The Press.
London, England, 1853-06-11 00:00:00

JUNE 11, 1853

the tenant pays here the landlord is to pay
there. The English landlord has the tax de-
ducted on receiving his rent; the Irish land-
lord is to pay before he receives, or whether
acedn
he
wakes or not. He is accordingly pl i
this comfortable position : should he press his
tenants for rent, he is a heartless tyrant—
should he venture to eject a tenant who has
run into arrear, no name will be too vile for
the " exterminator ;" he must therefore solace
himself for the loss of rent by the satisfactioti
of supporting his country, and on the fiction
of an income support the reality of a tax.
This is the first instalment of that justice
to Ireland" which, in the opinion of some
members of the Government, consists in trans-
ferring the " rights" of property to the tenant,
leaving the " duties " and burdens to the
owner ; confiscating the property of the
Church, and obtaining as much as possible
for the imperial treasury. It is natural that
men who have a strong dislike to paying rent
should object to the visits of the tax-gatherer
their remonstrances, backed by the Irish sece-
ders. have produced the desired effect; and
the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, supported
by a sort of feeling that Irish landowners are
not popular—that, in fact, a superstition has
been spread that they are ogres, who caused
the potato rot, the famine, and the exodus—
and making an unscrupulous use of a tyrant
majotity, has perpetrated a glaring injustice
under the name of equality, and established
in Ireland a principle he would not venture to
propose for this country. We may expect to
see other instalments of similar justice ; the
point of the wedge has been got in, and in a
yielding material it cannot be hard to drive it
dome.

SILVER.
TuE wondrous results of the recent discove-
ries in California and Australia have involved
this country in a double dilemma—a plethora
of gold, and a deficiency of silver. It is but a
few months back that the Bank of England
counted its silver coinage by a few hundreds,
while its stock of gold was reckoned by mil•
lions, the late CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER
was besieged by clamorous applicants to urge
the Mint to exertion, and front all parts of the
kingdom poured in appeals for an increased
issue of shillings and florins.
Mr. DnutAELl had the penetration to discern
the cause of this scarcity, and the remedy ;
and the country still waits for Mr. GLAnsrosy's
reply to his predecessor's inquiry whether the
tiorernment had considered the necessity render-
ing gold a legal tender in India
The facts are little known to the public at
large, but they are of a startling character ;
and the course which he thus indicated his own
intention to have pursued, had he continued
in office. is no little creditable to the discern-
ment and ability of the late CHANCELLOR of the
EXCHEQUER. Nor are we without hope that
his successor will see the necessity of speedily
adopting the expedient suggested by the saga-
city of Mr. llnotkm.t.
England is the only country in Europe
which limits herself to a gold standard. France
avails herself both of gold and silver ; the
rest of the Old World has adopted silver alone.
This result has been precipitated by the events
of the last five years. No sooner had the influx
of gold from California commenced in 184744,
and its extent and magnitude been ascertained,
than Holland and Belgium, exerting an an-
cestral instinct in matters of finance, sold off
some four or five millions of gold at a trifling
loss, and announced silver alone as their future
standard of value.
Thus two causes have been in simultaneous
operation to enhance the value of silver—an in-
creased demand for its use, and an inversion of
the proportion which had heretofore prevailed
between its annual production and the pro-
duction of gold. The latter has increased
almost miraculously, the former has scarcely
augmented in its amount.
This is the first strange fact to which we
would direct special attention. Previously to
1847 the relative value of gold to silver was
about one to fifteen ; and on this basis our
toreign exchanges were calculated, an ounce

THE PRESS.

