The Sun.
London, England, 1837-12-12 00:00:00

HEAD is also on the move ; and as he is a
man of great activity and dispatch, will probably return
with as much expedition as he went out, so
that we shall not be surprised to hear of his ar-
rival within a few days. The Government will thus
have the advantage of speedily communicating with him
in person, on the state of both Colonies. Variousreasons
have been assigned for the removal of the Governor,
and Lieutenant-Governor, but they appear any thing
but satisfactory. The statement that Sir FRANCIS
resigns, because he thinks the salary insufficient, is too
absurd to require refutation ; and Lord GOSFORD, on
his arrival in Canada, found his situation as irksome
as it could possibly be up to the latest date. One
would have expected, therefore, that when the
great trial came, he would have been anxious to
meet it with skill and courage. There must be
other reasons for the changes besides those given to
the public. Possibly the Government at home thought
the one functionary went too fast, and the other too
slow, and are prepared to pursue a middle course.
We have no doubt that it is their anxious wish to pre-
vent the inhabitants of the two Provinces from coining
into collision, and that they will make, every sacrifice
consistent with honour and safety, to prevent such an
awful calamity ; and we therefore trust that they will
not deem it too late to reconsider that obnoxious
resolution which has brought affairs in these
provinces to such an alarming crisis. The
whole authority, in the meantime, devolves on
Sir JOHN COLBORNE, and as he is well acquainted
with the state of public feeling, and has the character
of being a prudent and skilful officer, he is probably
as well qualified as any other individual to restrain the
fury of the two parties still the Government make an-
other attempt to effect an amicable arrangement.
There can surely be no truth in the report (probably
circulated by the Tories), that Colonel ARTHUR is
to be sent to Canada. If a firebrand were cast into a
barrel of gunpowder, what would be the result ?

Ever since England attained to any degree of eminence
as a commercial and manufacturing nation, she has been af-
flicted with periodical stagnations of trade, and prostrations
of mercantile prosperity. It is only of late years, however,
that these visitations have become ruinously frequent, and
their mischievous effects deep felt and extensive. It has

