The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-01-01 00:00:00

NORTHERN DAILY TIMES.-LIVERPOOL

be an incalculable blessing to mankind, we have
always admitted; but, in the absence of any
prospect of attaining this great and holy object,
we, with every other honest and indeperident journal
in the land, have endeavoured to rouse the loyal,
patriotic, and determined warlike spirit of the
nation, that we might not see our native land

surprised by a wily enemy, or our war resources

xliausted by the•imbeeility of our own rulers, or

the treachery of professing friends. We put it
to the--British= public-at large whether their-Press
was not right in all this ? France, or rather
reactionary France, thinks not, and heaps on the
public organs of England a bitter rebuke.

The pamphlet commences with these words :--
According as the probabilities of a pacific solu-
tion assume greater consistency, certain organs
of the English press are endeavouring, by
irritating articles, to endanger the effect of sage
resolutions, and of the calm attitude of the Allied

In misrepresenting the form and
rch.aracter of a document which it is the duty of the
" official parties to keep secret, a risk is run of offending
" the Power which Europe has applied to for concess
" sions, when the interest of all is to facilitate the
led on. It si

" Governments

" succe:

ling now t

ss to suppose that any states

an behold, otherwise t

in with the deepest

We have

in judgment on

imputing

to, the

British

Press the

dishonesty of purpose, and the most unwar
rantable political depravity. We can, happily,

afford to bear these charges

as two years
experience of war has shown the public that
all the Press has recorded has proved but too true,
andiall it has predicted has come to, pass. We h ave

witnessed an immense sacrifice of life, and a "pro-
fuse expenditure of treasure ; and is it because the
popular organs of this country have not suggested
the meeting of a Congress of crowned, heads, to
adjust what is, in its essence, a struggle between
Constitutional freedom and despotic rule, that we
are to be exposed to the wrathful scribbling of
Parisian censors, or French pamphleteers ? That
the Emperor Napoleon wrote, or evenfsanctioned,
the publication of the brochure in question we can-
not believe. He is not the man to indulge
in the vulgarities of unscrupulous political
historians, and to ' remind England of
disasters which befel her in the management of

"I,lonies in a past century, and in an age when
the punilc
-"aq less enlightened, and the
popular voice had scarcely
in the Imperial Council. So much forthe auL.,„_
of England's condemnation.

We will now pass in review the principles and
plans propounded in this anonymous production.
Having alluded to the awkward circumstances

hich preceded the presont close alliance between

France and England, the nameless writer contends
that the Allies have a right to proclaim, that in
present a sacrifice incompatible with the

making a

, Russia cannot decline in pub-
..

.ary, she must

eem of Europe,

price

upon it

export. Each weekly packet from the United
States must, also, bring a large bullion freight.
Both Australia and America have become the pro-
ducers of that metal wdlibut which our politicA
econotiikts*Atend we vaiiti-ot exist, while they
boast that' the system, V they have laid down to
obtain, and retain a large 'supply of bullion in this
country, is the most perfect' piece of machinery
human ingenuity could have invented. Those who
extol the laws which regulate the influx and efflux
of gold, throw aside altogether the natural laws of
supply and demand andi takg 'gold but clf the
category of commodities. They selected it as the
arbitrary standard of value when it was the
scarcest of all metals ; and when its production
rfrOm pirres and regions difficult of access was
rendered impossible,.by the low price placed upon
it. Having first deprived the people of this country
of the use of that.paper which had done so much
for all classes in war, for industrial and peaceable
purposes, they next endeavoured to retard the
importation of bullion by the low Mint price
placed upon it. Whether there was any
well defined political object in such a

