The National Register. — London, England, 1811-05-12 00:00:00

that currency been conAned to gold, or to paper immediately convertible into gold. Let the Cornelittee, consider after the ...drain of wealth which many. years .. of war must occasion, what - would be the state of circulation in a Collat .- Yin which no paPer was issued to supply the defidieeey.. Unquestionably, if things could have gone on in th's; country without such a supply, the existing circulation would hi4e: been niuch less . than it was the present moment. But if, for doineitic "purposes, - we had _ occasion for a circulation as large as the existing circulation, he then could eat allow, situated the country was' in other :respects, that the circulation ougit't to be diminished. • 'ln hit opinion, however, any attempt to reduce the circulation, and still more to..reduce it below what it was in 1797, wo uld be productive of the greatest practiCal inconveniences. The ad ventages of a large circulation were the means which it afforded of ievigoratnet agriculture, .commerce, and manufactures. would suppose a country, possessing a circulation of 60 millions, all in cotte to enter into a war, that this war should continue for . four years, and that 'the expenditure of beyind the ba lance of foreign trade should be ten millionssannuallY • the cir culation would this be reduced to twenty He Would , suppose that during the four year an issue of paper was made ,to the amount of ten milli o ns. The 'country would therefike possess at tile end of the four years war, a circulation (composed of 20 millions of coin and ten milions of paper) of 30 millions instead of 69, as at the commencement. it is evident that but for the issue of paper ibis country Would have possessed but 20 millions of circulation. ACcording to the interpretation of the term ". excess, " therefore; by his Hunontable Friend, this • supposed coteitry would have an excess of ten millions. his Honourable Friend s notion, therefore; of an men, was rot always that it was an increase, but was compatible with the fact of a considaralne decrease of circulation, even to a moiety. (Hear, hear, hear.) He certainly had not the lekst doubt, that if paper had n. , t been issued, the currency of the country would not have barn so :Jrge as it was. In that interim tatioe ut term, therefore, there was an excess of circulation, though more gold had been taken out of the circulation since the year 1797 than paper had been intro uced into it. This he really believed was the fact. The proposition came to this—whether, in the exist ing state of affairs having proceeded for four or live years in a course generally considered as essential to the security and in dependence of the country, nantely„the carrying on of the wir by a foreign expendeure to a very considerable amount, it was advisable to supply the domestic deficiency in circulation, which that expenditure must occasion, by papei currency. This ayes a plain question et policy. Nothing could be more clear to his understanding than that if the foreign expenditure were deemed necessary, ells domestic currency must be considered inseparable froe it; for where our foreign commerce was so circuin,crihed, and we had not the opportunity, as in ordinary circumstances, of bringing hack the 'wealth which we expended, the only way to provide the means for a future re-purcha-e of the coin that ,now quitted us, was by giving a vigour to our agriculture arid' commerce, to which an increased internal cir culation alone was competent.---(Hear, hear!) -11 this were called an excess, he would say that it was an excess without' which we could not carry on the great contest in which we were engaged, as we had hithtrto done. Were the Committee prepared to say that the evil of not having the balaace of ex change nicely adjusted was so tremeodous as to make it neces sary. Great God I—to snake it necessary at the present mo ment to withdraw from the contest which the country was so gloriously maintaining Hear, hear, near ! J—The k-lon. Gen tleman who had last spoken, had done the Committee the fa . erour of giving them a tine opportunity of contemplating what the situation of Great Britain might have been, compared with, what it actua:ly was. He had characterized the conduct which' this country had pursued as absurd and timorous. He had Call- • ea . ! upon the Committee to look at Hamburgh ; to look ut Hol land. Happy Hamburgh! happy Holland! They, it scented, • had not had the cowardice to imitate the example of Great Bri tain. " Sir," exclaimed the Chancellor of the Exchequer, without any titre don of denying that our present siteation is one which demands the most serious consideration, I Lave no • hesitation in declaring, notwithstanding the imputation of cow. ardice on the mauner in which the finances of the country have been conducted, that I prefer that situation to the situation in which the prowess of Hamburgh and of Holland have placed them."—( Loud cries of Agar . 