The Sun.
London, England, 1839-10-07 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON. MONDAY, OCTOBER 7. 1839.

Daises to pay, be it gold, silver, or oxen, may, on
demand be obtained for it, is the only proper way
to manage it, and keep it always on the same
level of value as the thing promised. That seems
to us the self-regulating principle, which no con-
trivance, no management, no making it a legal
tender, no placing it under Government offi-
cers, can ever equal. It is exactly like that admi-
rable contrivance, and not by any means inferior to
it, which is, we believe, called a governor, in a
steam-engine, which opens and shuts the valves,
according as the steam is generated more or less
rapidly, and secures one uniform and steady action,
and precludes the possibility of bursting the boiler.

A pamphlet, entitled " Thoughts on the Mo-
netary System, October 1, 1839," begins thus :
" Is the British circulating medium founded on the
principle of truth, or is it founded on the principle of
error ?

" If it be founded on truth it must work well.
" It does not work well, therefore it must be founded
on error."

We like such a beginning ; and we have already
poi►►ted out one palpable lie, which is at the bot-
tom of our monetary system, namely, that silver has
a relation in value to gold, which it actualy has
not. The Mint regulations are an arithmetical lie,
and they assert that 15 is 16. This is one of the
errors, on account of which the circulating medium
does not work well.

The Legislature also decrees that a promise to
pay issued by the Bank of England is an actual
payment, every where except at the Bank counter.
This is another Legislative lie. The two together
are enough to account for a multitude of evils.
The lawgiver says that a hundred, or a thousand
ounces of silver, offered at its value, in the market,
shall not be a legal payment, and that the promises
to pay of a company of proprietors, consisting of
nobody knows who, and governed by a set o: City
merchants, whose interests very often prompt them
to do wrong, shall be a legal payment. The law
not merely enacts a lie—we beg to be allowed to
speak plainly—but a palpable and gross absurdity
into the bargain.
Having thus laid bare some of the errors on
which our currency system is founded, we proceed
with our author. He goes on to show in what way
our system works ill, and he notices first the great
fluctuations in the quantity and value of money, it
being at one time so abundant that the least
pru-
dent can acquire it, and at other times so scarce
that the most careful and trustworthy is ruined for
want of enough to carry on his legitimate business.
The fluctuation in quantity and value " first stimu-
lates production, and then leaves the goods pro-
duced almost valueless in the market." The author
points out several other consequences of our present
monetary system, to some of which we shall here-
after direct attention; but we shall now advert to his
proposed remedy. He says—
" The alterations J propose are so trifling—the payment in
gold and silver at their market price, inhTeA of their Mirt
price, that I do not see any insurmountable difficulties in
the way of effecting such a change, though they may be
considerable ; but if they arc, our case may b. likened to
that of a traveller who has driven a great -distance- along a
bad road, which gets worse the further he goes; he finds it a •
great difficulty to return but twenty times more difficult to
go on."

In this we agree with him, but-his proposition, to
establish a new system, putting an end to our pre-
sent coins, is of a very questionable nature. We
do not think the latter at all the necessary con-
sequence of his own proposition. It would be only
necessary to rescind the Mint regulations, regu-
lating the value of gold and silver, and leave both
to find their value in the market. All the coins of
all denominations might remain just as they are,
but persons should be allowed henceforward to pay
all their debts, of above 11. sterling, in silver, by
weight. The mere privilege of- using either
metal would soon, by the common opera-
tions of commerce, make silver in weight the
means of paying debts, and of calculating all our
money transactions. That is quite compatible, we
believe, with preserving for all minor purposes, and
all the common transactions of life, the present silver
and gold coinage.

