The Sun.
London, England, 1854-02-20 00:00:00

SPAIN.

Our accounts from Madrid are of the 14th inst.
The Hera/do states that there was no truth in
the report that the Government intended to re-
organize the Royal Council.
The Queen had ordered that the measures
adopted in the capital, for the relief of the indigent
e,nd labouring classes, should be extended to all
the districts of the kingdom in which a scarcity of
provisions was experienced.
The war steamer Leon, having on hoard the
Marquis del Duero, arrived at the port of Santa
cruz, of Teneriffe, from Cadiz, on the 3d. inst.
The Prince and Princess of Joinville, who accom-
panied Queen Marie Amelie on a visit to the Duke
and Duchess of Montpensier, at Seville, intended
to make a tour through Andalusia. They were to
leave Seville on the 9th for Cordova, and to pro-
ceed from thence to Granada, Malaga, &c. Being
anxious to know the country, they were to perform
the greatest part of the journey on horseback.
The Three per Cents. were done at 37i . the
New Three per Cents., at 191 ; the Debt of the
First Class, at 8 ; and that of the Second at 4g.
A telegraphic despatch from Madrid of the 15th,
announces that the Gazette of that day publishes a
Royal decree, ordering the names of General Jose
de la Concha and of General O'Donnell to be
*truck off the list of the Spanisarmy.

SIR,—It appears to me that now is the time when the
plan proposed by Mr. James Wilson, M.P., in the
Economist of 1847, and republished in his work on
" Cui rency, Capital, and Banking," may, with one im•
portant alteration, be adopted with great advantage to
the country.
We are on the eve of war,—money must be found for
carrying it on,—to raise it by loan would be to make it
dearer when commerce is already suffering by its being
too high— to raise it by fresh taxes would be puting ad-
ditional weight on the springs of industry and checking
our onward course of commercial prosperity,—our flood
tide would be converted into an ebb tide. This may be
averted in a great degree by adopting in part Mr. Wil-
son's plan. He proposed to issue through the Bank of
England, or some separate department of issue, thirty
millions of one pound notes in exchange for thirty
millions of sovereigns, depo,itilig ten millions of sove-
reigns and twenty millions of Government Stock as
a guarantee at once for their convertibility and
safety. Let the plan be so far altered as to substi-
tute the national guarantee for the actual deposit of
Government Stock, and the country will obtain twenty
millions with the least derangement to its commercial
and financial transactions. For a defence of the sound-
ness of the principles on which Mr. Wilson's plan is
based, T refer to his able and convincing arguments on
the subject. There is a prejudice in England against the
use of one pound notes, but it is a prejudice and nothing
else, arising from the discredit into which the one pound
notes of the country bankers fell in the panic of 1825,
and which panic was stopped by an issue of one pound
notes (accidentally found) by the Bank of England. In
Scotland they actually prefer one pound notes to gold,
and it is no uncommon occurrence for a traveller on ten-
dering gold for payment of his bill at an hotel to be
asked for notes. And surely if the public can place
such confidence in the notes of a joint-stock company,
they will not have less confidence in notes which the
nation guarantees.
There is naturally and properly a jealousy against en-
trusting the Government with the power of issuing paper
money, a power that has in almost every instance been
abused ; but in the mode recommended the power of
issue is limited—the operation cannot be repeated or
extended.
The very purpose for which the money so raised would
in a great degree be probably expended, in payments
abroad for the use of the army, would obviate the only
objection to which Mr. Wilson's plan in ordinary times
might be open ; for although, as he justly observes, it
would not add a shilling to the circulation, as circulation
adjusts itself to the requirements of trade—yet it would
increase the capital of the country, and tend to raise
prices ; whereas by its expenditure abroad, this derange-
ment woull be avoided.
Should the war be happily averted, the same plan
judiciously and gradually adopted, would enable the
country to get quit of the taxes on knowledge, and to
liberate commerce still further.
If you can find room for the foregoing, you will oblige,
Sir, yours sincerely,
HAMER STANSFELD.
The Grange, Burley, near Otley, 15th Feb., 1854.