The Sun.
London, England, 1825-06-28 00:00:00

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pinning, in demanding: payment of his noleti,Wfireh.citeum-
. stance hail occasioned the display of a little warm* of the game
kind on the other side; and had induced the bankers so, say,
" Well, Sir, as we have the option of paying you in bank_
notes or in gold, we will pay you in notes." tout he (Mr.
Davis) understood that they had acceded, subsequently, to the
application. This transaction complained of .happened oh the
23d of June; but afterwards a larger amount had been ten-
dered to him in gold; yet the petitioner • had sworn to a debt
of 201. as due from these bankers. There could he no doubt
that those gentlemen felt themselves to have acted in error ; fur
it was understood generally that all country bankers were liable
to pay their notes in cash, although an impression to the ' con—
trary hat) found its uay into some quarters.
Lord FOLKESTONE thought the .114 m. Member for Eris-
tol had viewed this matter as if it had been a question Merely
between the bankers and the petitioner ; but if he (Lord F y
had rightly caught what had • fallen froth his Honourable
Friend, the petition contained matters of very grave'considera-
don on mut:lv-more general principles. It stated a fact: that he
could not help considering to be it grievance of very great mag.-
nitude. When mr.. Peel's bill -was brought in, he unders!ood
that the country was about to return-to-ti good and proper state
of currency: that was, that every man might get, gold in ex,..
'change for his bank-notes if he pleased. Either from some
failure in that,act,- or some misapprehension'of its provisions on
die part of the bankers, its effect had not been'Nch. Mete was
a petitioner who held a certain quantity of notes issued.by a
very respectable barker at Bristol.. lie desired to' .have them
exchanged for gold, as he (Lord Folkestone) believetLifiLodt of
every' 0(1 persons would Conceive themselves entitled to de-
mend in such a case ; though.it now appeared they would not
be so entitled, An Hon. Gentleman, indeed, had suggested,.
that in ease of refusal on the part of -the hanker, the applicant-
would have his remedy by law. Nbw he (Lord Folkestone)
did not understand much about law and its quirks; but he had
been told, that a party's action, should he ever choose to bring
one, could not be tried for some eight or' nine months . and at
the expiration of that period, again, the bankers might obtain
a writ of error, and so put off the payment of his demand for a
year and a halrlonger. 'The legal remedy of i%lr. Jones, there,
fore, would appear to be this—that whereas, in the month of
June, 1825, he wanted some gold for particular purposes, and -
was refused when he applied to the bankers to give it hint in
exchange for their own paper ; the law would enable him to
obtain his remedy somewhere about the month,ofJune, 1827.
He (Lord Folkestone) had been interrupted by another llpn.
Friend, who told him that any body who chose could get gold
in exchange for his Bank of England notes, on application at
the Bank ofEngland. Why, so he could, no doubt ; but was
every man desirous to get gold for some 61. or 71. in notes, for
example, to travel vtp to London, Some hundreds of miles,
perhaps, for that purpose ? The . Noble Lord thanked the
Honourable Gentleman fin having introduced this petition ;
and expressed his hope that Ministers would feel it incum-
bent upon them, even at this late period cf the ,session, to
bring in ,some-measure that should give operation •to ;hat' •
clause in the Cash Payment' Suspension Act, which had been--.
unfortunately omitted in the later statute to which allusion had -•
been made.

Mr. HUDSON GURNEY addressed the House from under
the gallery; and in so low a tone-of voice that vie could collect
but little-of his speech. •We understood him to say that the
conduct of the parties complained of seemed to have been ex,
ceedingly absurd. They had done that which scarcely any other
men in the sante capacity would be so foolish as to do—they had
refused seven sovereigns for seven of their own notes; yet every
country banker must be presumed to know, that on demand
he must pay his own notes in gold. With regard to what had
fallen from a Noble Lord, it was quite obvious that the gold
necessary to pay these demands when made must be sent for
to London; but the Noble Lord, in speculating on the possi-
bility that a party who should he refused geld by a country
banker in exchange for their tendered notes, might have to wait
nearly two years for his legal remedy on 'an actin w for debt,
overlooked the evident fact, that at the utmost the delay might
bbonly equal to that which would elapse between -the sending
to London for gold, and the arrival of a remittance in that cur-
rency. The situation of our currency at this moment he, for
one, considered to be less satisfactory than he had ever before
known it to be. When the Right Hon. Gentleman (Air, Peel),.
a few years since, brought in his bill, it had an operation upon
prices, which was more than either the land or its produce could
bear; and theretbre it was that a Right Hon. Gentleman, since
called up to the other House (Lord Bexley), brought In another •
Act to neutralize, in part, the effect of that That effeet
was to increase prices generally throughout the country.; and
by that very consequence to induce another:_namely, the in-
creased issue of notes by country bankers. For his own part,
he (Mr. 11. Gurney) should have liked, at the time when the
Right Hon, Secretary (Mr. Peel) brought in this bill, to have
seen the eittrencY pelt On such a footing, that a gOld currency
and that only should have circulated through the country ; and
that if there were to be any 11. . notes permitted at. all, they
should be restricted to the issue of the Bank of England. While
individuals, being bankers in the country, were allowed to pia
in. circulation their 11. notes to the great extent they were .at
present sufferctd° to do, it was obyious, that the issue- of gold
sovereigns must be, in a great measure, confined, and restricted
to London.

