The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-10-17 00:00:00

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THE

HEALTH COMMITTEE

NORTHERN

I CHESHIRE QUARTER SESSIONS

SHOCKING AND BRUTAL MURDER, NEAR
BRADFORD.

TIME S.---LIVERPOOL, FRIDAY.

THE CURRENCY QUESTION

The result might have been easily foreseen.
09 the 18,h February, 1797, the Governor of the Bank
was desired, by his col'eagues, to assure Mr. Pitt that the
Irish loan of one million and a half, which he had just
a-tiouncerl, " would most pr,bably bring them under the
nevssity of shutting up their doors ►„
On the evening► of the following Siturday, their stock of
specie, which had been rapidly diminishing, was reduced to
£1,272,000, although their notes in circulation, which were
promises to pay gold on demand, amounted to nearly
£lO 000:000

Great was the anxiety of the Directors—great the con-
sternation of the mercantile world, and great the perplexity
of the G verntnent. On the following day—Sunday as it
was— the Cabinet assembled at Whitehall.
Snell was the gravity of the crisis, that the King presided

in person.
And, as Mr. Francis says, in his history of the Rank of
England, "the presence of Royalty gave a high sanction to
the proceedings."
The result of that meeting, and its influence upon the
fortunes of the war in which we were then engaged, must
form the subject of my next letter.
I said that I would advance step by step in the investi-
gation of this important question of Money, and your
readers must have patience with me if I seem to make but
little pro_Tress in clearing away the obstructions which lie
in the way, of such a real reformation of our circulating
medium, as would establish a system of currency capable of
sustaininT, in times of difficulty and danger, the fabric of
our commercial credit, and of preventing the recurrence of
the
laws. panics which are the natural offspring of our Monetary
•
J. W.
Liverpool, Oct. 12, 1856.

