Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-02-23 00:00:00

Liverpool, Feb. 19, 1859.

WATER FOR _TRAM ERE.
TO TEE EDITOR OF THE NORTHERN TIMES

Sir,—As usual in this township, when anything
is proposed calculated to secure health, and make
this wretched place something like a fit place to
dwell in, the very effort to do the smallest possible
amount of good is invariably marred, owing to the
feeling which exists in one party against the
other, and this feeling is generally so comfortably
kept up, that any one anxious to stand aloof and
work out what little good he can, can do nothing
at all, unless he boldly fli9closes himself either a
Montagu or a Capulet —a plague on both your
houses, say I, give us ~sonze water as quickly
as it can be got, and as cheap as we
can get it. I munt certainly say, the
Wirral Company were first in "the field, and if
the promoters had been content with something
less than 7,-j- per cent. on a rental up to £25, and
not have introduced such a clause as that, if there
are fifteen houses, and only one is willing to take
the water, he cannot-get it, and must be content
to be without, just 'Because a lot of dirty folks
don't want water, or, what is more likely, 'don't
want to pay for it ; and have put the poor man, at
all events, on a level with the rich, as to price, or,
indeed, somewhat lower. What right has a man
at a rental of £lO per annum to pay so much as
15s. a year for theiouantity he will use ? I•desire
water, and I am 'willing to pay for it, whether it
comes from the Wirral Company, or under the
Local Act, but "want to pay a moderate price ;
indeed, I think -my L landlord ought to pay it.
He, like others, has advanced the rent of my cot-
tage during the last three years, more money than
'would pay the whole of the rates on the house,
including water rate ; and it is a pity that there
is not an act, local or otherwise, that would compel
every builder of cottage property to sewer and
drain, and sink a well for water, before he is
allowed to build. In conclusion, let us have water
either under the Local Act, or from the Wirrall
Company, under a modified arrangement, and I
must confess that I have not much faith in two or
three of the parties who are busying themselves
about the Local Act, and, notwithstanding all Mr,
John Williams's eloquence, I think, while the grass
is growing, as far as the Local Act is concerned,,
the steed will be starving.—Yours obediently, Mr.
GROSVENOR STREET.

Editor

THE BANK ACTg.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE NORTHERN TIMES

Sir,— Skilled labour, manual as well as mental,
can generally earn on an average a pound a week.
Hence our pound sterling, which embodies in the
handy compass of itself a primary or intrinsic
value as standard gold bullion, and a secondary. or
current value as a legal tender coin, appears to ,be
more suited than the silver florin to circulate in
our currency as . the standard unit of monetary
value. At the Royal Mint £1,869 sterling .are
coined from 40 lbs troy of standard gold bullion,
thereby legally and properly establishing the
weight and fineness of the pound sterling ; but
that £1,869 sterling should be given to the bullion
dealers in exchange for this 401bs of gold bullion,
is really very absurd, for what is there in this
standard gold bullion to make it an exception to
the general laws of free trade, which would em-
power the Royal Mint to purchase this bullion at
its market or world-wide priee, and not as now, at
the fixed and par price of £3 17s laid per ounce.
Say that our Government had to their credit,
at the Royal_ Mint and its affiliated branches, an
aggregate reserve of standard gold to the extent
of fifteen million pounds sterling, and that a
reserve of this amount should, in the opinion of
bankers and others well able to judge, be deemed
sufficient on which to found a Government or
Royal Mint issue of bearer notes promising to pay
therefrom to the bearer, on demand, sums of £5
sterling and upwards, surely it would be time
enough to extend the issues of pounds sterling, as
represented by these bearer notes, from the pay-
ment of the public expenditure to the purchasing
of standard gold bullion at its par price, when the
aggregate reserve .of this bullion was under, and
not when it was over, this large amount of fifteen
million pounds sterling ; because, if the bearer
notes failed to maintain the
.Government reserves
of gold at any desired amount, recourse could be
had to exchequer notes to effect the purchases
required, or the bearer .notes might, at the option
of their holders, be exchanged for exchequer notes,
at their relative and comparative values, 'ex-gratia
101 or 51 45 exchequer notes for 100 or 50 £5
bearer notes.
This substitution of exchequer notes, which would
be issued for sums of one pound and upwards- for
bearer notes, which would be issued for sums of
£5, and upwards, would, in times of monetary
pressure and panic, keep down the rate of dis-
discount on mercantile bills of exchange, and, as
observed in my letter in the Morning Chronicle, of
London, Thursday, December 31st, 1837, effectu-
ally check the hoarding and exportation of gold,
not by prohibiting, nor by imposing any duty on
its withdrawal or export, but simply by outbidding
the foreigner or forestaller in our own markets—
that is by giving a better price for it in our own
currency, say sixpence or a shilling above its par
price, £3 17s. 103 d. per ounce.
With respect to the reeoinage:of our home coins
of gold, which, through wear and .tear, should have
become too light _ for further circulation; these I