1 hear _Trani all purls of the House.). Su much for the question of excess; now for the question. of *predation. Some, he conceived, by the term e deprecia tion," meant that the wholly currency of' the country was depre ciated, gold and paper equally. This opinion had the sanction of high authorities. By the advocates of . the Bullion Report the term was not so applied. They thought paper depreciated below . coin. There was a strange contusion in the Report, in the rc.a soning upon which thi co piiiim professed to be founded, 1 he different members of their syllogism were unconnected with each other ; and begi n ning in their premises with a reference to . - coin,they applied their con\alasioti exclusively so bullion (a hiee4). If Gentlemen meant metely to maintain the self evitint Crittft that, abstractedly speaking, an ounce of gold was worth an otihce of goTtia he for one would haie no diftculty in age eeieg with them ; but if they meant to say that gold neither ecqaired norlost any thing in value, when it was staiaii;ed as coin. in comparison with gold in bullion, was an assertion to winch .he could by no means accede. What .vas the extent of the dif ference, or under what circumstances it mi g h t be in crea s e d o r dindoisbed, was another questrora; bat that there was a dif. ference between gold in coin and gold in bullion, was a poiet upon which he could hardly think it possible to entertain a doubt, as long as the present systeni of our coinage la*s re mained in force. it might be argued; that that system was a bad one, aid that it ought to be change f. Some Geutleman had Advanced that opinion in effect, it' not in tem*. Tney thought that it would be wise and politic to srettidve all the 1 • pediments which the laws at present' threw iu the, way of the exportation of our coin: .1f the Legislature were to adopt that oeinion, and to repeal all the laws now exiStirg upon the sub ' jeer, and if the guinea were to circulate ahroall precisely for the Same value that it did at home, in that case, and in that case only, would the proposition he true, that there was no elfference between gold in coin and gold in buldun. I:int the question, es it appeared to him, could only be properly decided by taking the facts as they did really exist, and not as some Gentlemen might think they ought to exist. Now what were the real facts of the t case ? Thia country was under the necessity, from the nature of the war in which it wateengaged, to carry on extenslve mill ' tary operations abroad ; and those military operations required tha: a considerable quantity uf gold should be sent out of the country. By the law, as it now. stood, gold in coin could nut be applied to this purpose, because it prohibited, under severe penalties, the sending it abroad. . If then gold must he employed, and you could- not send it in coin, it Is/Hawed of course that you must send it in the shape or bullion. This circumstance created an increased demand for bullion, and therefore gave it a higher value titan gold in colts. Was it then true. that gold in bars and gold in coin was of the same value ? His Hon. Friend • (Mr. Hu'kisson) certainly had advanced that opinion, and seemed to think that gold was natural motley, and of thee same value in whatever shale; but the• fact was, that coin was not -of the same value abroad as bullion, because it could not be exported ; and. bullion was not of the same value at home as coin, thatbecause it was not a legal tender. H. therefore cunteed. there was no proof before the Committee that the peeper of the Bank of England o a de o eeaiated in the sense in Winds he understCail and had explained that -term ; ili - at is t+4 say, that the Bank note bore the same, relative : value po a guinea ; that 3t always did, fur sill the purposes far which a guinea was legally appicable. All that had been said about the superior value of a light guinea to a heavy one, had in fact no bearing ' upon the real question It a kuitiest from the deficiency of weight was put completely out of circulation, ft lost its charac ter of coin, and thereby became, bullion ; and thendor the rte. son he bad just stated, it, would acquire an additinal Much had .born said about the word " standard," and some Gentlemen on the other side had displayed a strong desire to be facetious unon.the übjcct. If be were asked what he on '. derstuod by that. word, be should say, that he del not consider gild as a standard, or silver rig a ,a sninclaral,.biit he underatoed gold and silver bound down by law to a . particular and relative value with each other., If the kapuse were called open to reeurd a solemn statement of the law• of the country, they ought, un • doubtedly, to tikes care that . ,i,hat statement was accurate.- - Now the assertion in thefitst Reeolaition was not strictly true ; it aaserted,' that the eonly4rfoliey that- could ba tendered in Great Britain elm* ether value of twelve pence must be gold or silver; steel - thet a / a ' amount at which it was to pass cur rent was us lit fixed by the Kiiees prerpnative. ...14ais was not the law becanse silver.te the amount. of 1251,0vas ikgal tender, though it was not: ot' Atandaid weight., Xventletriete bad talked about scales avhich regulated the silverond gall noire. But with regard to silver,. there • was no law : which eaidosliat a shilling should not be current when it was under the atipadard weight; on-the contrary,- up to the, extent of 24. ~Th.e •eeil important question for Parliament. to determitie, was tins; what,. under all the circumstances of. the, case, would. 4 btawien and politic for them to dot ..The. case of the French bank, aea TOrmer period, bad been referred to. In that case, tee Bank had.itivolved itself in difficulties from an over.issise of paper ; the.riirectors dimi nished the quantity of their paper, and the COneequence was, that the credit of . the Bank was restored; and it was also said that the diminution of. the paier had hadi, an effect upon the exchange. - of the statement might be tram, but he who. h DD;.• to had ras TtiF, 1!•14:NONAL. REGISTE change. The latter part of the statement might be tale, but very nAtch doubted-it.. The i-Lon. (;ent, who had adverted this Bank admistedithat though the narrowing its circulation A removed ifs .cliMcultie*, yetr.,it ,proilatced very great emhar- ssmentsiamong tho coat uV - ~' - ._.* .., 4 4410"settuuntlity. But the- wiciadrawins. Of .t .• • 111' : • , r - •.• • . aik girculation in # . ..,- . _.), • . , -.. . . • '- • •-•P oVg.'l6Nr . •,.. . 1 ' • -, ... . . `... kif . y.'-i.,• > 4 .0.41i:,, - 1 1