The Sun.
London, England, 1855-12-21 00:00:00

THE CURRENCY QUESTION.

The following are the three letters addressed by Mr.
Salt to the editor of the Times, with the reply of th•

Times thereto :

Sir,—l think your comments on my sayings at
the meeting on the Bank Charter Act giTe me a
claim for a space in your columns for explanation.
You say that I " tantalise you with a promise of
safe but inexhaustible riches," and you assume that

a regulated issue of paper money would not give
the honest labourer full employment at remunera-

tion prices.
Thereon your imagination indulges' in an amus-
ing picture of a Chancellor of the Exchequer hunted
home by packs of countless thousands of Man-
chester spinners, Dorsetshire labourers, Spitalsfield
weavers, distressed needlewomsn, &a.
Witty if you will, but pray keep in mind that a
spice of wisdom would not mar your wit, and that
all decent feeling of humanity must for a moment 1
have slumbered, when you could enumerate so
lightly classes whose very names call up recolleo-
dons of suffering, neglect, and social crime too
strong for words.
But to return to your Chancellor hunt. What
are the facts 1
A. diminished issue of money has invariably re-
duced employment and multiplied deputations,—
set all the packs in full cry; while an increased
issue of money has invariably increased the em-
ployment of labour, put an end to deputations,
dispersed the packs, and left the Chancellor sleep-
ing undisturbed in his form. During these re-
laxations of the money laws the deadly discords
between the Government and the people hay.
()eased ; oven Chartism has been voiceless, and the
governing and the governed seem to have forgotten
each other's mutual existence.
But you appear to doubt that such will be the
result of an increased issue of legal tender. Let u

see what will become of it.
It will not be locked up, because, while it is so,
imterest is forfeited and capital also, as much so 10
if it did not exist. Therefore it will be made some
use of. Nov, the ingenuity of man cannot devise
a mode of employing money without employing
labour to that extent ; and if the issue of money
he maintained, the power that creates wealth will
always effect its distribution ministering equally
to national wealth and individual happiness, and
what you call one of my " deliciousinowents" will
be so far perpetuated.
But a fear crosses your mind. " Who," say you,
"is to stop the floodgates ?" I ask, who stops
them now ? The law ! lEve we not 14 millions
of legal tender paper issued on debt-14 millions
of paper convertible into gold, without an ounce of
gold to satisfy the promise ? You see, sir, that the
system you uphold is not a pure and perfect chry-
solite. It is the law and not the gold that limits
this issue, and closes your floodgates.
Then comes the question—Why was this amount
of inconvertible paper fixed at 14 millions ? Be-
cause it was needful for an indebted Government.

But shall there be no honey for the people, and
would it not be more creditable that the necessities
of the governed should be considered as well as
those of the governing t Is it the end for which
Government was created that it should take care of
itself, and utterly neglect and damage the interests
of the people I
You say " there is a force and simplicity in the
words, I promise to pay on demand."' Now, I
will grapple with you on that point, and show that,
taking these words in the sense used in the Bank
of England note, they contain more of fraud, folly,
Lnd mystification than any words in human lan-

page.
Ttie law assumes assigning to the promise to pay
a definite quantity of gold, it fixes the value of the
note. It does no such thing as fix that value.
Abundance and scarcity are the only regulators of
value.
By the issue of paper money, in addition to gold
money, money is made more abundant ; abundant
money creates confidence, investments are multi.
plied, a vast quantity of bills at a date are created,
this increased quantity of money and the increased
rapidity of its circulation lower its value, till the
exportation of gold and the withdrawal of the
paper again lower the prices, and so all trade is
made an alternative of speculation and ruin ; honest
industry is sacrificed, and the watchers of the turn
of the market alone thrive, and this is the plain
and simple meaning of " I promise to pay."
From an inherent necessity the use of paper
money has grown in proportion to the progress of
comm
commercial civilisation, till it bears a dominant
proportion to the use of metallic money, that the
metallic money, though it can disarrange, is power-
less to regulate.
The fixing the price of gold by Sir Robert Peel's
bill is pure Jack Cadeism. If fixing the price
fixes the value, why not fix the price of every-
thing ? Why not fix the price of bread at id. the
quarter" loaf ? Simply because fixing the price
does not fix, but merely disguises, the fluctuations
in the value of our legal tender—fluctuations which
arbitrarily disturb and alter all other values.
Hence the frequent ruin that has broken up our
prosperity, disorganised all its elements, and made
our wealth, our insolvency, and our pauperism
alternately the wonder of the world.
Hence it is that the Times, awakened from its
I" delicious dream," has to guess and wonder
whether We shall get over the 4th of each month