sovereigns and half sovereigns would be exchanged
for similar ones of full weight, at a reduction of
three halfpence per ounce from :their par price, but
foreign coins and standard gold bullion at their
market, or world-wide price, which might vary
perhaps, froma shilling under to a shilling over
the aforesaid-par price.
The bullion dealer imports gold into this country,
and -whether. the currency requires it or not the
Bank of England, as the agent of the Royal Mint,
is compelled by law to make it a part of the cur-
rency, by giving its legal tender Bank of England
Nofes in exchange for
the same, at the fixed price
of £3 17s 9d per ounce, which is three .half-pence
less than the par price of the gold at.the Royal Mint.
These bearer notes the bullion dealer lends out, tem-
porarily to the public, on the deposit of .consols,
warrants for goods, bills of exchange, or other
Money equally negotiable securities.
thus becomes
cheap, the rate of discount low, consols
and
'llied
lake aggooousi
generally rise in value, and merchants n
profit out of the articles they sell. All of a
such©n
these loans are called in, the bearer notes taken
the bank, and the gold taken out of the coun-t,',,0
to play the same pranks abroad. Money at 1104
thus becomes dear, the rate of discount of high
railway shares fall, and here and there merchants
find themselves ruined by the sudden, and, to them,
unaccountable depreciation of the stocks they have
Such is the innoutrovertible operation
:k Charter Act of J 844... It was to pre-
vent this disastrous state of things, this unneces-
sary fluctuation in the value of money, that I

in han

of the B

pro-posed, as well in your columns as in those of
the Morning Chronicle, of March 13th, 1856, these
amendments of that act, viz., the occasional and
substitution of exchequer _ notes for

necessary

bearer notes in the bank, purchases of gold from I
the public, and the consequent wifixing of the
price of standard gold bullion represented by the
samc. The motto of the present act being, " takc

cam of the notes, and the gold will take care of
itt4elt" and the motto of the amended one being,
"‘ take care of the gold, and The notes will take
care of themselves."

Gold, then, being the basis of our currency, it is

_
of the utmost importance that we should retain a
sufficient quantity of it in reserve, so as to ensure
the immediate eonvertability of the bearer notes,
which, upon the faith of such conversion,
we circulate at par with the gold itself.
The issuers of our legal tender notes, require the
authority to keep up their reserves of gold in the
same way. that Water Companies are authorised to
keep up their reservoirs of water— by inducing the
water or gold to flow in as fast as the exchanges
of the ecnntry require this same water or gold to
flow out. And the influx ,of this gold into the
Royal Mint, in exchange fat its bearer notes, should.
as near as possible be simultaneous with the re-
turn.-cf these notes in exchange for the Mint gold.
The whole of which should be purchased with
beater notes and exchequer notes. Because, if
this gold be otherwise borrowed or purchased by
the Royal Mint, as by the sale of its 3 per cent.
Government stock, the legal tender notes which
we require in our currency will be returned to the
Royal Mint, and withdraw from our circulation rst
;home, and thus we should be conferring a benefit
-on the Mint at the expense of ourselves. The
same objection applies to exchequer bills bearing
interest of so much per day.
The British nation furnish their government
with the means of spending on an average —one
and a quarter : million pounds sterling per week ;
but seem afraid to trust their government with a
ten week's supply beforehand, for fear this trusted
reserve of twelve and a half million pounds sterling
should not be kept in hand.
This mistrust, which perhaps is too well
founded, might be got over by the institution of
a Royal Mint and Exchequer Bank with COM-
missioners appointed by the Joint Stock and
Private Banks, to see that no part of this reserve
was issued from the Government Bank, except in
payment of the public expenditure as ordered by -a
Reformed House of Commons; and in the purchase
of standard gold bullion at its market or world-
wide price, which would be regulated by the state
of the bank's reserve, and the quantity, of gold
offered to it for sale. But the institution of this
bank,, with the exclusive right delegated .to it by
the Legislature of issuing legal tender notes as
well as legal tender coins, need not interfere
with the present issues of established
banks, nor with the prospective issues
of any future one ; for banks and their
customers would be more free than ever to
interchange their respective promissory notes, and
banks to endorse their customers' bills of exchange,
upon the payment of a premium, so as to ensure
the promised payment of the same. Thus, also,
by depriving the. Bank of England note of the
privilege which it never ought to have possessed,
of circulating in our currency as legal tender, can
the much desired repeal of the paper duty take
place.—l am sir, yours, &c., THOMAS FURNIVAL.
17, Victoria Park Square, London, N.E.