been alleged that there is something in the nature of things
which renders great enterprise incompatible with perfect
stability, but the more general belief is that fluctuations
and reverses are solely attributable to the defects of our
monetary system, and the errors in our fiscal regulations.
The former especially have been much dwelt on, and there
is every reason to expect that they will form one of the
most important topics of Parliamentary discussion during
the present session. It is highly necessary therefore that
the attention of the Press and the public should be directed
to an examination of the various schemes of amoiioration
which have been propounded, so that if the dangerous step
of " tampering with the currency"—dangerous, but we be-
lieve absolutely necessary—be resolsed on, it may be taken
in an enlightened spirit, and with good prospects of a final
settlement of the question.
For our own part we are not insensible to the benefits
which the present p::pr money system has conferred on
the nation, by developing industry and affording to the in-
genious and trustworthy the means of rising above penury ;
but when we reflect oa the disasters of the past year—the
utter ruin of hundreds of our most respectable merchants,
and the misery and starvation of thousands of our most in-
dustrious mechanics-em cannot help looking back with
some feeling of regret to the times when, if there was no
great facility for the extension of credit to those deserving
of it, nor ready opening for tile enterprising poor, neither
vies there any excessive stimulant to the thirst for gain, nor
much uncertainty in the returns for how st industry ;—to
mite it alternately flag under discouragements and re-
' verses, and overstrain its efforts beyond all reasonable
limits, by the excitement of riches corning suddenly within
the possibility of attainment. The sober, even-paced
ongoings of trade in former days—when the eydent eye and
the diligent hand of the to 'chanic secured to him with to-
lerable certainty the common necessaries of life, some little
leisure, and an easy mind ; and when probity and ordinary
I prudence in a merchant or manufacturer generally guaran-
teed to him a moderate and steady return on his capital,
have not been forsaken with unmixed advantage for the
more rapid and extensive, though less uniform and regular
march of modern speculation. We have at the same time
forsaken the frugality, the moderation of desires, and the
settled tranquillity with patient pains taking habits of our
fathers: Instead of b. ing content, as they were, to add
penny to penny and pound to pound deliberately following
out methodical life-long plans for thriving in a humble way,
and all the time taking intervals for a wholesome recrea-
tion ; we use the whip and spur to make a headlong dash
all at once for wealth, or wear ourselves out by incessant ap-
plication to an all-engrossing game of trade, to the neglect
of health, case, economy, and many of our social and do-
mestic duties.
But regrets are vain ; we are embarked on the stream,
and must of necessity go whithersoever it leads. It is the
duty of all wise men, however, without foolishly seeking to
stem the torrent, to endeavour to guide it into a safer and
more useful course. Paper money and its concomitant
some degree of speculation must exist—nay, it is well that
they should exist ; but may not the evils of an unlicensed
issue of the former, and a consequent unbridled indulgence
of the latter, be remedied by the adoption of some sound
principle of banking and currency, whereby both may be
preserved within due bounds, and made to minister to the
healthy demands of trade and commerce ?
We have before us a pamphlet published some months
ago, by TAIT, of Edinburgh, which has not yet attracted
that notice which, as a clear and philosophic inquiry into
the evils of our monetary system, and an original and
ingenious project for amelioration, it justly deserves. Its
title is, " Monetary Reform—a project for rendering
paper money independent of the precious metals and
invariable in its value, in three letters, by WILLIAM
Caoss." Without either pledging ourselves to the views
of the writer, or avowing a belief in the practicability of
his scheme, we think we cannot do better than lay a brief
outline of the contents of the pamphlet before our readers.
In the first letter Mr Cnoss, adopting the views of an
able writer in the Quarterly _Review, gives a clear and
forcible exposition of the effects of an increase or decrease
in the quantity of money in circulation in raising or low-
ering the price of goods, and concludes thus :
" Seeing, then, that besides the ordinary or relative fluc-
tuations in the prices of commodities, which are inseparable
from the nature of demand and supply, and harmless as re-
gards the great interests of society, there is another kind of
fluctuations which manifests itself in general rises and depres-
sions of prices ; that these general fluctuations are caused by
disturbances in the proportion between money (whether in-
trinsic or representative, that is, whether metallic or paper
money) and tho mass of goods of all sorts estimated and ex-
changed by means of it ; that such proportion is liable to be
disturbed by alterations in the supply of goods brought to mar-
ket as well as by changes in the productiveness of the mines,
and by the over-expansion or undue limitation of the issue of
paper money ; that a depression of the measure of value,
whether caused by a superabundance of the standard money, or
an over-issue of the paper currency which represents it, or by
a falling off in the supply of commodities, operates unfairly to
the loss of all whose incomes consist of fixed sums of money,
because they cannot therewith obtain so much in commodities
as formerly ;—seeing, too, that every elevation of the stan-
dard, or change in the proportion of commodities to money,
which gives an increased value or scarcity to the circulating
medium, is in the same degree disadvantageous to all who '
have fixed sums to pay out of the returns obtained for industry
and the employment of capital; and that such fluctuation, by
always inflicting unmerited loss on the one hand, and confer-
ring undeserved advantage on the other:makes trade a lottery,
industry uncertain of reward, haflieS the calculations of prudence,
and introduces an element of instability into all prospective
pecuniary arrangements, alike fatal to the permanence of en-
dowed institutions, and subversive of the principle of fore-
sight whichin s
my maitndpr,oivrrideisnisgtibfoler, tthheatfsuuteuhred;etrthimeencotanlelmuusiton
an.
worth of money ought never to be allowed to take
btieocnosmiuest,he
place if they can possibly be prevented. In other words, an
invariable standard of value should be adopted, if it be, by any
means attainable."
In the second letter Mr. CROSS reasons justly, that as
the quantity of commodities produced or brought to sale
must be liable to continual variations, tho only mode of
preserving a due proportion between the quantity of money
in circulation and the amount of property and goods to be
measured by that money, and thereby rendering the gene-
ral average of prices steady, is to subject the circulating
medium to regulation ; diminishing or augmenting it so as
to keep it always in the same relation to the varying quan-
tity of goods.
" To effect this purpose," he says, " it would be necessary that
there should be some rule whereby it might at all times be
known exactly whether the money in circulation had a tendency
to scarcity or superabundance. If lam not mistaken, the gene-
ral state of prices would afford such a rule. If the general
average of the prices of commodities exhibited a tendency to
fall, it would be plain that money was verging to a scarcity ;
or if, on the contrary, prices were generally advancing__
becoming somewhat higher in the aggregate—there would
be evidence that, to the same degree, there was too much
money in circulation.
" As an index for ascertaining the state of prices, a list
should be carefully made up of all or a number of the prin-
cipal articles of trade, such as wheat, iron, coals, wool, cot-
ton, flax, sugar, tea, and the precious metals, with the average
current price of each. Let the list comprise as much of all
these articles put together as may be worth at the time any
round sum of money—say 1001. or 1,000/. Let the propor-
tions of the several commodities to each other be determined
and fixed in the list, as nearly as can be found practicable,