The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1852-04-13 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF THE PRESENT POLITICAL CONTEST. WE are nominally divided on politics; but he knows little of the state of public feeling, who fancies that that is the only difference. The politicel watchwords have of late years been felling fainter and more faintly on the ear, until we have seen Whigs advocate Tory measures, and 'lbises, in name at least, cagy Whig measures successfully through Parliament. At the present moment, an anomaly of this kind fills our newspapers, covers our walls in the form of placards and addresses, and is heard from a hundred platforms. The man who calls himself a Free-trader gives the lie to his own professions, for he advocates the maintenance of that bastard system which sets class against class in our own countiy, and would bring justice and equality to none in their national capacity. On the contrary, those who ere honoured or stigmatised by the name of Protectionists are, in one sense, the only Freetraders ; for they would do to others as they do to us, and prevent selfish manufacturers from grinding the faces of husbandmen. They would give a clear stage to all, not to one only or to several; they would make a bargain advantageous to both contracting parties; for they cannot see that the balance is equally adjusted when the weight is only in one scale.  wise."  When the Royal George was overset at Spithead in 1782, exactly 70 years ago, the calamity was one which was unforeseen, and no blame was attributable to any one concerned. The brave KEMPENFELT himself was drowned, and nearly 800 of the crew, and the sympathy of all Europe and America was deeply moved ; yet the calamity, in all its bearings, was scarcely greater than that which has just occurred. A more horrible event than either was that which happened to the veterans of the Peninsula in Dublin Bay, for it was marked by cold-blooded treachery and murder. When the captain and crew found that the destruction of the ship was certain, they deserted her in the boats ; and the entire troops, under fastened hatches, were drowned as the ship opened, without even the poor satisfaction of a struggle on the part of the swimmer. It is impossible to exaggerate the indignant sorrow of a humane community when this dreadful deed became known. There is a story told of an empirical commander, who could not find a dangerous rock alleged to be in the Mediterranean ; but an officer who had sailed under himself afterwards discovered it and laid it down upon the charts. In his foolhardiness, however, the former would not admit of its existence, and sailing designedly over the very spot, he met with the fate that he had so recklessly dared. But the example most similar to the wreck of the Birkenhead, in all but the extent of the disaster, is the fate of the Orion. In a well-known part of the channel, where every spot of the neighbouring shore was visible, and the water calm as a mill-pond, the vessel was torn to pieces on an adjoining rock.  These and similar questions, however, seem to give place to weightier ones. The question of Monarchy or Democracy is openly discussed, and the Manchester men seem to have made up their minds that all present concessions are as means to an end. They will, no doubt, declare, as the Roman Catholics did in 1829, that every great measure is a final one; but it will soon be found that each additional concession is only driving home the wedge a little more closely. Mr.