The Sun.
London, England, 1849-01-13 00:00:00

LIVERPOOL CURRENCY REFOR
ASSOCIATION.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE.
Sir,—l am instructed by the committee of the Liver-
pool Currency Reform Association, to transmit to you
their reply to your strictures upon their plan, contained
in the articles of the 25th and 30th ult., and to express
their hope that you will insert it in your columns.
They deem themselves fairly entitled to have an op-
portunity afforded them of explaining points on which
they have been misapprehended.
I remain, sir, your obedient servant,
JAMES HARVEY, Hon. Sec.

Brown's Hotel, Clayton-square, Liverpool, Jan. 8.
To THE EDITOR of THE MORNING CHRONICLE.
Sir,—Having on the 25th ult. concluded your stric-
tures on our plan of currency with a " farewell," we in-
ferred that you declined any further discussion on the
subject, and therefore refrained from a reply; but as we
notice in your article of the 30th ult., on Mr. Wright'a
evidence, that you make further allusion to the associa-
tion, which we construe into a fresh challenge, we pro-
ceed, without further prelude, to show the weakness of
your logic.
No. 1. " They have made the new discovery, however,
that the debt is capital to the creditor, though a liability
of the State. Very good: but, according to their scheme,
it was the State which was to keep the Bank, and the
creditor who wculd be its customer."
We are then agreed that " the liability of the State is
capital to the creditor ;" and, consequently, that it is
upon an asset, and not upon a liability, that the proposed
currency is intended to be founded. This point being
thus placed beyond controversy, we turn to your state-
ment, " that the Bank is to be kept by the State." This
is not correct. The State intervenes merely to legalise
the notes by its stamp, thereby constituting them legal
tender, just as the Mint, by coining the gold, constitutes
bullion into legal tender.
Thus you will perceive that the owner of Consols, and
not the State, will be the creator of the currency, just as,
under the present system, the owner of bullion, by taking
it to'the Mint, gets it coined into money.
2. " They say, again, that commodities which, like
the precious metals, find their level by unrestricted cir-
culation in the markets of the world, are therefore the
more subject to fluctuation, and peculiarly unfit to be the
basis of a currency. No set of men were ever more com-
pletely bewildered by their own dulness of perception.
It is the free circulation of the precious metals which,
like the flow of water unconfined by artificial barriers,
produces a uniform level in their value. And it is this
uniformity of value which is the greatest security against
a sudden fall or rise. This is a principle which is true
of all commodities, but especially of the precious metals,
by reason of their great facility of transport."
In this paragraph you fail to distinguish between gold
as a commodity, and gold as a money. To its flowing
everywhere without restriction as a commodity, the
Association cannot possibly object; that is precisely
what they contend for; but you overlook the fact, that
the very principle of the system you uphold is to dam up
gold, and to prevent its free circulation, by fixing a price
upon it in this country, and insisting upon its retention
here at all costs and hazards. And why? Because our
circulating medium consists of this commodity. Hence
a drain of gold, being an abstraction of so much circula-
ting medium—that is, of the very life-blood of our in-
ternal trade—has to be suddenly arrested by the well-
known and cruel operation of the Bill of 1844. Its ex-
port must be stopped, and the convertibility of the bank-
note must be preserved; whereas, were it a mere com-
modity, its export would be attended with the same re-
sults as the export of so much iron, cloth, or calicoes.
The evil of a deficient harvest would be then confined to
its natural consequence—the enhancement of the price
of grain—without involving the ruin of the commercial
fabric, the extinction of credit, and the prostration of
trade.
On these grounds the Association are strenuously op-
posed to gold as the basis of a currency, being strongly
convinced that its functions as a commodity, and as a
money, are entirely distinct and utterly incompatible.
3. " As regards domestic transactions, the consequence
would be an artificial inflation of prices, and a real de-
preciation of the circulating medium; and, as the French
experiment has fully proved, such depreciation is inevit-
ably progressive, because larger quantities of paper are
continually thrown upon the market, in proportion as
exchangeable value declines."
Now, we invite you to prove logically, by what pro-
cess and under what circumstances " a larger quantity
of paper will be thrown upon the market "—we mean
larger quantity of the circulating medium proposed by
the association--than what will be required by the ne-
cessities of trade. We still contend that paper money,
convertible into value, cannot be depreciated, and, con-
sequently, that this inflation of prices cannot occur.
All change in price must arise either from an altera-
tion in the relation between demand and supply, which
is a natural fluctuation; or from an alteration in the
value of money, which is a legal fraud upon the debtor
or creditor, as the case may be one of appreciation or
depreciation in the measure of value. It is, therefore,
for you to prove by what possibility notes convertible at
all times into the property they represent can be depre-
ciated—how the property itself can be depreciated when
the owner can insist upon his own terms before parting
with it—and why any man should voluntarily exchange
his property-for less than its equivalent. It is an axiom
in economics that cannot be contravened, that no man
will voluntarily part with his accumulated labour, pro..
perty, or capital—call it what you please—without re-
ceiving an equivalent; and we cannot conceive why Con-
sols should form an exception, whilst gold, and every
other description of property, are rigidly subject to the
rule. On this important branch of the controversy, a
little perspicuous reasoning would be worth columns of
oracular dogmatism.
4. On the subject of the French assignits, you leave
untouched our assertion, which we now reiterate, that
there is no analogy between the proposed paper money
—convertible at all times into value—and the baseless
assignits issued ruthlessly and without limits. There-
fore we deny that the "French experiment" referred to
can be quoted as substantiating your argument.
5. You entirely pervert our meaning as 'to the transi-
tion proposed by us from gold as a standard property to
Consols. When we state that such proportion of the
standard property, or Consols, as equalled 5 dwts. 3
grains of gold should be taken as 1/., we intend to indi-
cate that the change from the present to the proposed
currency should take place at a rate that would not dis-
turb existing prices, and the relations between debtoi
and creditor; and every impartial reader would at once
perceive that this was pointing to a value at which to
take our departure from, instead of, as you would have it
inferred, implying a retention of, the gold basis.

