The Sun.
London, England, 1858-01-01 00:00:00

FRANCE.

The letter of our Paris correspondent, dated yes-
terday (Thursday) evening, had not arrived when
we went to press.

AUSTRIA.

VIENNA, Dec. 29.—1 t is related in diplomatic
circles that the Convention for the regulation of the
navigation of the Danube has led to a lively and
somewhat " acerb" correspondence between France
and the German States which are traversed by the
river in question. Austria, Bavaria, and Wurtem-
berg maintain that, as independent States, they
have a right to conclude separate treaties, and the
two Powers last mentioned are said to have
roundly declared that they will not permit the
Paris Conference t'so meddle in a matter which does
not come within its jurisdiction. _ _

Sentence has at length been passed on Mai( r
Count Hunyaday, who, some months ago,
behaved so brutally to the poor man who had
to provide quarters for the troops at Huttledorf,
a village about five English miles distant from
tho capital. To the astonishment of military
men as well as of civilians Count Hunyaday
has only been sentenced to eight days' arrest.
Lord Stratford de Redcliffe,Who yesterday dined
with Prince Callimachi, the Turkish Ambassador,
leaves Vienna for London this evening. The day
before-yesterday his lordship paid Prince Metter-
nich a visit, _and remained with him above two
hours. No fewer than 97 political and 257 non-
political papers will appear in Austria in the year
1858. Of the political papers, 58 are German, 10
Sclavonic, 19 Italian, 8 Hungarian, 2 Rouman,
and 1 Greek.

It is related iri the city as a positive fact that there
is again a prospect of the Empress giving an heir to
the throne, but the report cannot possibly be cor-
rect, for Her Majesty daily passes some hours in
the saddle.

PRUSSIA.
BERLIN, Dec. 30.

According to a notification made in the Staats
Anzeiger a few days back the Prussian Diet is to be
opened on the 12th of next January.
The new postal treaty lately concluded between '
Prussia and France comes into force on January 1
of next year, as the present one expires Decem-
ber 31. of this year, and it is left open to all and
any of the States composing the Austro-German
Postal Union to become parties to it. Most of the
German States have intimated their accession to
the treaty, which, in fact, contains many consider-
able improvements of the postal traffic with France,
but Austria, Bavaria, and Baden are not among
those that have joined it. Austria and Baden have
very lately concluded postal treaties with France,
leach separately ; but, as neither of these treaties
contains anything at variance with that concluded
by Prussia, it is hoped that they will all soon fuse
into one.

As regards tho repeal of the usury laws, which
the relative demand and supply of capital in Prus-
sia urgently calls for, it is not at all probable that
any measure of this nature will be introduced this
session.

It is understood that Baron Bruno w, the Russian
Minister here, who has been re-appointed to our
Court in the quality of Ambassador, will leave here
in the course of January, and repair at once to his
former post. Count Chreptowitsch, the present
Minister of Russia at our Court, is expected to
arrive here every day on his return from St. Peters-
bduelrig andverhis olenttheriss
ow fa
recimitate the example of his father-in-law, Count
Lolnt
iosnh,
iwshioe rtee
hhtieo
hw itlol
Nesselrode, and retire into private life. In the
ytaol.
course of January or February, Lord Wodehouse,
also, our present Minister at St. Petersburg, will
vacate that post, having completed the term for
which he undertook it. Who his successor is to be
has not yet transpired.

THE CURRENCY-REMEDY PROPOSED.