TRUE STATEMENTS FROM NEW
BRUNSWICK.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE NORTHERN TIMES.

Sir, A letter addressed to the editor of the
Morning Post (London paper) has made its ap-
pearance in an obscure Ideal New Brunswick
paper, the advocate of the projected, so called,
liberal government of that province. It is headed
The North American Federation, and is written,
it is presumed, by a person who only very lately
came into the country, whence very few know.
How he comes to know so much, as his pretensions
seem to boast, of American politics, is alike a
mystery. He has, however, been a active partisan
of the present very respectable liberal party since
his advent, and has gone through fire and water
to bespatter their opponents with his Billingsgate
in the said local paper ; and he has had his reward
for so doing, and for beleaguing his patrons, by
enjoying their substantial patronage. It is not
difficult to see that he has again had his cue from
those patrons in his late effusion, called " The
American Federation." It is part and parcel of
the policy of the present executive of this province
to try to bully their present chief, the Lieutenant-
Genqral of the province, on all occasions, and to
try to intimidate, or seem to intimidate, the
Colonial Officer, and Home Government. This is
the little secret which will interpret the whole of
that and similar other epistles of this gentleman,
who, whoever and whatever he may be, or may
have been, resembles not a little, and has, it is
said, been mistaken by his appearance for, one of
the old indigenous tribes of this province.
Now, is the press; and is the public of Britain
to be mislead on such authority as this ?—on what,
it is fair to admit, are matters of vast importance
to these colonies, and to the mother country ?
Are not only the upper classes who read the
Morning Post, but even the lower orders who
may feel disposed to emigrate, under the mistaken
notion of bettering their position and for-
tunes, to be gulle, as they surely will be,
if they pin their faith to this writer from Frede-
rictown, who, it may be presumed, ought to know,
but either does not know, or wilfully mirepresents
the true state of matters here.

It is certainly most erroneous, not to say untrue,
that -" the day labourer who digs one's garden,
thrashes one's oats, can earn 10s. a day in this
province in the wood's during winter, and from 58.
to 7s. 6d. a day at the mills in the summer." This
-is very, very far from being either correct on the
long run, or true ; and the way it is put, not as an
open assertion—which, however he wishes his
readers to take it for—is most disingenuous and
cunning. " The day labourer," he says, " who
digs one's garden, thrashes one's oats, or ploughs
one's fallow, and can earn 10s. a day in the woods
during winter (that is, if he could), and from ss.
to is. 6d. a day at the mills in the summer,
although bimanous and biped, possessing a single
stomach, and three kinds of teeth,' differs very
much from the gray-haired English drudge, with
' a grandchild by his side,' the delight of the
poetical Mr. Bontes." Now this, evidently,' is all
hypothetic. It is so in language, and more, it is
so in fact; for such wages in this province, even in
currency, do not exist, and, more, have never, to
my knoweldge, been realised in this province.
The present promised rate of wages in the woods
is from £2 10s. to £3 103. currency per week, and,
be it known to all English labourers, that this

the week, or even by the month;
but may, or may not, be received even in May or
June, when those labourers are professed to be
settled with by their employers. No ! They are
almost invariably compelled, by their necessities,
and by the dread of being finally cheated out of
their hard earnings, to take out their pay from
lumber stores, or orders in provisions or clothing
for their families, at enormously enhanced prices ;
and for this sad state of things, in the present
state of the lumber system, there appears to be
no remedy, since those who make the laws in
the House of Assembly are, as the ma-
jority, mostly large lumber-men themselves,

e is not paid I

)r intimately Conneefed with the lumber system

hence the really degraded and oppressed condi-
tion of the. lower or working classes generally,

agricultural and lumbering, of this Province. For
myself, I have been tolerably well acquainted
with :the state of the labouring ,classes in the Old
Country as well as in this. In these country
I know the state of the agricultural
portion intimately, from being closely connected
with it; ,1 know, too, the state, the endurance,
ind the ;,.any vicious customs, usuages, the
and sufferings of, the lumbering
community, koth from neighbourhood and from
the knowledge .derived in a magisterial capacity,
aixd I do not hesitate to say, that there is much
more oppression, and at times, much more privation
among the labouring classes of this province, than
among those of a similar class in Britain.
,he state of education, too, is very much mis-
re T
far
piesented, The people of the Old Country have
more Privileges and advantages in educational
matters than here.
instituted. It is a rash No
and cfomparison can be
oundled insinuation
that tens of thousands of unfounded insinuation
that tens of thousands of the children
of New
" _
Brunswick, attending the common
geography
have imbibed grammar,
land surveying, history, book'

district

Outrages; upon

schools,

PiPusuration,