The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-11-25 00:00:00

present system constantly exposes them. I would next remind
them that if our imports of perishable commodities should,
on an average of years, exceed the value of our exports, we
should soon have to bewail our national poverty. That is to
say, if- we-import more than we can pay for with our exports,
we must be impoverished, and not enriched, by our trade.
With gold demoraltiied; and treated always as an exchangeable
commodity, if we-could buy it cheap in one -country, and sell
it dear in another country, of course we should be gainers by
the operation, and tlie laws of commoree-Would never leave us
Without as much gold as we required for domestic purposes ;
because if there was a great foreign .demand, for it, it would-
rise in price at home, so as to render the• foreign orders to
purchase it inoperative. In short, it would find its level like
everything else ; and as cotton is an article far more indisPerisi.
blo to our national welfare than gold, we should ,be far more
anxious, under a really improved system of currency, to obtain
an abundant supply of theformer than of
,the latter,

And as"the ealicoes'of Manchester, and the woollen cloths of
Leeds, are far more useful to the great bulk of mankinkthan
the 'trinkets of the 'jeweller, don't tell me teat unless gold
could• be bought in England, proportionately cheaper than
c Ake or ' broadcloth, that foreigners' would be such fools

as to send us ,their orders for, the former rathe; that
the- latter. Peter Simple can understand, that if gol,l
only £3_l7s 9d per ounce in gngland,''and calico'cannA bi

)der pet

he same time tli

abroad is £4 103 per ounce, and ealic6 only saleable at 41 per
yard,—l say, in such a state of things, evert Peter Simple
himself can. understand that the foreign merchant will send
here'for his gold,.n.nd buy hii calieo elsewhere ; for foreigners
understand the advantage of buying .in the cheapest, and
selling in the dearest market as well as the Times newspaper,
Richard Cobden; or the la's Sir Rob3tt Peel.
But setting aside these very obvious facts, if any one really
thinkti that there is very great force in the objection that, with
a national paper currency, gold could not be obtained for the
payment of our foreign creditors—if, unfortunately, their claims
exceeded ours upon our foreign debtors—l would just ask hint
—How did we obtain it before the present 'currency laws were
dreamt of? How did we obtain it before it was-first used as
money iu England—that is, before the reign of Heury thr
Fourth ? We were not without gold then, though we neither
begged it, nor borrowed, nor stole it. flow, then, did we.
:obttiin it? In the same way that we intuit always obtain it—
by the sweat of our brow, by the labour of our hands, and b)
the exercise of our mental faculties. The gold that we p,,sses,
is Vie. result, and not the cause, of our wealth. Probably
should have been quite as wealthy, perhaps wealthier
'if Nature had never produced a grain of gold
Be that as it may, we bought our gold and paid for it with tin
surp'us labour of our toiling millions,
,with the produce of
our fields, or the products of our looms.

We purchased it from nations which were poor, in that
wherein we were lich. And
,they are most egregiously
mistaken, who. fancy that it ever was, or ever can he, the
source of our wealth. No, it is not gold, but the ground
beneath our feet, and the skill and labour we have expended
ou its.ctiltivition that constitute the terra firma of our wealth.
Strictly speaking, the landowner is the only really wealthy
man, for land, in a proper state of cultivation, is the only
realised wealth. It was not by the currency legislation of
•1819 or 1844, but by (lint of that industry for which we are
proverbial as a nation; that our little island home has become
the magnet which attracts from the most • distant regions
their treasures of diamonds, of gold, of silver, and of all
Precious thiuzs. Yes, it is our. persevering industry, and not
gold, that is the secret of our wealth ; and so long as we con-
tinue to work as we have done, with heart,-and head, and
hand, we shall always be able to discharge the claims of our
foreign creditors. We shall get plenty of gold in exchange
for our calicoes, and if we can again dispose of the gold, or,
more strictly speaking, exchange it again for more valuable
commodities, being a nation of shopkeepers, we shall only
be too' glad to part with it as fast as we receive
it. And if we could not dispose of it profitably,
either at home or abroad, our merchants would soon cease to
import it. The gold producer would be obliged to send it here
on consignment, and take his chance of the market. Under
the operation of a law that would give us legal paper money
proportioned to our wants, the occasional .exportation of one or
two hundred tons of gold could not possibly. lead to any
disastrous commercial results, because our currency would no
longer depend upon the amount of gold retained at home.
But, perhaps; having replied to almost every imaginable
olikiction, I may be told that we have achieved our commercial
greatness, and made our country the mart of the nations, and
its metropolis the centre of the monetary operations of the
world, under the influence of the very laws against which we
currency reformers .are always railing. Why, this was the
argument that was wont to be used against the repeal of the
corn laws. If your- readers will refer to thty parliamentary
debates of 1839, they will find the late Sir Robert Peel
urging this very consideration as a reason for the preservation
of the laws which were at that time regarded as the great
buttresses of the agricultural interest. "We should view"—
said that great statesman —" we should view with regret
cultivation receding from the hill top, which it has climbed

