The Sun.
London, England, 1840-12-31 00:00:00

ROYAL SURREY THEATRE.

makers.

Fifth' Night of the Grand Christmas Pantomime, and Grand
Dioramic Annual. The principal Characters in the Panto-
mime by the Boleno Family ; Mr. Southby, the Popular
Clown ; Signior Felix Carlo, from Francenis, at Paris and
Miss Sharpe.
THIS EVENING, DEC. 31,

Will be represented a New Domestic Drama, entitled
MARTHA WILLIS, THE MAID SERVANT.
Martha Willis, Mrs. Henry Vining.
Supported by the entire strength of the Couspany,
After which will be repeated the New Comic Pantomime,
entitled

HARLEQUIN AND MY LADY LEE ; OR, GOOSEY
GANDER AND THE SPELL-BOUND GOSLINGS.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDOR TO-MORROW.
sfornti, 57 minutes after 3.1 Evening 15 minutes after 7.

The hiblication of t e Evening Edition •f Ma Sox coma
menced at 20 minutes after Three.

LONDON:
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1840.

The present state of the money market, as might
be expected, gives rise to considerable discussion.
Interest on discounting bills of small amounts,
though of excellent character, is said to be very
high ; and we read a statement in the Times of
Tuesday that as much as 60 per cent. is demanded.
One of the latest changes in the law concerning
oney was the abolition of the usury laws, and the
conclusion is immediately jumped to, that this has
been most injurious. " Whatever may have been
said," writes the City correspondent of the Times,
" of the principle qf free trade, as applicable to
money equally with all other commodities, the
practice has proved so infamously bad that many
intelligent persons who approved of it at first are
beginning to doubt the principle itself." Poor free
trade is to bear all the blame of the avarice of
money brokers. In this case, however, free trade
does not deserve it. As long as the charter of the
Bank of England exists, and the Mint regulations
exist, and as long as whole heaps of restrictive laws
on private and joint-stock banks exist, it is absurd
to talk of free trade in money. The public have

over and over again demanded restrictions on bank-
ing—over and over again they have been gratified.
Since the abolition of the small notes scarcely a

session has passed but some new restriction has
been imposed on banks and banking, and when the
trade in money has thus been hampered, ignorant and
impudent writers accuse free trade in money, which
obviously has no existence, causing those evils,
which have a more certain and obvious source in

.e restrictions imposed by very ignorant law-

In our opinion great misapprehension exists on
the subject of money, and mistaken demands are
made on the Legislature in consequence. It is said
that coining money is peculiarly the prerogative of
the Crown, the attribute of sovereignty ; it is seen
that hank notes supersede coins, and it is inferred

;hat bank notes fall under the same rules as coins,

and the Legislature is required to regulate them, or
to take the issue of them into its own hands.

Hence the present demand of a national bank,

which rests on the supposition that to regulate the
currency is one of the attributes of sovereignty.
If that be so, how comes sovereignty to place its
crown in the lap of the Bank of England ? The

present regulator of the currency is not the Sove-
reign—the Old Lady of Threadneedle-street is