TO THE EDITOR OF SAUNDERS'S NEWS-LETTER.
SIR,—My former letters on this subject were
confined to a brief exposition of the grave errors of
our mone'ary system, and were intended to point
the attention of all, but of the industrial commu-
nity in particular, to the signal and disastrous
failure, after complete trial, of the Bank Charter
Act of 1844—a failure no less to effect that which
its authors designed than (which is of much greater
importance) to provide a medium by which the
exchanges can at all times be properly carried on.
It seems to me, sir, that there are two great vices
inherent in our present system. First, we affect
by law to have a standard of value (gold), the value
of which is constantly fluctuating with the inex-
orable law of supply and demand—our decl4ratory
act of Parliament to the contrary notwithstanding,
which attempts to fix it at a certain price—and is
therefore no standard at all, but operates in the
same manner, though to au infinitely mere mis-
chievous extent, as if our yard measure were 36
inches to-day, 35 to-morrow, and 37 the day after.
Secondly, we have at all times an insufficiency of
legal tender money wherewith to carry on our pro-
duction and exchanges, to alleviate which insuffi-
ciency we have a vast amount of auxiliary, or non-
legal tender currency, which being supplied on no
scientific principles is always liable to be, and very

often is, relatively, either in great excess, leading
to speculative excitement and absolute gambling,
or in great deficiency, leading to distrust and posi-
tive collapse of our productive and commercial
energies. The quantity of legal tender money,
too, is not at all times insufficient ; but the amount
of this insufficiency is always fluctuating, being
based on the demand and supply not only in our

own country, but in the world Vlarge, of -a
single
commodity, gold. So that, no matter how largely
may have increased the supply and demand for any
or all other commodities in the realm, and, there-
fore, the want of the instrument, circulating me-
dium, to exchange them, the legal tender money,
on which that medium is based, may be greatly
decreased instead of increased, if the one commo-

dity gold shall happen to be in greater demand in
some other place than (at the fixed price) in the
Bank of England, and the exchange of these largely
increased pomutodities must be brought to a stand;
or, which is worse, this seeming excess of goods
must be bartered to foreigners for less than their
cost, in order to bring back the gold. If any of
your readers, sir, should dispute that this is so, and
attribute it to a fiction of my own creation, I will
afford him the direct testimony of the authorities
of the Bank of England itself before the Committee
of the House of Commons in 1848, which I only re-
frain from now quoting to avoid unnecessarily ob-
truding on your pages. Let the Times and other
organs of the " bullionist" school be honest, and
tell the producers of the country's wealth to what
they must periodically submit for the benefit of a
few "hard calculators." This demand for gold is,
too, very uncertain, as experience has taught us ;
and (as truly observed by Mr. James Taylor, writ-
ing on this su'ject 30 years ago), " Uncertainty is
the field in which gambling sports, especially if the
principle which determines the game be only known
to a few : such a field the money system of Eng-
land at present offers. The Bank of England go-
verns the issue of money—the Foreign Exchanges
govern the Bank-4he course of excha,ngeis governed
by a few moneyed individuals—those individuals are
governed by self interest (though a mistaken one),
and that man isthe deepest stock-jobber who can best
guess at the turn which it is the interest of those
lindividuals to give to the stock market. So long,
therefore, as the present money system continues
the pecuniary diffictilties of the nation must con-
tinue, the public being subjected either to con-
tinued poverty, or relieved only by temporary
gleams of wealth, terminating in a season of accu-
mulated distress. While this continues the spirt
of gambliqg will be in active operation ; stop ,
and gambling ceases." "To get rid of such flucteuat-
tions," (borrowing the language of a more rec recent
work'), " and thereby to destroy the pabulum
our most extensive and most tempting speculations,
for the
would obviously be no small moral pint
pursuits of the mere speculator are, surely,
any-
thing but favourable to the growth of a love of the
useful, the noble and the good." . •
I will now, therefore, sir, as promised in my last
wa.hich may
letter, lay before your readers a pcl;an:,
t I do not
tend to effect this change, premising
pretend that it is either entirely original or the only
one suited for the purpose, but that it appears to me
that, whilst making an approach towards a
really
scientific system of money, it will, on the one hand,
afoot as little change in our present system as can
be expected to do any considerable amount of good,
it will, on other, be as great an amount of change as
from the want of knowledge and consequent pre-
judice on the subject, the public will be inclined to
bear.

