The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-12-11 00:00:00

THE CURRENCY.

6 MEETING has been held in London, with the view
:fjrcmoting an agitation for an alteration in the laws
ueeting the currency ; but as the resolutions agreed
f,s
Wee by no means distinct as to the especial object
tlithed at, we are only left to infer, from the speeches
h`Tlivered,on the occasion, that the agitators contem-
r L4to the substitution of a paper currency for the sys-
now in use. This is one of the evils attending
ge discussion of a question of this kind, and operates
u
b 7 a material hindrance to any really practicable re-
m for admitted abuses. It is generally ackowledged
4 at monetary difficulties of no ordinary kind exist,
tiold that these may mainly, if not solely, be attributed
the restrictions on the circulation of Bank-notes,
a IPosed by the Act of 1844. It has been shown that
thiroit having been fixed below what may be termed
°rdinary requirements of commerce, as tested by
01,1)(ie lience, the Directors of the Bank of England, in
of to Protect themselves against the consequences
k ha drain of gold, produced by exceptional causes, levy
op earg tax on the mercantile community in the shape
te 41 increased rate of discount ; and the natural infe-
-46 is, that by removing the restrietion,which i n itself

is of nopractical benefit,no reasonwould exist for retain-
ing the pressure. The opportunity, however, is seized
up= by tic advocaies-of a paper eurreftey to agitate
for the total removal of the protection arising from
a metallic basis, and to substitute a system which
would virtually amount to an unlimited promise to
pay, without the slighest guarantee for the fulfilment
of the contract. It is all very easy to talk of the secu-
rity of the Government, of notes being received in
payment of taxes, and similar expedients to increase
the circulating medium without the expenditure of
capital ; but it is an indispensable condition, in order
that notes should at all times bear their nominal value,
that they are convertible into gold at the pleasure of
the holders ; and nothing but a stern necessity can
justify a contrary course. The paper-mongers, by
pressing such impracticable schemes on public atten-
tion, necessarily create alarm, by the natural supposi-
tion that our monetary resources will be made some
such worthless pieces of paper as French assignats or
American shin-plaisters ; and even the pretended
security of the Government would be of little value
if issues were allowed to take place according to the
exigencies of a Chancellor of the Exchequer, with no
other security for their payment than their being
received for taxes.

It cannot be too forcibly impressed upon public at-
tention, that what is really wanted is not so much an
alteration of the present system with reference to the
body entrusted with the issue of notes, as its adapta-
tion to the increased requirements of the mercantile
community. The palpable mischief, or at least that
which affords the ostensible excuse for the monetary
pressure, is that forced limit of Fourteen Millions as
the amount of issue on Government Securities, irre-
spective of the stock of bullion, notwithstanding 'the
fact which nil eicperience has proved that the aebial
circulation has rarely been below Twenty Millions,
and would no'doubt be much greater if the legal rate
of interest were limited, as it once was, to five'per cent.
We have unfortunately a pretence of 'free Irado in
money, by allowing capitalists to charge any rate of
interest Which the necessity of 'borrowers may induce
them to,pay, while at the same time we have fetters
stamOre galling, in a restraint upon 'the amount of
, issue without the aid of a 'useless hoard of gold—use-
less,opplied to the purpose for
because it cannot 'be
whiCh it is ostensibly intended, and ,could only be
-available for an emergency which in human proba-
`bility can never arise. at is this restraint which con..
'statutes the real grievance, and to' which the attention
orthe Legislature Should be directed. It is wander-
;kg from the point toqndulge in dreamy speculations
;ibout Government issues of notes'payable on demand
illy a bankrupt exchequer, and- these who favour 'the
'movement to whicli we have 'allo.ded are actually ,re-
larding the reformation which-they profess to be!‘so
desirous to ironfae.