said to be. But the Old Lady does not regu
late it, she leaves it to the bullion merchants. The
Bank of England professes to regulate its issues by
the quantity of gold in its coffers ; it buys all the
gold that is brought to it at so much per ounce; the
gold brought to it depends on the quantity imported ;
hence the real regulators of the currency are the
bullion merchants, whose operations are determined
by the state of the market. Neither the Bank of
England, nor the Sovereign, now regulates the
currency, and if ever hitherto that was the attribute
of the Crown, it has, like many other prerogatives,
passed silently into oblivion.
All that the Crown, or all that the law does on
the subject, is to regulate the size and weight of the
coin, and to determine the relative value of the
silver and gold coins. Even this it does errone-
ously, and fixes the relation by law different from
the relative value of the metals in the market, and
so enacts by statute a standing falsehood. The
Sovereign has in many cases tampered with the
currency, debased it, and cheated his creditors; but,
at least since the discovery of the new world—when
bullion flowed into Europe in great abundance, and
has since continued to flow—the 'value of money,
however coined, has depended much more on the
comparative productiveness of the mines than on
any laws whatever. One great element of the value
of money, in fact, is the quantity in circulation.
For many years the importation of bullion has been
free, and for some years the exportation of coin has
been free. As the Sovereign does not and can-
not control the quantity of money, he cannot con-
trol its value, and his power over it, in point of
fact, is now next to nothing. Mischief, by debas-
ing the coin, or by enacting falsehoods, the sove-
, reign authority can do ; but besides merely dividing
and stamping the bullion—which should be divided
into aliquot parts, and left to find their value in the
market—it can do no good whatever.
Now, if this be true of metallic money, or even
an approximation to truth, it is a revolting absur-
dity to claim for the Sovereign authority and power
over paper money. The maxim of our fathers
was—" The power of the Crown has increased, is
increasing, and ought to be diminished." The
maxim of those who continually ask for new re-
strictions on the issue of bank-notes or banks—on
personal liberty—on locomotion—is, "The power of
the Crown is not enough, it ought to be increased,
and we will increase it. by all the means in our
power." How can commercial men require the
landlords to respect the principles of free trade,
when, from the heart of this commercial
metropolis, a commercial man, writing for
one of the leading journals says, "the issuing of
paper money by copartneries, is an objectionable
interference with the rights of the Crown." Such
a writer should attend lectures on political economy
at some mechanics' institute, and then he would
learn, what we supposed every tyro knew, that
credit-notes, though they displace money, whether
issued by copartneries or single bankers, are pro-
mises to pay money, and are not money, and that
interference with that branch of private business by
the sovereign poser is an unwarrantable proceeding.
Commercial paper in all its vast ramifications is
founded on the credit of commercial men. It
grows in no degree or form from the action of Go-
vernment ; it has come into general use long since
the prerogatives of the Crown were sketched
out in constitutional law ; it is the offspring
of social progress, and has come into being,
and grown almost to maturity, before it has
attracted the notice of meddling, ignorant quacks ;
it is founded, too, on a great natural fact, and
comes_ therefore universally into use wherever
commerce exists and extends. The fact is that
commodities require unequal times to prepare and
bring them to market. If they could all be pre-
pared in the same time, or just as wanted, they
would be exchanged for one another, and credit
would be unknown and unnecessary ; but as mat-
ters have not been so created, credit is known and

necessary.
The merchant, for example, who is engaged in
the China trade, expects no return for a year, but
he must, in the meantime, carry on his business.
He draws and negotiates bills, to be paid when his
" ship comes home." Some similar fact lies at
the bottom of all good commercial bills. They are
all issued on commodities on their way to market,
and are founded on the expectation of having, by
the future sale of commodities, the means of re.
deeming them. What on earth can the Legisla-
ture, composed in part of Bishops and lay
Lords, who despise commerce, hare to do
with such bills ? They might as well regulate
every single transaction on 'Change as in-
terfere with the creation of commercial bills. In
what respect, now, does the issue of promises to
pay a sum on demand differ from the issue of pro-
mises to pay a sum in three or six months, that the
former should be called an invasion of the preroga-
tive of the Crown, and the latter a commercial
transaction. Both are issued on the credit of indi-
viduals, or on the credit of co-partneries, and if one
should escape the fetters of the law-maker, we
cannot see a reason for subjecting the other to
them. Suppose the promise was to pay on demand
a quarter of an ounce of gold or four ounces of
silver, would that be money ? And if it would
not, how does the promise to pay about an equal
value in gold and silver to the weight mentioned be-
conic money ? We are quite sure that any argument
which goes to justify the Legislature in meddling,
with promises to pay on demand, by whomsoever is-
sued, will equally justify the Legislature in med-
dling with promises to pay at specific dates ; and
those who unthinkingly ask the interference in one
case, on the ground of the issue being a violation of
the Sovereign's right, must demand it in all.
Far from believing that setting the trade in
money free has caused the evils alluded to at the
commencement of this article, we believe that they
are caused by the restrictions which yet remain on
it, and they will only be got rid of by removing the
restrictions. For commercial men to be opposed
to freedom is, unhappily, a sign that they feel
themselves not trustworthy. At least, each one
suspects his neighbour, and needs some guarantee
for his transactions, besides the honesty of those
he deals with, We see with regret, then, on ac- ,

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