever controlled for a season the
destinies of a nation descant after this fashion against
the enormity of corruption. • It is still more amusing
to see this affectation of consummate purity put for-
ward by a print notoriously the organ of the most cor-
rupt politician of modern times. Lord Palmerston on
purity ! The tattered hack of half-a-dozen adminis-
trations—the nominee of the Tiverton lace-manufac-
turer—on electoral morality ! The notion is about as
rich as the idea put forth a few days ago, by the same
illustrious authority, that his Affghanistan policy,
which has been prolific only in slaughter and national
humiliation, had opened the path for the admission of
the cotton goods of Manchester to the markets of cen-
tral Asia !

" The old freemen of Liverpool arc amongst the
most venal of their tribe." And yet they were not to
be bought by the most venal of the venal tribe of Whig-
gery, with the Treasury money in his fist! " Their
voracity is absolutely frightful," and yet it was not
sufficient to enable them to gulp down the professions
of this supreme of humbugs—this most voracious of
leeches—this cormorant politician ! " With them the
semblance of public virtue is cast aside as useless";
and yet they would not consent to be marched through
Coventry with a statesman who never had even the
semblance of public virtue to throw away! The Li-
verpool constituency rejected the rotten and corrupt
politician who was attempted to be foisted upon them ;
and, as a Whig sequitur, the Liverpool freemen are
rotten and corrupt !
We can readily pardon and pity the writer of this
lying rubbish. Whiggery is in ill luck, and, of course,
in ill temper. But when the organ of her Majesty's
late foreign secretary next enters upon a portrait of
anything " venal"—of anything frightfully " voraci-
ous"—of anything which has cast aside " the sem-
blance of public virtue "—'it should beware of render-
ing the likeness so striking that every observer is im-
pelled to exclaim,
" Mutato nomine, de to fabula narrator !"

Our Radical and popish. contemporaries have, with-
in the past few weeks, beeia dosing us with furious dia-
tribes against the enormitraf secret societies. Orange
societies in particular, because loyal and Protestant,
have come in for a large share of their exuberant ve-
nom ; but we do not remember to have seen any very
prominent allusion to the existence of a body of an
opposite description, which is daily plunging into Out-
rage and crime the benighted population of Ireland,
and bids fair, if not checked by the strong hand of
authority, to render that unhappy country a howling
wilderness. Year by year the best blood of Ireland—
her Protestant Yeomanry--is
leaving its shores, for
the wilds of Canada or the Backwoods of the United
States. Year by year, by thousands, her industrious
farmers, and her sturdy labourers, even of the Romish
faith, are being driven, by the atrocious system which
has fastened itself upon the land, to seek, in expatria-
tion, that immunity fr
—oat outrage and midnight assas-

ination wiiicii fi demo f;em• ilot

b Year

her resident landownern are

being banished or cat off
by the fiat of those secret tribunals which hold their

mysterious sittings in every county and townland ; and
yet the fertile source of all these evils—of the blood-
shed and crime which have rendered the name of Ire-
land a byeword amongst nations—is either studiously
concealed or pointed to with a mildness of disappro-
bation—a " faint blame "—which almost amounts to
toleration.

Let us direct the attention of our readers, and of those
journalists who have during the past few weeks been
so eloquent upon the dangerous tendency of loyal
Orange associations, to the report of a recent trial at
Longford assizes, which will be -found in another part
of our paper. By the evidence there produced it was
shown that " about one-third of the lower class in the
county" (and the system is not confined to any par-
ticular locality, but extends throughout Ireland) "were
Ribbonmen." It was shown too that the society num-
bers amongst its members not only domestic traitors,
but foreigners as well. France had sent a delegate to
its meetings ; and so lately as in December last the
sympathizers of America had been represented there.
Upon the face of it, Ribbonisrn is disloyal and anti-
national. But it is more than this. It is M URDER-
-0 us. For what are its objects as here declared in open
court by one of its leading membe,rs—by a delegate—
by a man who declares that " lie has made 2000 mem-
bers from 1825 to 1341 ?" Why these. "If any member
of the society was dispossessed of his land, he would
not get long to live" ! "If you annoyed any of the
society"you would get a good hiding, if you got of
with that"—if the " pestilent ruffianism" employed
stopped short of murder ! By the very rules of the
society a Protestant was declared a marked man, and
its members were required to swear " on their knees,
in the presence of Almighty God," that they would
not " buy anything from a heretic or Orangeman"—
synonymous terms, it would appear, in Ribbon esti-
mation—" when they could get the same as cheap
from a brother."

Now we just take leave to ask of our Radical and
Popish contemporaries one or two questions, with re-
spect to the system here developed. Was it in ac-
cordance with the fiat of these murderous and " pes-
tilent ruffians" that the streets of our town were on
Tuesday crowded by menacing and savage rioters,
armed with bludgeons and knives, and burning with a
maniac fury against " heretics or Granyemen" ? If
Ribbonmen or " sons of the• shamrock " are to be
found in France and even in the wilds of America, are
there none of the same loyal and eminently peaceable
people at this moment in Liverpool Was it Ribbon-
ism or not which on Tuesday marked out for ill treat-
ment and savage attack every unprotected man afflict-
ed with even the suspicion of being a Protestant ?
When our contempories are able to answer these ques-
tions in the negative, the public will tolerate as sincere
their ribald abuse of a loyal and Protestant body; but
until they can do so we shall be justified in declaring
that a Ribbon spirit dictates, if a Ribbon pen does
not even write, these infamous and furious slanders.