The Sun.
London, England, 1825-01-25 00:00:00

all the enlightened adherents of Government, for
the coarseness and disingenuousness of its remarks
on this subject. If the Etoile wishes to ascertain
what are the real feelings of the English Cabinet
with respect to Ireland, it must examine the
temper of the Irish Government, and observe the
effects of that temper on the present state of the
country. For ages, Ireland- has not been so tran-
quil as she is at this very moment ; and her quiet
condition, as contrasted with the past, absolutely
throws an air of burlesque over the tone of alarm
affected by The Courier. Therefore The Etoile
deceives itself, and misleads its readers, if it
thinks it can see in the inflammatory language of
that Paper, a counteraction to the liberality of
our policy with regard to the New World.

[BRITISH PRESS.]
Never was delusion practised with more suc-
cess than it is at this moment : this rage for spe-
culation wtll, no doubt, soon work its own cure;
but, in the mean time, a vast mass of that capi-
tal which might have been employed in opening
new lines of industry, and have reproduced it-
self with a profit to the projector, and an im-
provement to the country, is sacrificed to the
bubbles of a set of schemers, were making im-
mense fortunes out of the seemingly inexhausti-
ble stock of public credulity. If all these
dreams of wealth could even be realised ; if all
the mines of Mexico and Peru could, by any ma-
gic power, be made to strew the streets of Lon-
don, the effect would only be to extinguish
the spirit of industry, and to raise the price of its
produce. If ingots were so plentiful as, in the
celebrated phrase of Mr. Burke, " to be trodden
under the hoofs of the swinish multitude," the
nation would be but so much the poorer, while
meat, drink, and clothing, and all the solid con-
veniences and comforts of life, would be so much
the dearer. It might indeed happen here and'
there to one, that he should
Have a silver sty
With a door of ivory."
But as for the rest of the herd, we should all, to
a man, wish this mass of treasure once more
buried in the bowels of the earth from whence it
came. This would be the certain result, sup-
posing all these golden dreams could be realized,
and that the speculations were not bottomed—as
they are—in sheer stock-jobbing. Gold and
silver are like other commodities; any specula-
tion of profit to be made by increasing their
quantity must depend upon, whether the quan-
tity in the market, or capable of being brought
into it, is already sufficient : if it is, the addition
will be superfluous; if it is not, the increased de-
mand will be in proportion to the deficiency. No
newly-discovered mines can have the least effect in
augmenting the real and effective demand. If
two bakers in a town can bake all the bread that
is required by its inhabitants, the introduction of
twenty more bakers' shops will not create a de-
mand for a single loaf, beyond the usual con-
sumption, and those who have shares in the new
ovens will in vain look for a return, either in meal
or in malt. We have no data by which to esti-
mate
the total produce of the South American
mines ; but taking the metallic wealth of Mexico,
for instance, to have doubled with the last cen-
tury, the present annual produce of these mines
alone will be about 20 millions. There was brought
into the King's Exchequer, from Mexico, in the
year 1730, somewhat better than a million marks
of silver. This was the King's duty from the
mines, which ought to be one-fifth of the metal
taken out of them. The whole then must amount
to five millions of marks (a mark is equivalent to
eight of our ounces), so that, if we compute this
silver at only ss. an ounce, the inhabitants of
Mexico received at that period from their mines,
ten millions in money. With regard to the Pe-
ruvian mines, there are no exact data, but we
have a regular account of those of Potosi
for fifty years—that is, from the date of
their discovery up to the year 1595, within
which period they had produced forty-four mil-
lions sterling of our money : but it is allowed
that since that period they have considerably
sunk in value, in consequence of other rich mines
having been discovered. But we may form a
tolerably correct estimate of the whole produce
of the Spanish American mines, by the quantity
which, in time of peace, came in the shape of duty,
and otherwise, to the mother country. The ave-
rage cargo brought home by the galleons was
about three millions in gold, and by the Ilota one
million. In silver, the ordinary cargo was twenty
millions, and of the flota ten. This estimate is ex-
clusive of what arrived by regular ships, and of
what was introduced claudestinely,w filch amounted
to many millions more. But the condition of
Spain itself, with all this stream of gold and sil-
verl flowing continually into it, sufficiently proves
how worse titan useless it is as a mere represent-
ative wealth, and the more it is multiplied the
more it loses its value ; and it clearly must do,
when, as a circulating medium, it increases sud-
denly, and beyond all proportion to the increase
of the commodities to be circulated.