The Sun.
London, England, 1839-11-19 00:00:00

by costly "beans, by a rural police and a large military
force, the injury, if not the ruin, of different
classes has, in fact, been successively achieved by
the subtle and obscure operation of the currency
in the hands of the Bank of England. Is it not
strange, passing strange, that the Legislature which
professes such a holy horror of allowing the prero-
gative of coining to be usurped by individuals,
should place the whole supply of money in the
hands of a few merchants ; and is it not still more
than passing strange that it has given them no:
only the power to alter the great measure of all
value as suits their purposes, but has made it for
their interest, contrary to the general interest of
men in trade, to ruin their customers that they may
enrich themselves ? All classes must be succes-
sively customers of the Bank ; now the landlords
want to borrow, next the merchants, so that it has
all in turn, and the disasters of all are turned succes-
sively to its profit. While the Bank has thus so much
shortened the circulation, it has been, and is dis-
counting at the rate of 6 per cent., so that it coins
the public distress into gold to fill its own coffers.

Mr. PoULETT THOMSON is no longer here to
see the effect of his own handiwork, but the de-

vice attributed to him, and certainly supported b

him and the Ministers when the Bank Charter was
renewed, of making Bank of England notes a legal
tender, has added amazingly to the power of the
Bank, and to the mischief inflicted by it on the
community. Its great capital was not enough to
secure credit and circulation for its notes, and so
the Ministers gave them a legal advantage which
they denied to all other bank notes. They gave to
Bank of England notes a value as a legal tender
over and above all others, and over and above the
credit of the Bank, of which the result was and is
to give theni the command of the market, to keep
down the circulation of other paper, and reduce the
community to the necessity of carrying on its busi-
ness with little more than half the required quantity
of money. Such a state of things cannot, we be-
lieve, last; but whether it shall be rationally and
quietly terminated, or whether it shall be termi-
nated by violence and fraud, will depend on the know-
ledge and sagacity which the influential part of the
mercantile community may at once bring to bear on
the subject.

The author of the pamphlet we have quoted—
which is one of no ordinary merit—refers to the
employment of a silver standard ; but he says that

it could not by any possibility assist us in our pre
sent dilemma, which is the want of bullion of both
kinds. But were payments in silver legalized to
any amount, a sound and safe paper currency, pro-
portionte to the amount of silver in hand, might
immediately be issued, (just as we have a cramped
paper circulation on a small amount of gold,) which
paper currency would go a long way to give re-
lief, and would be a more safe and a more honest
expedient than authorizing or compelling the
Bank to stop. Suppose the Bank of England, and
other banks, instead of confining themselves to an
issue of notes to pay 51. and 101. sterling, and so
on, were to issue notes to pay on demand five ounces,
ten ounces, and so on, of silver ; and we are by no
means sure that individuals or Companies might
not at present legally issue such notes to any
amount ; for silver by weight is a merchandise
not a coin, and none of the laws relative to the
coinage would stop it ; immediate relief would be
given. The metallic basis of the currency would
be extended by the amount of all the silver in cir-
culation or in bankers' hands. It is a sound bank-
ing system when the issue of paper does not exceed
thrice the amount of bullion in the coffers of the
banker (infinitely more sound than the suffrance
and bankrupt system of the Bank of England,
with paper in circulation exceeding eight times the
value of the bullion in its coffers)—and thus by this
plan, the whole amount of money, sound, good, and
valuable money, might be immediately augmented by
the whole amount of silver in the country in use or
convertible to money,and by twice or thrice that amount
of sound paper based on the silver. We know not
what, but we are sure something must be done to
place our currency on a better footing, and that a
state of perfect freedom as to banking, and as to the
coining and issue of money, would be infinitely pre-
ferable as a remedy to the many quackish nostrums
which are now proposed by scheming and theoreti-
cal men.

The merchants of Quebec have already made an
attempt to convert the new Governor-General, Mr.
P. THOMSON, to their peculiar views on the sub-
ject of trade. There is nothing, when hostility is
dreaded, like taking the field early—first, if possible.

It argues courage, and a conviction that one of the
belligerents has confidence in the justice of his
cause. After the first levee held by his Excellency
on the 9th ult., the Committee of Trade of Quebec
approached the Governor with their first " loyal "
address, of which the following extract comprises
the substance :