i [LETTER iv.]
A shocking murder was committed about eleven o'clock I
on Tuesday night, near Bradford, the victim being Jere- i s i
r,
_Tr
y last THE
letter EDITOR
OF w
as
principally THE No H
devotedrEits Te from e s to TIMES.
rniali Mines, a fish dealer, residing in Leeds-road, about _Whether our monetary difficulties "a
I diminution of national wealth, or from the operation of
IrtrEhoS.
the enquiry
area]
40 years of age. The following are the facts, so far as
they have yet transpired It appears that the murdered some law, or system, which produces a scarcity of money in
the midst'of undiminished wealth." I4prosecuting that en-
man (Milnes), accompanied by a young man, named
Jowett, had been hawking fish at Stanningley and Pudsey, (miry, I think it was clearly proved that the source of these
and were returning home with the donkey and cart, or diffle'ulties was to be found "in the law which compels us
so
long bodied barrow on two wheels, containing a hamper,
to use
." fugitive a metal as gold for the basis of our
seven fish, and the steelyards for weighing. When they currency,
had reached the junction of the old and new turnpike I then proceeded to point out the injurious operation of
roads to and from Leeds, and about 300 yards from
that law during the progress of the late war. I hope I Calverley Moor bar, a tall man, with a large face, and shall now be Ole to redeem more fully the promise tained in my second letter, that I should con-
dresseddemon-
in a round jacket, fustian waistcoat, and cap,
strafe the tor
leaped from the wall or hedge adjoining the old road, and
of satisfacily licy of that law, and the impossibility
conducting our mercantile eff ,ins
seized the bridle of the donkey, turning it roand towards Stanningley. On seeing this, Milnes leaped from the by means of a currency resting wholly, or, principally, on a
cart, with the steelyards in his hand, and struck the metallic basis.
aggressor, to make him cease his hold ; but the latter, in In further discussing the bearing of this law, upon oar
a moment, brandished a weapon resembling an oyster commercial prosperity, it is important to remember, that
the "even tenor" of a merchant's or tradesman's way is
knife, and stabbed Milnes first in the cheek, and then
plunged it violently in a downward slanting direction more apt to be disturbed by violent fluctuations in the rates
into his breast, directly behind the collar hone.
of interest than by a uniformly high rate. Now, there
Milnes
instantly fell bleeding to the ground. His companion, never were such violent fluctuations previous to the passing
o Jowett, at the same moment fled for assistance, leaving of the Act of 1844 as we have since experienced. Until
scores of houses, hundreds of population, and the barracks after the passing of that act the Bank minimum rate of
behind him—why, no one knows—and did not stop until
interest was never less than four per cent. For the thirty-
he reached his own employer's house, a mile distant five years ending 17th Mar, 1839, it never exceeded 5 per from the scene of the murder. He returned with help to cent.ln consequence of the then disturbed state of monetary
the spot, and found the victim of the knife quite dead,
but with all his money in his pocket, though the fish and
affairs, it, was raised to six per cent, and stood at that rate some other articles were missing from the cart. The for the next few months. Early in the following
deceased still grassed th steelyards in one hand and a Year, it was again reduced to 5 per cent., and never
exceeded that rate until the bill of 1844 "filled vp'the
small stick in the t' Tr. Constable Harrison and other
persons reached tits sot
the White Betrace ar Inn
him has. l a thembodied in Peel's former Act of 1819. Violent fluctua-
fled, and
e,
as
yet, been meantime
found. As it the murderer had
floes in the value of money, that is, in the rate of interest,
no of w
was moonlight,-Jawett saw him so distinctly that he says ere the first fruits of that fatal bill. Between September
he will be able tu identify him, if in the same clothes. 1845, and December 1847—just two years and a quarter—.
The knife is supposed to have deeply penetrated the
the Bank altered its rate of discount no less than twelve right lung of the deceased ; but this, and whatever else times! At one time, it was down to 21 ; at another, up to
transpires, will be more fully enquired into at the 9'ls Per cent.
coroner's inquest. Meanwhile, an active search is being
In the seven years, ending 18th October, 1855, twenty-
made for the murderer, three alterations were made ; the minimum in that period
being 2, and the maximum 7 per cent.
For a period of 135 years, says the Illustrated .Londe
News, that is, from the year 1704 to 1839, " the rate of
discount never fluctuated more than 1 per cent, and the
contrast between that uniformity and the violent oscillations
which have taken place since 1844, is too striking to need
comment."
Yet the late Sir Robert Peel assured the House of
Commons, that the law which was passed in that year was
to permanently place the currency of the country on a secure
and solid basis, to check improvident speculations, to secure
the just reward of industry, to prventiluctuations in money,
and RENDER PANICS IN THE COMMERCIAL
WORLD ALL BUT IMPOSSIBLE
We know that all these predictions have been falsified,
and that the Act of 1844 has neither secured us the benefits
which it promised, nor saved us from the evils which it was
intended to avert. The late Lord Ashburton declared it to
he "a great experiment ivhich had • signally failed." Mr.
Gurney—who ought to he a great authority in money mat-
ters—in giving his evidence before the Committee of the
House of Lords,
expressed plainly
ic statedreaye many p
tahnai tc.!
other
m t had " a tendency to
' And
eminent
t same
financiersyi ew s
chraevaeteb,eceonnfiryn, a
often nd
in creasy
s
in words equally emphatic.
And here I would just remark, that the suspension of
specie payments would prove a far better remedy for a
deranged money market than any augmentation in the rate
of discount by the bank.
Take for example the Order ;n Council which suspended
specie payments at the close of the last century. That order
was confirmed by an Act of Parliament, in February, 1797,
limiting its operation to a period of four months. This
limitation was subsequently extended to the conclusion of a
general peace, and continued in force until the passing of
Peel's Act in 1819.
The assertion of the Times, made during the pressure of
last year, that a suspension of specie payments was nothing.
less than " a mitigated form of national bankruptcy," is
still fresh in my recollection.
Bat what is that assertion worth, in the presence of the
fact, that it was this very Order in Co mei], of which I am
writing, that saved the country, just then tottering on the
verge of national bankruptcy, from the destruction that then
appeared so imminent, and enabled her to sustain the
enormous burdens of the war.
So great was the panic preceding this measure of relief
that Consols, which were at 98, just before the commence-
ment of the contest, had fallen to 51, and the great esta•
blishment of Threadneedle-street was reduced to the
necessity of paying off its notes in sixpences !
By the adoption of this expedient, the Directors were
endetvouring to gain. time to replenish their exhausted
coffers.. .