The Express.
London, England, 1848-03-08 00:00:00

that long and hot dispute. But as concerns the gene-
ral herd of readers, the topic has nomore interest than
the controversy on the effects of the Bounty Act,
which in the middle of the last century disturbed the
complacency of inquisitive squires and gentlemen
[ farmers. And yet the ingenuity and the acute-
' ness of many of the disputants deserved a
better fate. Many. years may pass before this
thorny topic is again elucidated by the experience,
the knowledge, and the sound discrimination of Mr.
TUORNTON, by the vigorous style and the expert em-
ployment of facts which shone so conspicuously in
Mr. BOSANQUET, or by the logical acuteness and the
fearless ratiocination which marked the famous
tract by Mr. !Mantic., called " The High Price of
Bullion a Proof of the Depreciation of Bank-notes."
If, however, the details of the strife are not very
accurately remembered, we are not in mocli dap,.
er or
forgetting, eoloig as the good town of Birmingham
remains above ground, what was the nature of its
final result. Mr. ATTWOOD and his disciples will
keep us pretty well in mind that they have been
protesting for the last thirty years against the
triumphs of Mr. lticaeDo and the bullionists, or
rather against the triumph of only a portion of the
doctrines upon which Mr. RICARDO insisted ; for as
to those cardinal articles of his creed which incul-
cated the implicit dependence of the ordinary
phenomena of price and prosperity upon the quan-
tity
of the circulating medium, which placed a
permanent power in the hands of issuing
bankers, and which described the variations in the
volume of the currency as the bona fide origin of
oscillations in the state of the foreign exchange—
upon these, and some other important doctrines, there
appears to be an almost entire agreement between
even the authors of the act of 1819, and those who
most unsparingly condemn it as a fatal measure. Now,
it is the peculiar glory of Mr. TOOKE that he has
patiently cleared away a broad and level path through
the intricate windings and the treacherous pitfalls
which had well nigh rendered the truth utterly
inaccessible. In the former volumes of his
work he has travelled, from first to last,
over the whole of our extraordinary experience
during the twenty years of paper money, which en-
abled us to survive the devastations of repeated years
of famine, and the wear and tear of the greatest
contest on record. There can be little doubt that it
is to the varied phenomena of that period, in all that
relates to the influence of a currency under almost
every possible combination of circumstances, that the
future explorers of this branch of science will unceas-
ingly refer; and it is also as certain that their re-
searches will be illustrated and directed by the clear
and steady light, which is only to be found in the
volumes of Mr. 'fooee.
The constant subjection of every inference to the
testimony of facts throughout the whole of this his-
torical investigation, and the candour which rendered the
author at all times accessible to opinions which formed
no part of his existing system, led him first to ques-
tion, and then to discard in many of its essential
clauses, the doctrine of the bullionists, in which he
originally acquiesced.
The innovations, or, as they must now be called,
the discoveries, of Mr. TOOKE, are remarkable for no-
thing so much as their simplicity. They are entirely
exempt from all those obtrusive and disheartening
adjuncts of enigma and difficulty which so oten sub-
stitute obscurity for discovery. After reviewing
nearly the whole of our modern experience, and
hiding from his readers no single incident in his
facts or his conclusions, Mr. TOOKE ventures to affirm
that the received doctrine of monetary economics
which concentrates all its solicitude upon the ma-
nagement of the circulating medium under the
belief that this circulating medium is the primum
nwbile of the whole commercial machine, is purely
and emphatically erroneous. With just and equal
laws a circulating medium of convertible paper will
regulate itself under the influence of a natural law as
rigid as that which keeps the Thames within its level,
or the gilded ball upon St. Paul's in a state of rest.
The discovery of a second Peru would undoubtedly
double the gold prices of commodities; but in the
present stationary supply from the mines, the
causes of the incessant oscillations in the
price of every object which is an article
of commerce are to be found in the circum-
stances regulating its supply or its consumption. And,
in a word, directly. in the teeth of the supposition of
Mr. RICARDO, it is the operations of the merchant,
and the movements of capital and credit, which go-
vern the operations of the cambia ; and not any of
those subtle processes of appreciation and depreciation
of one local currency against another, which until the
era of the " History of Prices" filled so large and so
disheartening a space in all discussions on these im-
portant and intricate questions.
These are some of Mr. Toone's leading principles;
and here in this closing volume of a great work,
which between its two extremes embraces no small
part of a useful and honourable life, he has given us
in the true spirit of his genius an application of his
researches to the events and the phenomena which
filled so large a space in the minds of all men during
last year ; and we rejoice in the belief that the time
is not unpropitious to a favourable reception of the
conclusions and the admonitions of a man whose
deliberate judgment, at least upon this subject, ought
to be listened to as the dicta of the greatest authority
us.

