The Sun.
London, England, 1856-12-25 00:00:00

LI':DON, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 25, 18t6.

We earnestly commend to public attention the
letter of our esteemed correspondent, C. W. S.,
which will be found in another part of this day's
impression. As an English merchant, he pos
sesses ample opportunities of perceiving, and he
has evinced a clear capacity for appreciating the
injurious results of a scarcity of the circulating
medium—the very blood, in the stagnation
whereof industry may starve. Like the Israelites
of old the people cannot provide their quo?a
bricks, while the necessary foundation, the supply
of straw, is wanting4To say that the extravagant
charge for money lately represented by a minimum
rate of 7 per cent. discount in Threadneedle
street, implying a charge of 8, 10, or even 12
per cent. to merchants and manufacturers, who
have not accounts with " the Old Lady," and still
maintained at 6 per cent., because of a continental
demand for gold, is perfectly absurd. Wby
Should the exportation of a few millions of specie
occasion a monetary panic, so greatly depreciate
every other description of accumulated and real-
ised property, bring poverty, and too often ruin,
to thousands of meritorious and solvent indivi-
duals, and general distress and embarrassment to
the nation ? We have abundance of real and
productive capital. We have countless flocks and,
herds—stock of every description, instruments,
and ornaments of art ; agricultural implements
of the best description, broad and fertile acres
with all their varied produce, raw materials from
every clime and country, and the skill and indus-
try to convert them into valuable manufactures,
for which there is extensive demand, both at home
and abroad ; but all this bona fide wealth is to be
depreciated in value ; all these springs are to be
neutralised—mills closed, steam power wasted,
and horses standing idle, for want of a suitable
measure and representative of value. It might
as well be said that we should go back to the old
System of barter as that we should remain con-
tented with the imperfect metallic currency to
which the theories of PEEL•OVERSTONE and Co.
have reduced us, and ignore all the lights of mo-
dern experience, all the improvements by the
experience of past generations.
As C. W. S. truly declares, " our merchants
and manufacturers require a currency of some sort
at a price their profits will enable them to pay,
not that they may enter into foreign speculations,
but to carry on their legitimate trade." The
great organ of the bullionists, the Times itself,
has confessed that, " supposing the circulation to
be required solely for internal commerce, no ne-
cessity could exist for gold being held against any
portion of it. A deposit of Government Stock,
or the fact of its being receivable for duties,
would at all times keep it from fluctuation in
value !" Now, this is the great desideratum to
be achieved—the object at which the putative
parents of the unwise and impolitic Act of 1844
professed to aim, but which they totally failed to
accomplish ! They undertook to provide the na-
tion with a stable currency—to give uniformity of
value to the circulating medium—by means
whereof the business of the country could at all
times be carried on with security and profit to
fair and solvent traders. What has been the re-
sult ? We shall quote the words of Mr. SAMUEL
GODDARD, a zealous and enthusiastic Freetrader
—a consistent and prudent Monetary Reformer :
" Have not fluctuations in prices, in the value of
property, and derangements in trade, been much
greater than at any former period, even under
unlimited, irresponsible issues of paper money ?
Have we not witnessed the wildest speculatic ns
and the severest depressions ?" Look to the rail-
way mania of 1845, the commercial crisis, and
panic of 1847, showing the different sides of the
picture in the clearest points of view. The inju-
rious action of the new-fangled code can thus be
discovered in all its varied aspects. At one time
money was a " mere drug in the market ;" it
could be obtained at almost nominal rates for the
wildest schemes. Legitimate trade was abandoned

for gambling speculations. Alen sought to be.come
uddenly rich, and despised the cautious maxims
of their prudent fathers. The inevitable reaction
occurred, and that at a time when the most
weighty speculations were on foot. The Bank,
when its own objects were achieved, contracted
its issues, and myriads of families were brought
to ruin, to deplore the misery and privation that
followed the feverish excitement produced by the
iniquitous legislation of the moneyocracy.
In 1847, as an able writer declared, " there wer e
days, some awful days, during which '.he
measure of value had altogether disappe'Ared.
Mines, mills, and their produce had no value.
With a famine impending over the land American
flour would not bring money ! All because a
few millions of sovereigns had gone from us,
leaving twice as many uncalled for, and therefore
not wanted, in the cellars of the Bank." This
is a graphic but faithful delineation of the
calamity, which was immediately alleviated,
And speedily cured by the temporary suspension
of the enactment which had been the cause of all
the mischief.

When, then, will the people shake off the un-
accountable apathy by which they have so long
been oppressed ? When will the voice of public
opinion proclaim, trumpet-tongued, the necessity
for fiscal and monetary reforms, and show that
the nation will no longer endure the evils of
class legislation ? We want an equitable property
and free trade in money, or rather in currency.
The latter can only be attained by the abolition
of the monopoly so long enjoyed by the Old Lady
of Thrcadneedle•street, and the establishment of
a really National Bank, issuing really national
notes of small and convenient denominations,
varying from 1/. to 5/. We have repeated this
advice msque ad nauseam, but it cannot be too
frequently impressed on the popular mind until
it has produced its fruit, and the natural re-
sults, the welfare and happiness of the industrial
population, and the time when every man, able
and willing to labour, will be sure of obtaining
" a fair day's wages for a fair day's work !"