HABEAS CORPUS.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
SIR,—In consequence of your report from the Ex enc
-
chequer yesterday, which completely calls in question
the truth of my affidavit, it becomes necessary for me to
explain that my affidavit having been sufficient for
issuing the writ of Habeas, and the return being suffi- duicient for remanding me, it was then my right to move
thereupon for an attachment against the keeper to com-
pel him to support his return upon oath. Notice of my
intention to do this, if the return was not true, was
given in the usual form with such writs issuing out of the
Crown-office, and the notice appeared annexed to the
return in Court.

The right to apply for such attachment is absolute
under the two Acts of Habeas Corpus, viz.:-3;
Charles IL, c. 2, and 56 George 111., c. 100. By the
Lord Chief Baron stopping and preventing me fron'
moving for the attachment, and, on the contrary, warn.
ing me of a criminal proceeding by the Attorney-Ge-
neral on my affidavit, he reversed the order of prosecu-
tion enacted by the above Acts, and which is the practice
and, of course, my right; for it is my affidavit which is
to be presumed to be true still (as yet), and not the re •
turn, and lam the prosecutor and not the culprit. It
may hereafter be material, in case this is not inserted, for
me to prove that it was sent.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
Queen's Prison, Jan. 12, 1849. WM. COBBETT
T— A

-HE -I.IITHORSHIP OF " KING ARTHUR."—The
song and ;disputed question of the authorship of the
poem of " King Arthur," is now set at rest by the an-
nouncement that it is from the pen of Sir E. Bulwer
Lytton.
HOP INTELLIGENCE. WORCESTER, JAN. 10.--
There is a good demand for all fine bops, and full prices
are given for that class, but all inferior are still neg-
lected.—Berrow's Worcester Journal:
EMPINGNAM.—On Monday, Mr. Abraham sap- Dec
cote, of South Luffenham, was summoned before the Jan'
magistrates at Empingham, for getting into the train at
Stamford and riding to the Ketton station in a state of
intoxication, and annoying the other passengers, on the
24th of November last. He was fined 40s. and costs.—
Lincoln Chronicle.

The Duke of Marlborough has recently caused a
number of does from Blenheim -park to be killed and
distributed among the poor of Coombe, Handborough,
.d other villages around Blenhiem.
FLUSHING DRAlNS.—Amongst other inventions
connected with drainage which have lately been brought
before us, is " Asho's self-acting drain and sewer
cleanser ;" an arrangement to catch and hold all avail-
able waste water until it amounts to about fourteen
gallons, when it suddenly overbalances, and throws the
water with velocity into the soil•trap, and so through
the drain.—The Builder.
IPAIMORTALITT.—Some of the houses in Edinburgh
are eleven storeys high, and in one of these, near that
exquisite green slope from the Castle esplanade, Johnson
visited Boswell ; and here, also, David Hume, the
historian and philosopher, resided for many years, till
he removed into the oldest square of the new
town. A recent traveller, toiling up the stain,
asked an old woman, who was conveying a picher
of water to her aerial domicile in the building, whether
she could tell him in which storey David flume lodged?
"Dawvid Hume! Dawvid Hume!" replied the old
woman, " I hae been here this echteen year, and never
mind sic a name. Dawvid Hume is no on this stair."
To which he gently replied, in Toot's phraseology, that
it was " of no consequence," and beat a retreat.—lnver•
ness Courier.

The Milan Gazette of the 6th publishes a notifi-
cation by the Provincial Delegation of Verona, dated
the 28th ult., imposing a tax of two per cent. as a
forced loan upon all capital bearing interest, and ex-
ceeding the sum of 7,000 Austrian livres; also on
all capital of annual redeemable renter, not subjected
to any public charge ; and, lastly, on the capital of
all annuities exceeding 2,000 Austrian livres. The
payment of the above tax is in two equal rates, on
the sth of January, and the subsequent sth of
February.
" A Ducit or A MAN I "—M. de Lingueville, a
Frenchman, who died lately at the age of 110, had been
married ten times, espoused his last helpmate at 99, and
had a son at 101.