course is a question into which Ivo need

the triumphs gained by arbi

a failed in checking the

mercantile, and the social advance

lie working,

classes

s enough for us to bear in mind the fact

that gold can be no longer considered the
scarcest of metals, and that we are no longer
tied down to the quantity which
_the world
possessed in 1819, when it was selected as
the standard of price, and the basis of our money
power. As a standard, even with a costly war
tending to give it a high artificial value, we find it
quoted in the bullion market at 775. 9d. for bars,
and 76s- 3d. per ounce for coin, while the Bank of
England are compelled to give 775. 9d. for all gold
taken to them of standard fineness. And while the
State is bound to return through the Mint 775•
100. per ounce in coin, reducing American eagles
to bars of standard fineness at 765. 3d. per ounce,
and sending them to the Mint to be re-coined into
Legal Tender of the value of 775. 101 d., would be
by no means an unprofitable business. But that
there must be a heavy loss incurred somewhere in
the course of these operations is self-evident; and
is the State to be at the expense of supporting a
standard price, which is positively against this coun-
try and in favour of all others ? With regard to the
basis of our circulation, and the true extent of our
money power, we can now boast of a supeificial
of fifties of miles in California, and of
hundreas v. —.:1" Of the richest gold fields in
Australia. Our means or a',Tnmunication with
those countries are iilimitable ; anct time
required for the transit of gold both from America
and the Antipodes may be calculated within a few
hours and days. The 'production of that precious
metal in both of these prolific regions goes on
increasing steadily from month to month.

How comes it, then, that with all these great
advantages giving consistency and vitality to our
money laws, and sanctifying, as if by a miracle, the
wildest and most besotted theories of the bullion-
ist, our Banks have the cool temerity to say that
that which they call money is scarce, to demand
six and seven per cont. for bills having not more than
95 days to run, and to contract the accommodation
required to sustain the trade and industry of the
community, at a moment when the defence and
safety of the Empire demand that both profits and
wages should be maintained ? Do they doubt
the existence of inexhaustible supplies of gold in
California and Australia ? Do they question our
power of producing exchangeable commodities to
give for gold, or the certainity of our means of
transit? Or ea,n it be they Suspect that the
practical operation of our bullion laws will fail in
securing us the lion's share of the metallic trea-
sure produced in-our C,)lonies and America ? No
such ideas can enter the noddles of the most
rampant advocates Of the present usurious rates of
interest. We have entered on a

ry of P.

icres b

new era,

EEL, JONES LOYD, and all the
L(31( to the days of ADAM SMITH

;o for nothing

If we require a metallic reserve in our Banks of
100,000,0001., if there be any truth in the prevailing
monetary doctrines, and any" reason in the
advocates of the law as it now stands, the accu-
mulation of that sum must take place within a
miraculously short space of time ; and the present
rates of interest demanded for money can only be
looked upon as a monster Banking shave. There
are those who contend that if,our present system
does not keep gold in the country; as long as we
abide by it there is no principle by which other
states can keep large accumulations of bullion from
us, that the evils we now complain of are purely
momentary, and that great as the depreciation
in the value of our national substance may be,
still it cannot be avoided. The fool BRUTUS could
scarcely have d•ivised a more ingenious defence to
appease the wrath of a suffering and exasperated
multitude. Between the Ist January and the 18th
of July, 1852, a period of six months and a half,
We saw the bunion reserves of the Bank of
England increase 4,675,0001., or from
17,557,0001. to 22,232,0001. Again, from April
5 to June 14, 1855, just two months and
nine days, we witnessed another increase of
2,982,0001: or from. 15,079,000/. to 18,061,0001.

In three years, or rather from 1:851to 1854, the Bank
of England were large buyers of gold, a subject to
which we will call the attention of our readers at
an early date, as the Bank's transactions at those
periods, shew that there is no difficulty in obtain-
ing as much as 15,000,000 i. of bullion • within a
year, as i they did in 1852, when it suits the
Directors' views to enter the bullion market as
buyers. In a word, there can-be no real Want of
bullion felt in this country, after the gold discoveries
that have taken place. 04r present commercial,
embarrassments, and industrial miseries, date,
altogether, from a vain attempt to force 'on this
country, principles which are not only at variance
with sound theories, but which have been totally
overthrown by an entirely new condition of things.
PEEL'S object was to give us the command, by law,
)f a sufficient stock of bullion, at a fixed maximum
; whereas, that metal can now be produced
limit, at one-sixth of the price he placed
It is, in ,fact. our Mint standard, and not
the law of demand and . supply, which keeps up its
value

without

and until the laws of 1819 and 1844 are
repealed, we shall never escape those anomalies
from which we are; now suffering. If we wait foy
gold to
Irepeal the Bank Charter Act, by the
increase in the 'natural Iprogress of production,
we should like to know what remedy our great

- -
money oracles will piopose, or, what excuse they
will make to the commercial and industrial classes;

3 now enduring ?

Tessure is

daily, and it is time they should be