Mr. EDWARD ELLICE concurred with his Don. Friend
in thinking that our currency was scarcely ever in a less aatis-
' faCtory state than at present. If a war, or a very bad harvest,
or an other visitation of that general and alarming nature, should
substitute for our present condition of high credit and confi-
dence, one' of discredit, he considered that the Government
would find itself under the painful necessity either of allowing
severe commercial pressure that must ensue to go on without
any remedy ; or once more to cause the, Bank to suspend its
cash-payments. Much of the evil that had been already ex-
perienced by our currency was occasioned, he thought, -by the
permission again extended to the issue of 11. end '2l. country
bank-notes. All contracts, after the introduction of. the Right
lion. Gentleman's bill, being to be paid in a gold currency,
and therefore a higher value currency than that, under which
they were originally made, the law bore so hard upon the landed
interest, that it became necessary for their relief to pass the-
corn laws, and some other measures of ,that kind. In Lanca-
shire, and Yorkshire, 1/. and 2/. notes constituted the:only cir-
culatin medium ;—(" no, no," from Mr. J. Sinith.)—LHe
g might be 'Wrong; but of this he was certain—that such was the
case within. its own knowledge and experien"ce in Scotland, and
in most' of the northern parts of. England that he had visited ;
and whenever he wanted change for a 01. note,. he could only
get notes all. Suppose in such case of public emergency or
difficulty as he had been speaking of,. a great and general de-
mand for gold specie should be made by the country banka on
the Bank of England ; ho* would the latter meet that demand ?
The pUblic.knew the amount of their engagements, and of this
dead weight; and that dead weight, for instance, • the Wink
could not carry to market—they could not carry their mortei:ges
for sale ; and he (Mr. E.) did not see' how, there fare, they
could contend against such a state of things..

11r. JOHN smirrir differed entirely from his Hon. Friend
(Mr. Hume) and the Noble Lord:( Folkestone), who considered
that 90/. out Of every 100/. in the tireulation of the country,
consisted of 11. notes of country Banks. He (Mr. J. Smiths
really hardly knew how sufficient!), to express the surprise wish
which he had lislened.to shat statement. In the first place, a
very large proportion of the circulation of the country was ;in
5/. and 5-guinea notes ; though less so, probably, in London
and its vicinity then in other paits of the kings' m. He would
venture to state—and circumstances had enabled him to form
some opinion on the subject—Omar! )--thatsLand 5-guinea notes
therefore, and not 1/.. notes, comprised a very large proportion
of our circulation. The case set out in this petition originated,
he believed, as had been stated by 'the: Honourable 'Member. for
Bristol, in a quarrel between the petitioner and the banker, at.
Briitol, who most unjustly, most illegally, and most impru,
dently,he must say,refused to give gold to the party in .exchange
for the notes of the firm. It seemed rather to be insinuated in
the speech of a noble friend of his (Lord Volkestone) that such
a practice might be commonly resorted to. among bankers ; hut
he begged most explicitly to deny the imputation.. In respect
to what had been said about the state of the currency in the
north of England, by the Hop-Member for Coventry, he could
assure the House that in nearly the largest county in the
kingdom, and where the greatest amount of wages was paid
.of any (Lancashire), the whole of. 'those wages was paid in
specie. If the lion. Member for nythe (31r.5...1.,L0yd, we be-
lieve) had been in his place, he could have communicated some
very important information to. the tlouse.on this subject hay-
ing, in the course of his life,,,transinittcd verjklarge,aurns of
'specie for that purpose to those districts. 'Another part of the
Hon. Member for Coventry's speech he (Mr. J. Smith) had
heard with astonishment. Ile himself was one of those who
lel' no fears at all about the condition of the currency.—(Hear!.)
—He wished to know how it should happen that the greatest
ommercial country in the world —whose trade and commerce
were desired by ail Europe—could be in want of a sufficient