The Press. — London, England, 1853-07-02 00:00:00

JULY 2, 1853. ilistory of English , . A civil engineer of high standing writes thus of a public department to the chairman of a par liamentary committee The grossest jobbery prevails. Difficulties are thrown in the way of improvement. Otie systent of construction, and that undoubtedly of a most erroneous and even perni• cious chimicter, is insisted on, and must be extended over the whole kingdom. Able professional men arc wrongfully injured, both in reputation and pocket. for the gain of no• vernment insiwctors; confidence in the integrity of public men is utterly destryed. Provincial towns arc deprived of the advantages of self.govennuent, and the hitherto supposed supremacy of Parliament is alit:011liel- The report of Dr. ARNOTT and Mr. PAuE on the Croydon epidemic bears out what Mr. HAWIKLEY here says of the failure of the system of the General Board, i.e., of Mr. CHADWICK, who, by that peculiar idiosyncrasy which no doubt endears him to Lord JOHN Russ Eu., believes himself capable of under taking special functions without spe►•i►►l apti tudes or ►lualifications. All this would be of secondary conse►luence were it not that a public position and the public purse are pressed into the service of this one-sided and unpractical empiricism. We have reason to believe that had the late Cabinet continued in office the General Board would long ere this have ceased to exist—at least in its present form. Yet why does it exist now, disorganised and deserted by public opinion, with its policy thus authoritatively condemned, and its pretensions, nevertheless, in no way abridged? And why is it likely to exist to the close of the next session, with a power of deal ing with the local rates to a vast amount, and the power of incurring unlimited obloquy and confusion ? In the name even of the sanitary reforms which, in its present form, it impedes, we are shortly entitled to an answer to this question,—and the answer in this instance is primarily, if not officially, due from Lord JOHN RUSSELL. SILVER AM) COFFEE. THE relation between these incongruous terms may not be apparent at a glance ; but the fol lowing letter exhibits so forcible an illustra tion of the effect of the laws relating to the one, in unfairly increasing the cost of the other, that we invite especial attention to it. It presents the experience of a practical man as to the pernieions operation of the system which we have heretofore denounced, by which gold is expressly prohibited as a legal tender in India, and silver forced into an exclusive circulation, with an adverse rate of exchange as regards these countries ; and it affords evi dence of our assertion, that the prtjudicial results of this anomaly were not confined to the territories of the East India Company, but extend to every dependency of the Crown which is under the influence of the Indian eurreney:— TO THE EDITOR OF "THE PRESS." Sir,—My attention having been arrested by an article in your paper of last week, under the head of " SitvEn," the tendency of which is to point out the i•lportance of Mr. Diataeli's endeavours to make gold a legl.l tender in India, I trust the vital importance of this question to the eolony of Ceylon, with which I am connected, will justify me in bearing my testimony to the accuracy o f th e v i ews which you have propounded. So admirably is our island adapted to the cultivation and growth of cotfee that within a few vllirti its produc tion, which was insignitieant iu 1t.35, has increased to 400,0ftltewt. in IK:l'3, a quantity sufficient supply the en tire conatunption of tireat Britain, and leave a consider able surplus for exportation. Strange as it may seem. the cultivation of this impor tant commodity is seriously prejudiced, and itx oat in thin country enhinced. by the fact that all charges attendant on its production must be paid in the silver currency of India. In the first place, the labourers by whom the coffee crops are 'shied and co'lected in Ceylon are the natives of the neighbouring coast of Hindostan, who, year after year. re sort by thousands to the island, and return after a brief tesidence, carrying back with them their accumulated savings. And as the number of these immigrants exceeds THE PRESS. :t4),(100 in every year, and their wages vary from 14. to '2os. a month, some idea may be formed of the amount of specie which they annually carry out of Ceylon ; and, as rupees are the only current coins in their own county. they keep up a chronic drain upon the stock of silver in our island, which must of course be replaced. by systema tic importations from the Presidencies. mid from Europe, at the exehange Of the day. Were gold as well as silver a legal tender. in the East India Company's territories, the returning labotuvrs would l'ilrry their hoardings in sovereigns. instead of rupees, and the planter would be spared the additional charge thus illlpsNed on his cultivation. Hut the inisehief dews not end here. The population if Ceylon subsists in a great measure on rice, lint the island does not produce sufficient (teethe wants of its own ' wo rk, it less for the extra de i consequent upon the migrate of labour; and the deficit of three millions of bushels annually is made up by supplies from the conti nent of India. nearly all of which has to be paid for in Ceylon, according to its official returns, exported pro duce to the amount of 11,11:c2,1130/, during last year, rxclu sive of specie, and imponed to the amount of 1,1100,1711., likewise exclusive of %liven., during the game period ; thus showing the balance of trade in favour of Ceylon, which is really the case. in the tranagetiteis of thee island with Europe;—but the balance is quite the reverse in its com merce with India ; for, of the above-mentioned million of imports, 490,703/. consisted chiefly of rice, brought from the Presidencies ; and, as India takes hardly any Ceylon produce in return, the debt ineumsl by Ceylon can only liquidated by the remittance of bills at an adverse ex change or by silver ; and, when tee this we add the large amount Of rupees carried otl by the retuniing labourers, it is evident that India annually drains Ceylon of its title The suffering party in these operations is the '464 , planter. who must dud means to pay for both labour and food imported, no matter how adverse th e ex ,d iang ,. ; an d his situation is greatly aggravated by the 'mita Company compelled to tender, for he a , ' having