of gold. at 31. is. Ski., being, to an ounce of sil-
ver, at five shillings, as ohe ta fifteen anti a halt
Ten years ago the production of the precious
metals averaged about eight millions sterling a
year. of which about one million and a quarter
was gold. In 1850 the total production was
estimated at twenty-one millions, and of these
fourteen millions were gold, and only half that
amount silver. At the present moment the
proportions are still more surprisingly distorted,
owing to the almost stationary supply of silver.
whilst that of gold has been reduplicated by
the collection of upwards of 14.000,0001. per
annum in Australia, added to a still larger
amount from California.
The inevitable consequence has been a rise
in the comparative value of silver, and an ad-
verse and prevailing change in the course of
exchange between Great Britain and every
country which has adopted a standard of silver.
But this evil has been aggravated by the
peculiar constitution of the currency in our
own Indian possessions. where silver alone is
a legal tender. And, as our imports from these
countries far exceed the value of our exports.
the balance must be paid for in silver. For
example, in the year 18-19-50, when our exports
to India were somewhat about ten millions. and
our imports seventeen millions, the difference.
Iseeen millions, must be paid in silver rupees.
But, as silver has been growing scarcer year
after year. the course of exchange has been
simultaneously adverse to England ; in other
words, we in London have been giving two
shillings and a penny in gold for a rupee of two
shillings in silver to be paid to our correspond-
ents at Calcutta. And the second fact to
which we beg attention is, that our imports
from India,—our coffee, our cotton, our silks,
sugar, and indigo,—either for home con-
sumption or exportation, arrive in England
loaded with this disadvantage in the cost,
occasioned by the fact that silver alone is the
legal standard in India.
The loss will eventually fall, and in au intel-
ligible form, upon the consumers in England;
for in the event, of which there is now every
prospect., of the increase of gold making still
greater head iu advance of the produce of
silver, the value of the latter will go on aug-
menting; and, whilst the price of commodities
purchased by gold in Great Britain will have
correspondingly risen, the importer from India
will find it impossible to sell at a cheap rate to
the people of this country commodities which
d
he hits purchased in India frith siker raised
by aventitious circumstances to an unnatural
value.
And now we come to the practical test of the
evidence of the evil of which we complain,
and we believe that. the public are little aware
of its magnitude, or the formidable influence
which it is already creating on the interests of
trade in these countries. Our tm-commercial
readers will keep in view the fact which we
have endeavoured to simplify, that as we im-
port indigo, silk, sugar, and other articles from
India, to a far greater extent than we export
to them British produce in exchange, the
balance we must pay in hard cash, mid that.
cash I;i:reg.. which we buy at the rate of two
shillings and a penny for every rupee of two
Before the discoveries of California and
Australia, and whilst the production of silver
WM in excess of that of gold, the exportation
of silver to India was insignificant, but gold
went there in considerable quantities : for
example, in IR-14 and 1845 the silver sent to
India did not exceed the value of 5,0001. or
6,0001. a year; in Is4o and 18-17 it wits even
less ; but, in the year which succeeded, the drain
of silver from this country to India had gone
on increasing with surprising rapidity and very
serious effect. It was, in round numbers, in

1109 1:1:14$1
1850 • ' ' •
. • • • 111.),11147
Igsl . . • • 1,640,187
%KV. . . . . 3,114,04/4
Simultaneously with this outpouring of silver
from our own possessions we have of course to
meet the demands of other countries whose
standard is silver. lint with these the MI
culty has been more or less obviated by the
nicer balance of trade ; in other words, they
take our goods and manufactures instead of
our coin. In their ease, should inconvenience
anise from such a cause, we should be

123

unprovided with a remedy ; but in the instance
of our dominions and colonies the matter is
widely different ; and sotmd sense as Well
sOUIId I►oliew require that one and the same
currency should prevail throughout our

