The Sun.
London, England, 1840-01-07 00:00:00

countries, the value of the money in circulation, and
not the Royal prerogative or Mint regulations.
This fact is particularly applicable to our country,
into which the precious metals are freely imported,
and from which they are freely exported. If the
Government did, or could, restrict the quantity of
money, it might settle the value ; but having no power
whatever over the quantity of money brought into
the country or put into circulation, its prerogative
of coining money is about as empty a shadow, for
any good or great purpose, as its prerogative to
receive all forfeitures.

In former times, indeed, the KING'S prerogative
over money extended much further. He used to
debase it to pay his debts—to alter its value to
cheat his creditors. Every Sovereign in Europe
exercised his Royal prerogative in that mode, and
caused, as has been justly said, more confusion and
misery amongst his subjects, than pestilence, war, or
famine. Many such acts at length forced on the
public mind a conviction that it was not safe to
trust the Royal rogues with such a power over• the
property of their subjects; and whatever the wisdom
or the folly of any Legislature may now command,
for our Sovereign to exercise the prerogative of
debasing the coin would be considered a most dan-
gerous stretch of power. We conclude that the
Royal prerogative of coining money is at present
limited to dividing and stamping the precious metals,
which are imported and carried to the Mint by indivi-
duals. The Government does that duty, too, accord-
ing to an established custom, the errors of which
science is daily exposing ; while over the quan-
tity and value of the coined money, except as
it degrades, by a very stupid regulation, silver
into counters, it exercises neither prerogative nor
power. That modern Legislatures are not much
wiser than Kings were honest in former times, seem
proved by the circumstance that the same Legisla-
ture which degrades silver to be a counter, and de-
nies it to be an actual payment, has falsely declared
that the promises to pay of the Bank of England
are an actual payment.
Now we wish to ask Mr. L01(1), and those who
eall issuing promises to pay coining money, in
whist the resembkince corsists, or in what way any
merchant, banker, or other man who borrows
money or goods from his neighbours, giving them
a written promise to pay that money on demand
or the price of the goods at any specified time, in-
terferes with the prerogative of the Crown ? He
strikes no money, he assigns no relative value to
the coins in circulation, he says nothing about the
amount of alloy, or the heraldic insignia on the
coin ; he imitates not, counterfeits not the coin of
the realm ; he merely promises, by a legal docu-
ment, to pay his friends what he borrows from
them. By such a promise he dispenses with then
use of money, and enables others to dispense with,
it ; but the banker thereby no more trespasses on
the prerogative than a man does who defends his
home from thieves without calling in the aid of the
Police. The banker is not the only tradesman
who thus dispeases with the Ong's money. Every
other trader who gives a bill due in two or three
months for the goods he purchases, is as much a
tregpas,er on the prerogative, and as much a coiner,
es the bank. Bills, as well as bank-notes, are
tha representatives of commercial credit, and are
no mod) coining money than transferring an estate
by a vvrislan parchment is the creation of land
and rent.

We are quite aware that by this use of paper less
money is required, and that the issue of it has the
same effect eas increasing the quantity of gold and
silver, in wising the prices of commodities. But
the Government does not regulate the quantity of
gold and silver—does not, therefore, regulate these
prices ; and the banker interferes, by his issue of
his notes, with nothing which the Government either
does or IMO do. His conduct substitutes credit for
coin, which is an immense advantage, and without
that substitute the progress of society must be
delayed.

There will be, no doubt, long discussions on
banging and currency during the next Session, and
it is, therefore, of great importance to settle the
principles of the subject. Whether bank-notes be
a coining of money or not, lies at the bottom of
all the discussions which have of late taken place
on the question of Government interfering with
bankers. If the issue of paper promises to pay be a
coining of money, Governments may possibly regu-
late it as well, at least, as they have regulated the
actual coinage of the world in past times. If it be
not a coining of money but a circulation of com-
mercial credit, there is no more reason to suppose
that Governments can manage it well, than that they
can regulate the whole buying and selling of every
man in the community. Most ignorantly and most
injuriously have Governments, in the exercise of
their prerogative, cloak with coin, and the proposi-
tion to place under their control the inappreciable
and delicate instrument called commereial credit
ought not to be countenanced for a moment. From
confounding the two distinct things of coining
money and issuing credit notes many very sagacious
writers, unwarned by the innumerable evils which
Sovereigns have inflicted on their people by
dabbling with the currency, would madly extend
the power of Government to dabbling with com-
mercial credit. We may perhaps say some-
thing further on banking, but we protest
at once against the application of the same
rules to coining money and issuing promises to pay
money. The two things are totally different, have
different origins, and are regulated by different
laws. Whatever may be the case with money, bank-
ing, with the issue of bank notes, is a branch of
trade growing out of the division of labour, like
hat making or stocking weavlg ; and the Govern-
ment has no more business with it than with an►
other industrial occupation in the community.

We regret to see that amongst the inhabitants
of Sheffield, notwithstanding the laudable exertions
of the Woriing Men's Association, a great num-
ber prefer a vain chase after Universal Suffrage to
the practical repeal of the Corn-law. On Mon-
day last, at a public meeting, the Chartists fairly
put the Corn-law repealers to flight, and passed
resolutions against the whole machinery of the
Government—at which the Tories exult. The
Corn-law repealers adjourned to another spot, and
passed their resolutions. They were supported by
as many as five or six thousand persons ; still it is
for us lamentable that in Sheffield, where EBE.•
NEZER ELLIOTT has laboured so long and so un-
interruptedly against the bread tax, and where its
operatian is peculiarly pernicious, such a large mass
of persons should be found to chase after theo-
retical benefit and sacrifice a great practical good.
It is the more lamentable, because, in 'fact, Uni-
versal Suffrage now in reality exists. Every man
has not a vote for a law-maker ; from that Put—that
small part of public action, many are unfortunately
and unwisely excluded ; but no man is excluded from
forming an opinon and swelling by his voice that
grand chorus of thought, which, under the name of
public opinion, rules the Legislature, and rules the
nation. Mr. GILL and his Sheffield friends ought
to be convinced by the use the Tories make of their
opinion, that, though not represented in Parliament,
they are powerful in the country. We have some

doubts whether Mr. F. O'CONNOR have a vote for

a representative, but no man can deny that he has
more influence than any half-dozen electors of