silver only as a legali obtain in England bills on the Presidencies, which he must sell at a lower exelnuage than the Company's rate in Europe, at which he purchased them: thus, whilst the rupee cost him :Is. Id. in London, he could only sell it in Ceylon at Is. In 11440 the India company agr ee d to receive gold in payment of duties; hat, Manned at the large supplies front the autifvnbus regions, it rescinded this regulation in January last : and there is eonsequeutly no longer any legal cirvulation of gold in India. It formerly suited ns to remit from England sovereigns instead of India Company's bills to Ceylon, for we eould sell them for Vs. and ::Is. in silver, but now, owing tic the alxave•mentiomvl alteration in the Company's law, eoupled with the Australian discoveries, a sovereign is only worth /Os. in Ceylon which, allowance being made for freight, charges, and ittsurunee, is virtually a dixeount, and, we're it not that there is a small demand for sovereigns by parties returning to Europe, they would fall still more. The heavy charge thus imposed upon the coffeetheitcr, of providing himself with rupees at an enhanced value. fells eventually on the people of Eteattol. It bevatues n first charge lapin the crops of the year, and every dealer ir gnaw in this (soundly levies on the consumer the extra east of the article which results from its production being paid for in the comparatively dearer metal. If free trade is to lie the established policy of Great I tii• fain, no restrictions of any kind should be pennitted. The renewal of the. East India tlompany's charter renders the present moment must opportune fir the props no About is in the currency, and the ever-inereaming influx of gold from Australia makes it impend ive 4 ill the 4 ill% enamel t not to withhold the only remedy it can ' , minima's'. Trusting that you will persevere in your influential 1 . 11. lmmlls to July( ovate ri reform (XIIIe utmost import mice, alike to the mother e try, to the Indian empire, and to • island, I remain, sir, your obedient sellout, A CF:II.OS I'UFFF:E•I'LANTFat. London, dime 20, IM! 1. This letter of our correspondent outweighs by its practical value any argument, however powerful, which mere theory e,tt► ►supply against the system. Self-interest suggests that, as a matter of mere economy, we owe it to ourselves to etreet an immediate reform ; but still more obviously do we owe it to our colonies in the East to afford them relief from this grievance- By successive reductions they have been denuded of eve►y vestige of protection for their produce. Our coffee now pays the same duty in England as does that of Brazil and Cuba ; but, whilst the latter is procured by the unpaid labour of the slave, the produce of our Own possessions, with which it competes, has to be ►aised by the hired freemen of continental India, paid in the rupees of the Company, with which the pla►►ter must provide himself' at a loss, which will become greater as the sup plies of gold from Australia increase. So long as the course of trade with the Indian possessions leads England to import a larger ►mount of produce than is paid for by her exports, thus involving the necessity of liquidating 'minuet , in silver, it is manifestly create a fictitious scarcity of the very in which she imposes on herself the to pay. Every cask of cotlee, every cinnamon, paid for in rupees, entails eesmiuy expense on the pr ot iu m% f or benefit of those countries which have ; thus loading our own colonists burden which is indefensibly unjust, consider ing the race of competition in which the recent policy has started them. THE LIVERPOOL WRIT PARLIAMEN TARY MAMEUVRING. A PETTY battle, fought during the past week, over the Liverpoo I writ, has been decided in favour of minium' sense and justice. The Liverpool Election Committee gave birth to a report almost unparalleled iu parliamentary annals tbr ineonausiveness and stultifying self-eontradietion. Each half of every pars tither ; each paragraph graph I t ta I th e contradicted saute one that preceded or fid lowed it; and the last nullified all the rest. Yet, though the committee could hot reason, they could act ; and, to the astonishment even of their own friends in Liverpool, they voted out the sitting members. Their zeal indeed outran the occasion ; for the sudden, and on the whole unjustifiable, verdict fon ml the Liverpool Liberals without the means of set ting up new candidates. Not so the Conser vatives of that great commercial town. The strength of the cause is there so fully felt, that men of the highest local influence are willing to stand, knowing that, although every art of unscrupulous partisanship be resorted to in order to render the struggle severe, the result is certain. And them is among the Liverpool Conservatives an earnestness and activity in the cause that merits this eonfi dunce. The Liberals, dismayed at seeing Messrs. Dem.'. and lloamm.t. in the field, and rushing ever) where to find victims to suc ceed Messrs. Cmtewma, and EwAwr in the honour of defeat, were unprepared for oil lut mediate contest At all risks, then, the writ must be stopped, and time be gained. To this scheme Lord Dum.tiv STUART was induced to lend himself. When Nlr. Faystirtm.u, on Wed nesday afternoon, moved that the writ do issue, the noble lord rose to " speak against time," drawling on with dull and unintelligible ver biage, amidst the derision of the House, long after the stock of ideas wherewith he had to himself haul become exhausted. At. length, as six o'eloek struck, the noble and magnanimous electioneering agent attained his object, and the mameuvre so the succeeded. On Thursday the attempt was renewed ; but this thilelLOrd JOHN RCMSELI. committed him self to a participation in the disreputable trick. Appealed to , by Mr. .IANtEm M'Cragoon not to leave Liverpool without represen tatives, when such important commercial questions were coming on, the leader of the Whigs " was afraid that the House would be too much occupied to go on with the suh jeet." In other words, the Coalition candidates could not be found, or were not screwed up to martyrdom point, and the distinguished party chief condescended, for the nonce, to do the work of Mr. COPPOCK. The matter was not, however, to be so easily shelved. Even at nearly three in the morning the adjourned debate was resumed, when Lerd DUPLE' 195 Whig the unwise to very metal obligation package of Is an milie- u. the sole wiser regu lists with a