territories.
This is the obvious and reasonable remedy
proposed bv Mr. Dtkot.m.i, and to which Mr.
titAnsToNE 6s not vet given his reply. We do
not urge at present the extreme eourse,but which
eventually may become the simplest and the
most practicable one, to assimilate the produce
of the whole empire, and make a gold standard
tar India in substitution of a Over one. A
change so sudden and sweeping might produce
there loeal inconvenience ; but the interests et
both countries (hkum(' that the intermediate
step should not he longer delayed of making gold
om wdl nx surer legal slumlord fin' on our Rost
uflia posmourionx. Billbrokers and the financial
department of I .cadenhall-strc et , who 'uw
gun by the existing anomaly, would no
doubt grumble at the reform ; but the trade
at the United Kingdom demands it, and sooner
Ill' later till' change must come.
When once effected. it. will speedily regulate
the disturbed balance between our exports of
the precious nketals ; it will enable us to eon
tinny our purchases of the produce of India at
their natural price, 111111 nut by payments in a
coinage raised by accidental ciremustanees to
fictitious value ; and, whilst relieving tireat
Britain of the inconvenienee incidental to
her plethora of gold, it. will liberate the
silver now confined in one colonies, and
which, flowing into continental channels, will
iu tum restore the equilibrium of exchange
occasioned by the reeent discovery of gold.
lt is seldom that IL Chancellor of the Exche-
quer has 1111 opportunity afforded to him of
effecting so extensive a reform by so simple an
expedient, and we earnestly hope that the dis-
cernment of the House of Commons will sup
port the suggestion of Mr. DisuAtmt for an
amended standard for India.

-
in
Various articles and eoniniunieations
type are necessarily I►ostpone►l.

TIIE OXFORD INSTALLATION OhItiREES.
To THE EOITolt OV " THZ PuEss."
Sir,—ln addition to your well competition
between the lists of Lord Derby and the Duke of
WellingtAm, I beg to send yon Millier materials for
the confusion of cavillers, in the list of degrees
granted on the ()evasion of the installation of Lord
tirenvillo in 11410. The following were the person..
ages to whom degrees were then granted :
I. Hoke of Si ttttt Tsai. V:. %Isconlit Carleton.
1. Marquis of Buckingham. 13. Lord Itniyhrooke.
t. Manlius of Itownshivc. 14. Isiril Cawilor.
.1. Manplis of Ely. Vt. latnl Ceningtim.
It. Earl of Essex. 10. Ht. Hon. W. Wickham.
11. Earl of Abingdon. 17. ltt. Hon. 4 it'll. Tierney.
1. Earl of Jersey. 104. 10. 11'011. Wm. Elliot.
. Earl Forteseue. 19. !sir .lohit Newport, Bart.
Earl of Carysfort. .90, Sir .lohn Anstmther, lit.
Earl Temyle: . 11. Mr. Fawn, U.S.

Anikele).
I rooms),

sir, yours obediently,
M.

THE OXFORD CHANCELLORSHIP.
TO THE EDIToIt ot.' "THE r11i15,4."
Sir,-1 perceive that the reelite newspaper has
ventured to revives the oft-repeated fiction that Lord
Derby was forces' on the I'mversity by the long-vnea-
tient intrigues of a clique. Now, it is notorious to
every resident here that. the, clique movement was
made by the Peelo- Posey lie ft fends of the Chronicle
in inventt of the Duke of Newcastle. As want a% the
Intke of Wellington's 411•11 th WitS lillOWil two meetings
were held in ( iriel Conitmon Resent, at which resolu-
tions were passed in favour of the I of sew-
castle, wed one of the party, t Mr. Sewell, I believe)
putlineself into communication with his grace to
persuade him to stand. These proceedings were
taken in anticipation of the friends of Lord Derby,
who arc again falsely charged with premature eagei-
ness. I may be excused, perhaps, from troubling
you with these well-known facts, which it would be
unnecessary to repeat but for these reiterated
caltunnies.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Oxford, June 10. P. C. L.

Tun Goi.n (Ina. or YirroatA is computed, from
official documents, to have amounted to 4,175,147 oi.
during 1851, which, at the price of 40s. per ounce,
gives the value 113,709,9g5f. With regard to emigra-
tion, it appears that the number of arrivals in the
colony during the year Is:4 was 97,661; and the
departures 27,021.—Total increase, 70,631).