LEST any elderly ladies in the more secluded dis-
tricts
of the country should have their nerves discom-
posed by tho long and pompons narrative and com-
mentary which yesterday's Times devoted to the Tra-
falgar-square row of Monday night, we hasten to''
assure our readers that Queen VICTORIA is still at
Buckingham Palace, and that she has not even felt it
necessary to dismiss Lord lone RUSSELL.
While on this subject, we may be allowed to
throw out a suggestion by the adoption of which it ap-
pftrs to us the suppression of such emeutes as those of
Monday and yesterday may be materially facilitated.
On both days the crowd congregated in and about
Trafalgar-square was, at times, pretty dense. Bat
the active hostilities were confined to the police,
and some two or three hundred active antagonists,
two-thirds of whom might be boys and lads inspired by
the spirit of larking, and the rest professional con-
veyancers availing themselves of the opportunity to
ply their trade. Had a clear battle-ground been left
to the belligerents, there can be no doubt that the
gallant charge of the police across Trafaigar-square,
followed up as it was by the intrepid and successful
&malts of the base of Nelson's Monument and the
steps of the portico of St. Martin's Church, would
have put an end to hostilities. Had the antago-
nists of the police been able to ascertain their own
numbers, we have so much confidence in their modest
and just appreciation of their own prowess as to feel
confident they would at once have evacuated the die-
' pnted territory with bag and baggage.
That they were not able thus profitably to conform
to the sage's precept "know yourselves " was attribu-
table solely to the crowd of respectable passers-by,
sh,se curiosity nailed them to the spot. Amid this
dense phalanx of gaping wonderment the delinquents
easily evaded the pursuit of the police, and the dis-
covery of their own weakness. The throng of lookers-
on lent a false show of importance to the handful of
mischief makers.
It on such occasions as those of yesterday and Mon- 1
day passengers would impose some restraint on their
curiosity, give one look, and straightway follow their
noses in the direction they were previously pursuing,
they would do more to prevent disturbance than
a whole host of constables, when this rule is not at-
tended to. Can there be a more contemptible specta-
cle than some thousands of well-meaning individuals
gaping like so many cods' heads on a fishmonger's
stall and converting their portly persons into bulk-
heads for disturbers to dodge round, in the indul-
gence of a childish curiosity ?

DETENTION OF THE DOWN MAIL TRAIN FROM
LoNDON.—Yesterday morning the mail from London, which
shoul I have reached Manchester a little before tire o'clock,
did not arrive till nearly eight, and then only the letter bags
and passengers were brought forward, by another train the
parcels and carriages, having to, be left behind, in conse-
quence of the obstruction of the line near to Barford station,
four miles south of Crewe. The obstruction was caused by
a luggage train from Liverpool, bearing some immense iron
girders fora railway bridge, having broken down there
before the mail train came down, and these girders falling
crossways upon the line, blocked up both pair of rails so
effectually, th it all the trains coming in either direction had
to halt and exchange passengers. At the 'slim/ station in
Manchester, our correspondent was told that no injury to
life or limb resulted. The only evening papers coating to
hand in Manchester daring the morning were copies of the
Express, which were in the mail bags, and these arrived at
eight o'clock : the other evening papers were brought up by
the mail which leaves London in the morning, and which
brings the morning papers. This did not reach Manchester
till 2.15 p.m.