The Sun.
London, England, 1822-03-27 00:00:00

AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS.
FOR THE SUN.
Enra.Oß—The writer of • certain articles
in your papers of the 26th of last month and the
'Ash and' 21st of this, on the Currency, begs
leave to .add to what he has -already said with
regard to the late prernatorea change of it, to
which he attributes the greater part of our pre-
sent miseries, his willing testimony to the con-
duat of that respectable body the Bank of England,
hich has been irreproachable throughout, and
Ftnnds entitled to the approbation of the country.
The directors have, with unparalielled modera-
tion and good humour, accommodated themselves
to ail the plans and all the wishes of Government.
Although the pernicious measure lately adopted
aaa not but have rnct with their decided disapproba-
tien,aaindeed may be gathered frotnw hat they have
occasionally dropt on that .subject, yet have they
declared themselves ready to submit their own
opinions to those of the rulers of the State, and
shape their issues accordingly. With a due cau-
tion to their own interests and those of the par-
ties whose monies they hold and whose bills.they
discount, they have narrowed those to the united
resources of the metallic deposits in their trea-
sury from 25 and even 30 millions sterling to 18,
and likewise called in their one pound notes,
-which has principally occasioned the present de-
predation of prices ; and should they find occa-
sion to diminish those discounts in a still greater
ratio, things, instead of coming round as is con-
fidently talked of, will become more desperate
daily, and the national ruin, or at least that of
the most valuable portion of it, the agricultural
interests, become immedinte and irremediable.
It may he, and has been, urged with a smile of
contempt, you have well proved a country to be 1,
plunged into distress because every article of life
is cheapened, and the manufacturer enabled to
live better than he did before on the same wages.
He can now work and export his produce at a
cheaper rate, and thereby reinstate himself in all
the markets of Europe, and this you term ruin
and destruction to the State. But may not this con-
temptuous and contemptible sneerer be answered ;
if you purchase your provision at a cheaper rate
than the agriculturist is enabled to raise it, you
destroy your best customer in the home market,
greatly more valuable than• all the foreign mar-
kets within your reach, and immediately throw
out of cultivation one moiety at least of all the
productive lands of the country ; you become at
once a mere nation, as BUONAPARTE termed you,
of shopkeepers, dependent even for subsistence
on other countries, at the expellee of all the
better feelings and more valuable interests of
your own. Take the plough and the spade.out
of the hands of your hardy cultivators of the soil
and substitute the loom, the shuttle, the spinning
jenny, and all the ingenious machinery introduced
for the perfection of your manufactures, fill all
the warehouses of the world with your commo-
dities, you are after all but a wretched set of de-
pendent shopkeepers, without the energies of a
self-subsisting independent country, and can
never become substantially either truly rich
or truly reputable. The premature change
of currency has this immediate tendency, and
itr the short space of a few months, should
the, present system be persevered in, the writer
fears his prophecies will be but too fully
verified. Besides this, what resource is left for
the poor reduced mortgager, whose lands were
mortgaged under one currency, whilst now his
payments in discharge of those incumbrances are
to be paid under another ? Will not the monied
mortgagee, seeing his immediate advantages, be
induced to call in his monies, and in default of
payment foreclose his securities ? And where is
tl:e mortgager to find wherewithall to redeem his
lands, and must he not sell them at whatever di-
minished price he can obtain ? May not, nay,
ivill not, should those measures be persevered in,
a very large portion of the lands of the kingdom
almost immediately change hands, and The ancient
proprietors be deprived of all resource whatever ?
Whereas, increase the circulation by resorting to
the former system of paper currency, and in addi-
tion take off the stamp duties on all bills issuable
by private Bankers, and the whole mischief is at
once remedied, the cultivator will find his usual re-
sources, prices will of necessity rise, and the landed
proprietor be replaced in the condition in which he
has existed with some degree of credit and advan-
tage for more than these last 20 years. The taking
off those duties would indeed considerably me-
liorate his condition ; but that is only asked in
case the revenue can spare it, which, if there be
an overplus of five
.millions beyond the necessi-
ties of the state and the demands of public cre-
ditors, may very well be the case. Indeed, had
it been substituted for the reduction of ls. on'the
malt duties, which appears to satisfy nobody, the
writer conceives it would have proved eminently
beneficial, and met every useful purpose at once,
without any defalcation of revenue. To evince
the practical utility of an extended paper cur-
rency, in the instance of Scotland, the writer
thinks himself justified in saying, that in no por-
tion of our extended dominions have- such sub-
stantial and rapid improvements been made as
within this last half century in that country.
Extensive .canals and roads have been formed,
thousands and tens of thousands of acres, before
• barren and unproductive, brought into scientific
cultivation, or covered with flourishing plantations,
and, in short, a barren waste converted into a corn-
parative Elysium ; yet have all theseimprovements
been made almost solely by paper, constituting
at least 19-twentieths of the whole currency of
the country. When • the writer was some years
ago in that country, it was not without some dif-
ficulty that he could 'procure change for a single
guinea -in metallic currency, when the dirtiest
notes that ever passed through the shopkeeper's
and peasant's hands, on which scarcely the
words or figures were legible, 'found immediate
and ready acceptance. One was understood as a
fair 'representation of the value for which it
•
passed, whilst tile guinea was liable to dispute
and subjected to doubt,both as to authenticity and
weight : in effect, one was the indisputable cur-
rency of the country, which the other was not,
and upon that currency were all the great im-
provements of that country carried on. What
was efficient in one country may be so in another ;