One of the most remarkable pamphleteers of
the day—Sir ARTHUR HALLAM ELTON, Bart.—
has very zecently issued from the press a masterly
argument in favour of the Ballot. He signifl•
cantly entitles his brochure "The Ballot—a Con-
servative Measure."* His deduction being literally
to the effect that the long-dreaded radical reform of
--The Ballot—would necessarily, after all, prove
in very truth rather Conservative than Revolu-
tionary. Conservative in the best sense of the
word—Conservative of all that is good, of all that
is indeed worthy of Conservation in our political
Constitution. And would it not, on the very
face of it ? Would it not necessarily be so Con-
servative ? Conservative of the independence of
the Electors ! Conservative of the position,
character, and dignity of the House of Commons
—by making it at last, in truth as well as in
name, The House of Commons ! Conservative of
the principles not only of the represented, but also
of the representatives themselves ! Guarding both
alike from the possibility of falling under the
temptation of becoming implicated one way or
another in the crime of Bribery. Precluding one
from the chance of bribing, the other from the
chance of being bribed. Securing at the same time,
in the same way, the independence not simply of
the different constituencies, but of the several
candidates for the suffrages of those constituen-
cies. Elevating each to the same dignified level
of independence. Enabling every elector to vote
for whomsoever he pleases, according to the dic-
tates of his own judgment and conscience, and
irrespective of the bias of any extraneous consi-
deration—and while thus effectually manumitting
the mass of the electors, doing quite as much good
for the elected in another way. Guarding them
from the degradation of being the nominees of any
influential landlord ; securing them from the
hardly less degrading influence of the cringing
Canvass ; , and enhancing their prestige when
elected as really and veritably one of the chosen
representatives of the population.
A panacea is a thing we dont't believe in,
either in medicine or in politics. But most
assuredly if there be any one reform that might
really assume to itself the glory of being the
next best thing to a political panacea, that great re-
form is expresed, to our thinking, in the oue word
-- the "Ballot," that most potent dissylable.

The Patriot Statesman of the Age, to our mind,
will be the man who shall give to England the
Ballot. Had Sir R. PEEL, the great Sir R.
PEEL, the Sir ROBERT PEEL, survived a little
longer, we should have looked to him for it. He
it was who gave to the country whatever security
it has in its Police System. He it was who was
principally instrumental in confirming the alle-
giance of the nation to the great cause of Religious
Liberty, by the crowning triumph over intoler-
ance—the passing of the Act of Catholic Emanci-
pation. His was the strong, bold, resolute hand
that threw down at once and for ever the barriers
of Monopoly by the passing of the grand series of
Free-Trade Enactments. He had only to repair
the one great evil committed in his political youth,
when he may be said to have been sowing the
wild oats of statesmanship—he had only to make
reparation for the heinous wrong inflicted by the
Bank Charter Act, repairing that wrong by the
liberation and reorganisation of the national
currency. That was all that was required from
him—but beyond that, and regarding it as his
crowning benefaction to his country, we should
have looked to him for that magnificent boon of the
Ballot, which would be to the representative sys-
tem what Free Trade has proved to commerce—
its glory, its security, its Palladium.

TO Sir ROBERT PEEL'S political successor, who-
ever he may be, we must now look for the like
evidences of courage, genius, and magnanimity in
his supreme capacity as the great Patriot Statesman
of his generation. The opportunity for his ap-
pearance is already open to him. He might come
into power to-morrow, figuratively speaking, if he
so pleased it. He might, so to speak, be carried
above the heads of the people into office by simply
daring to avail himself of this very obvious op-
portunity. Undertaking merely to forego the
obnoxious Income Tax and to substitute in its
place a just and rational impost upon. Property—
he would have the whole people with him— at
once—em masse—heart and soul : eager to hail
the auspicious advent of his Administration.
And then—THE BALLOT, as the initial boon con-
ferred upon the nation by his Government, would
confirm and consolidate his popularity. The
Ballot—that talisman of independence at once to
Electors and Representatives ! The Ballot—
reforming much that is evil, conserving all that is
good in our mixed Constitution.
Yes—but all the while we must not forget that
the Ballot is a " bore !" What says our caustic
pamphleteer upon this head ? He writes :
" I would admit very candidly that the question
of the ballot, especially to members of Parliament,
comes under the head of what is called a bore: It
is difficult to see how this can be helped. The
tad young gentleman finds his tailor a bore, when
he pays him a diurnal visit in quest of a settlement of

* The Ballot, a Conservative Measure. By Sir
Arthur Hallam Elton, Bart. Bvo, pp, 43. Ridgway :
London. Kerslake : Bristol. 1856.