The Sun.
London, England, 1839-11-16 00:00:00

by giving an irhilt;nna! twig' to the averages. that th-
Corn-laws (0 16:2::: and were passed, re-
turns with all their defects are in general competent for
comparison, but the corn returns are distorted and ren-
dered useless. For instance, the annual average of
wheat in England and Wales for the five years, 1802-6,
was 71s. ; the annual average of 1825-9 appears much
less, appears 625. ; but in the first instance of 1802-6,
the average was so taken as to be only 10 per cent.
below the accurate and uniform prices of best wheat re-
gistered at Eton College for those years ; whereas
in 1825-9 the averages were so taken as to be 28 per
cent. below the Eton prices for those years, (all per
imperial quarter) and add'ng the difference, 18 per cent.,
it makes the latter period of five years dearer than the
former, instead of much cheaper, as appears at first
sight. Add to this the scarcity and preciousness of
money, which has kept, for instance, the total exports
of England at a lower numerary price than in 1801.
though, in the meantime they have perhaps trebled in
quantity and real value, and when these two points are
considered, it is probable that wheat has remained dur-
ing the last twenty years at a really higher price than
the 80s. coveted in 1815..

The slightest inspection of the returns shows,
that the general course of prices has always been
governed by changes in currency. The dis-
missal of a manager from one of the banks
in Cork was enough to show the principle ;
this circumstance immediately became a party
matter, and the banks were obliged to take precautions
which lowered the price of corn in that town, five shil-
lings per quarter. During fifty years, excepting the
glut which followed the great exertions made to supply
the waste of war, excepting also the bad harvests of
1795, 1800, and 1816, prices have varied in the most
evident manner even for periods so short as five years,
with
e followingcurrency, and the withdrawal of small
notesw
the greatest depression of all.
T
are not intended as scien-
tific iht thea sfoll extent
propositionsw o o f
followed
by
novelties, but as absolute truisms. It seems
evident-
1. That any changes in the proportion borne by cur-
rency to transactions affects the remuneration of all
persons actively concerned. If labour in 1815 was
worthy of its hire, if it has since increased three-fold
and currency remained the same, every industrious per-
son has been mulcted two-thirds of his reward, or there-
abouts.

2. That an influx of bullion is only valuable as a
sign that industry flourishes ; that scarcity of money,
while debts and taxes remain the same, depresses in-
dustry more than all other causes, consequently the
means adopted with the feigned object of regulating
exchanges have tended to keep them against us.
3. That any considerable expansion of currency with-
out small notes is confessedly impossible ; that the cia
mour against them originated with Cobbett, who
would never have cried down the small notes if
he had had plenty of them in his own pocket, and
who cried up gold in the Register, as he did locust-
trees and rutabaga ; that instead of panic arising
among the holders of small notes they were proved by
two directors to have stopped the panic of 1825 ; that
panics never occur in Scotland where they circulate ;
and that during twelve years, from 1797 to 1809, they
were taken at full value in England, even when incon-
vertible, while the depreciation, which commenced 12
years after suspension of cash payments, had reference
merely to our military chest in the Peninsula. (Gar-
wood passim.)
4. That if industry were not defrauded of payment by
change in value of money, encouraged by " protection"
where it is impossible, and literally deprived of bread
by the Corn-lam, the metals would always tend to
Britain.

5. That fundholders and all salaried persons have ana-

t ural bias towards increasing the rarity of money and so
raising the value of fixed incomes. The salaried Ministers
;laving never acquired influence enough to bring about any
national financial exertion have trusted entirely to loans,
from a state nectssity of giving unlimited profits to
fundholders, so that lenders may never be wanting.
Yet an expansion of currency would, if any thing,
raise the price of funds, because it would affect both
the annuity and the price. As to the original bargain
with fundholders, why not consider them as purchasers
of a fixed annuity in such a currency as is required,
and would be required if fundholders had never ex-
isted, by the general business of the country ? Other
biassed supporters of a restricted and totally insufficient
currency are not wanting ; especially the Bank Direc-
tors who contrive to wield it exactly at their will and
prefer their own allies in dispensing it, also the private
bankers who retain without paying interest such masses
of the annual dividends, also the dealers in bills and
bullion who prefer being paid in so portable a medium
as gold, while its continual vicissitudes every where
but here give them a profit on each transit. Here we
have the Ministers, the fundholders, the bankers, the
money-changers, all arrayed against the real interests of
trade ; the press, unhappily, swells the triumph and
partakes the gale.
To place our trade in such a state as may secure
the constant tendency of specie towards Englund
may not be the work of a day ; but in the meantime
the difficulty of retaining bullion is, charitably speak-
ing, imaginary. The sovereign being intrinsically
worth more than twenty shillings, when bullion is