We know of no enactments made by the Legis-
lature for many years which have excited such de-
served and such indignant contempt as that pro-
duced among numerous classes by certain clauses
of the New Police Act. Certain Magistrates, too,
as if the clauses were not sufficiently ridiculous and
annoying of themselves, have raked up obsolete
clauses in other Acts for the purpose of carrying
out what they consider the spirit of this new piece
of legislation. An absolute rage seems to prevail
for making the law and the officers of
the law, and the very Sabbath itself, hateful to the
people. Boys are fined or sent to gaol for ringing
a muffin bell—publicans on one side of the metro-
polis are punished for what others on another side
may do with impunity, and even the venders of
ginger beer, and snuff, and oranges, and lollypop,
are visited with the punishment meted out by the
new Act to publicans for selling spirituous liquors.
By the construction put upon old and new Acts—
some of them as far back as the reign of CHA RLES
IL—the public are subjected to a system of harras-
sing inspection and wanton interference that could
hardly have been surpassed by the wildest dreams
of Sir ANDREW AGNEW, embodied in an Act of
Parliament. Sir ANDREW'S; plan, in fact, was more
equitable. He would have restrained the rich as
well as the poor, and made the law general through-
out the country. He would have placed Man-
chester and Liverpool and London on the same
footing, closed club-houses and hotels as
well as small taverns and ginger-beer shops,
shut the gates of parks and zoological gardens, and
all the toll gates throughout the kingdom, and
made Sunday one universal day of rest, leaving no
town and no class to envy another. As the law is
now administered, the reverse is the case. What
is sin in London, is no sin at Gravesend, and while
one man is forbidden to drink ginger-beer in the
East-end, another may drink champagne and
brandy and soda-water in the West to his heart's
content. The poorer and middle classes are struck
with the injustice of the law—naturally find- expe-
dients for evading it, and the Magistrates are forced_
to stretch the Act, and every clause of any Act that-
can bear on the point, in the vain attempt of effect-
ing an impossibility. And what is the consequence ?
The police constables that were looked upon as
protectors of the public are now regarded as spies
and informers, and the Magistrates and the. Go-
vernment are considered their abettors in enforcing
a system of espionnage unknown on the Lord
Day under the most arbitrary Government in Eu 7
rope. And all for what purpose?--to make. peo7
ple religious by means of punishment. It was not
thus that the Christian religion spread itse.lf over
the civilised world, but it was thus that the Catho...
lic religion fell into disrepute, and another of a more
.
liberal and Christian spirit sprung up in its place.
To the credit of the Episcopal clergy, always ex..
cepting the Bishop of LONDON, they have gene-.
rally shown themselves averse to such harsh and ab
surd enactments.

Brussels Papers of Friday received last night,
contain very long accounts of serious riots which
have taken place in the hitherto peaceable cite of
Ghent, and its vicinity, by which the peace of the
country has been to some extent endangered.
These accounts arc rather confused, but the follow-
ing is the substance of them :—Some extensive
manufacturers in Ghent in the course of the last
month, having lowered the wages of the workmen
there was a general strike, and for some days no
work was done. The poverty of several of the men
compelled them to accept the reduced rate of wages,
but their comrades threatened to maltreat them if
they attempted to work before the wages were
raised. The troubles which commenced some
days previously, says one of the journals, be-
came more serious on the Ist of October. To-
wards nightfall groups of workmen assembled on
the Place d'Armes, hissing and hooting, and as
their numbers increased occasionally shouting "The
Prince of ORANGE for API- I" A Commissary of
Police attempted to arrest one of the ringleaders,
but was rather roughly handled by the mob. M.
VAN DE POELE, the J Commandant of the town,
rode among the people in the expectation •
of inducing them quietly to disperse, but was as-
sailed with shouts of " The Prince of ORANGE
for ever !" and hardly escaped with his life, after
. .
sustaming some severe bruises. It was then
o'clock in the evening. The workmen attacked
the tree of liberty, but having no instruments, and
being frequently interrupted by the troops, which
kept the crowd at a distance but could not disperse
ithei;eahtl unable to pull
length raised a
the
muapde
biyittlteheprroogortess,s.
pile of wood round it and set it on fire ; in a few I
minutes, the tree being detached from its roots by

There is very little news o‘ any interest in the Paris
Journals of Friday and Saturday. The question