and from which it surveys

under the of protection,
with joy the progress of successful toil

" If you convince us t

your most sanguine hopes would

iced, ' and that this cou

try Would become tb

workshop of the world, through the .el

id for foreign corn, we should not forget, amid all these
ms of .Complete happiness, that it has been under the

influence of protection to ag

iculture, coutinu,d fo'

of a while people improved, and their life prolonged,

1119, 110

the expanse of manufacturing prosperit

with its wonderful advancement."

ly conc►usive argument, the

.tre repealed —wli,Alier rightly or wrongly, it is no
iness to enquire—and' it- was Sir Robert Pee

.ree, under
:ountry had

839, it has lost all its force, as applied to the currency law

once for all, the theory of buying in the cheapest and selling
in-tlio dearest markets, as the basis of our commercial
And where is the political Don Quixotte, who would dream of
reconstructing the sliding scale, and reversing the legislation
which effected its destruction ?

Seeing, then, that the great staple of our own country is no
longer protected—seeing that we are irrevocably committed to
an untrammelled trade in corn—why should the exploded
protective system be embalmed in our currency laws ?

Why should we continuo to protect the rich capitalist, when
we leave the poor farmer to take care of himself? We have
decreed that there shall be no monopoly in corn; in coffee, in
sugar, or in tea—that the trade iu all these articles shall be
as free as the air we breathe. •

Let us at least be consistent, let us apply the same principle
to the precious metals which wo have applied to everything

Give-us in these also, a fair field and no favaur. Let us
buy them sin the cheapest,.aud sell them in the dearest mai kot,
Why are we to hive a restricted trade in gold, but an un-
restricted trade in corn ? Having invited the whole world to
compete with us in the latter, why should we fear their compe -
tition in the former ?

Having destroyed all other monopolies, why should the
monoply of the Bank of England be continued ?

Having thrown open the trade with India and China—
having abandone.l the system of differential duties in favour of
the.produce of our co'onies, and so far remodelled our tariff
as to open our ports to the products and manufactories of all
nations—why should gold alone be the subject of our excep-
tional legislation ?

To me it appears as clear as day-light, that free trade in
gold is the natural sequence of free trade in corn. But
somehow or other, an unaccountable "vis inertia" has taken
possession of our free traders with regard to the currency. The
law that was passed for the protection of the cultivators of the
soil has been totally repealed, but no league has been formed
to make a vigorous assault on the Act of Parliament, which
hedges in the powerful capitalist from danger, and gives him a
monopoly of the trade in money.

But, to return to the objection, that our commercial great-
ness had its origin in the currency legislation of the last half
century. The assertion is simply untrue. No one can
seriously entertain so strange a notion.

Our national industry,-and not that legislation—is, and
always was, and ever shall be, the foundation of our commer-
cial greatness,

It was this that gave us the empire of the sea—girdled the
earth with the jewelled zone of our commerce, and 'filled
" the Wide, wide world" with the renown of our merchant
princes—long before the present currency laws had a p!ace in
our statute book; aye, and when they shall be blotted out
for ever, similar, and not less glorious results, will be accom-
plished by the same plodding industry and untiring energy,
which have made this happy country the envy and admiration
of surrounding nations. I observe that the Times
attempts to overwhelm Mr. Muntz with an avalanche of ridi-
cule, but it won't do, friend Times. Every one feels that if
Mr. Muntz's letter was worthy of a place in your columns,
and furnished you with matter for one of your smartest leaders,
his arguments ought to have been met by argument, and not by
tomfoolery. I see you repeat your old challenge about the
,4 philosophic formula" of :the bank note. You ask Mr.
Muntz to produce his, as it ought to be. Then, you say, you
will take the two notes—his and the one you got yesterday at
the bs.nkees, and when you have compared them, you will tell
him frankly Which you like best. I accept your challenge, and I

shall answer your question in my nett.' I shall produt,,
sample of the note you have so often asked the anti-bullionists
to produce; and I shall ask, not you, but the commercial
world, which they like best—theformof a really national note,
or the form of the present Bank of England note. .
Liverpool, Nov. 20, 1856.