required as now, the sovereigri is exported and not
the twenty shillings. In the case of importation,
the shillings would be imported and not the sovereign ;
so that the gold, whose presence is made the test of our
solvency, can never be found when wanted, nor does the
Bank, obdurate in the system of contraction, make any
great efforts to find it.
In fact the gold of the whole world will not suffice
for English and American trade. Silver bap always
been " the pale and common drudge 'twixt man and
man." Even now, by an Order in Council, (for where
is the use of discussing tlis subject in a house of twenty
members ?) let notes be paid in bars of silver at the
most ancient weight and purity of standard, and let
the price of gold vary with the exchanges ; then ex-
tend the currency by small notes, thus virtually making
" silver as stones," and let every security which the
Bank would have been justified in holding at any time ,
be held by them at all times, at a rate of interest to be
fixed as soon as possible. Let notes be convertible a►s
in Scotland, but don't convert them for us with a ven-
geance : Either the people like small notes or they dis-
like them : possibly they approve a system by which no
sum under 51. can be sent by the new Penny Post—
then try them, by issuing papers bearing two ten-shil-
ling notes capable of being separated, and just observe
how many return from circulation divided and how
many undivided. How is it possible to unite the sage
maxim that the 11. note drives out the sovereign, with
that other which attributes panics to the holders of
small notes running for sovereigns ?
The American President Van Buren spoke in 1836
as if the metals could not be had for exportation except
by being suddenly withdrawn from internal circulation,
and this perhaps is .:he one fatal theoretic blunder which

has given the bank its pretences all along. So, when
the absence of specie from Scotland is remarked, people
say that if the Scotch had foreign trade to conduct they
would circulate gold, as if forsooth gold could be ob-
tained by no other channel than the domestic currency,
whereas the commerce in bills and bullion engages the
constant attention of the Jewish fraternity. The French
Solomon draws on the English Levy and sells his bill to
his neighbour Israel who indorses it to his English cousin
Abraham. When Solomon can draw no more bills on

, England because England owes him nothing, gold is
wanted and Moses furnishes it. Surely gold may be had
at market price with as much certainty as cochmille or
indigo, and silver still more certainly. The necessity of
metals for exportation must be a reason the more for
not hiding them up and dow n and recalling them by a
most dangerous process. Again, when the public act
on the Bank and bring no tes for gold, the circula-
tion is of course diminished- —unavoidably if the unfa-
vourable exchange is unavoic table ; this, however, is the
moment chosen by the Bank. for refusing advances and
contracting still more. The Bank of France was un-
derstood to pursue an opposite course in 1836, or the
comparatively slender thread of French credit would
have been absolutely broken.
And yet every attempt to re .medy this asphyzie, this
suffocating vacuum, is oppose d with unmitigable hosti-
lity. Mr. Rice disparaged . Toint-Stock Banks, Mr.
Clay said that Scotch banking was usually considered a
phenomenon not reducible to any known rules, and I
perfectly remember a similar r emark in the City article
of the Times, when some Quis.ote threw a considerable
fortune into O'Connell's bank, , as a proof of unlimited
4 confidence in him, and as a met ins of introducing capital
it: to Ireland by making the ab, origines themselves capi-
taliso in a small way. So in 1 826 it was determined to
knock up Ole free and sound circulation of Scotland,
whet: the Let'ers of Malagr owther, by Sir Walter
Scott, produced a.:l extraordinary impulse and saved the
the
country from ruin. Suppose Scott had failedisters in
Min
that extraordinary
w ,in
effort,
le would ha‘
of that day acted as unjustly as
the President Jackson in ; t
similarspecie order of 1836 sudden!, v refused to take the notes
Pd their charter,
and wrote them down in all
of the United States Bank h i pay
. ,nentcaosfer, who
evenueb,
with-
drew ithhi :
drew the Government balanc :es, veto-
the , papees, avowedly be-
cause they voted against him 4.t his election. If our
Government in 1826 had surseenti led in their caprice of
assimilation, what would have 1 )ecome of this bankiog
" phenomenon ?" The canny ' Scots have resisted all
attacks, and reclaimed their cot antry from poverty and
feuds by their elastic cur,
icy i A local small notes, but
England remains with a beavet iof brass and an earth of
iron. During 800
years we ' o.re scarcely seen a foreign
army,
consequently our pill A tuality and good faith are
proverbial ;our
labour, consequently we n ork more hours in the day
climate is such as never to interrupt
and more in those hours than any other people ; give
, ~, forward valuable :
ns a little Scotch prudence and we could well maint ,in
a perfectly convertible cur rency of 100 millions. After
bs tea te
advancedcxpe oe expenses, tthhee
paying 29 millions to stock nolders, besides sinecures and
r memoastm
pdi,ejtofotnh agtelnouoi n me itlrl iaotnl wouldtransactions
. n s
brinninc,
pftrocluce to justify the ad-
vances, and leaving the cur rear,still too small to repre-
sent the further transarAions cy
arising out of that pro-
duce. If the industry arid plj ,netZity of a nation are