Since I last addressed you, sir, we have stated on
authority that the double responsibility for the
good government of our Indian empire is to be got
rat of. In like manner, sir, let us abandon the far
more mischievous attempt at a double responsibility
for the due supply of our legal tender money, and
let it be assumed in all its fulness by the Cr and
under the supervision of Parliament.
Crown,
'propose : First—That the Bank of England
shall have the proper legal notice of the termination
of its present privileges, so far as its note issues
are concerned and which to the extent of
14,475,0001. are founded on the debt due by the
government to the }link. Secondly—That in like
manner all other banks of issue in the United King-
dom shall have notice, that after a day to be named
heir privileges in respect of note issues will
also terminate, giving them, however, such coin-
pensation as may be shown to be just and equitable
Thirdly—That there be established by the authority
and under the control of Parliament an Imperial
Bank of Issue, which shall be the only bank of
issue, and the issues from which, together with the
coin, shall be the only legal tender money in the
United Kingdom. Fourthly—That the powers of
the Imperial Bank be confined teethe one simple
office, under a sound, and ill some sort, self-regula-
ting principle, apart from, and from under the coo-
trel of, the bank itself, to expand and contract the
legal tender currency to suit the ever-varying ex-
igencies of the community, of which themselves
will be the judges. Fifthly—That for this purpose
the bank be empowered to issue notes of various
denominations, from one pound upwards—to suit
the convenience of the receiver—on the deposit of
government stock, taking the Three per Cent. Con-
sols at par, and other stock in the same proportion,
and to re-issue stock on receipt of its equivalent value
in bank notes'. The inters: -t accruing on the stock
'whilst in possession of the bask to be carried to its
credit, and any surplus, after providingfor all expenses
of management, he., to go to the credit of the Imperial
Exchequer. Sixthly—That fur the sake of conveni-
ence, the bank be also bound to purchase and sell
gold (and if thought expedient, silver) at its market
price,
in exchange for its notes; and in order to de-
termine and fix the market price the officials at the
bank do at determinate periods give notice in tht
Gazette of the price at which they will buy or sell,
such notice to continue iu force until the stated pe-
riod for its renewal. And as gold and silver in
quantities would be chiefly required for foreign
purposes, a useless exper/se in coinage might be
saved by having bars of definite weight duly as-
sayed and stamped at the Mint.
I submit, sir, that under these simple regulations
we should derive the following among other bene-
fits-1. A legal tender currency perfectly safe, being
convertible at the will of the holder into an interest-
paying Government stock, guaranteed by the entire
property of the nation, or into gold or silver at the
market price. 2. A fixed and invariable standard
of value—the pound in account, in which our 800
millions of debt has been accumulated, liable to none
of those oscillations to which gold is subject,
and securing an equity between debtor and creditor
the former having to pay at the termination of his
credit no greater or less value than was implied in
the pound of account when this debt was contracted.
3. A legal tender money much more adaptable in
quantity to our ever-varying wants than the present
one, which is expanded auct contracted with the in-
flux and reflex into one establishment of a single
commodity—gold—giving us a currency at one time
(speaking relatively) in superfluity, and at another
creating a dearth. Under the proposed system, when
money became scarce, and its value more than the
fixed rate of interest on Government stock,
per cent., stock would betaken to the Imperial Bank
in exchange for notes ; and on the other hand,
when money had a tendency to become super-
abundant (indicated by the fall in its value for use),
the notes would flow into the Bank in exchange for
the 3 per cent. •interest-bearing stock. 4. By
this self-regulating principle the value of money
would be kept, as for 140 years prior to the act of
1844, much steadier, ranging, probably, some-
where between three and fire per cent., with very
slight and infrequent fluctuations, whilst every-
thing like gambling speculation in the public funds
would be put an end to—in itself no slight benefit
to tens of thousands, though no doubt it would be
fiercely opposed by the gamblers and brokers.
The much greater facilities for obtaining an abun-
dance of legal tender money based on real property,
together with the steady rate of interest charged
for loans, would prevent a vast amount of that
over-treding' and reckless speculation, which is
one of the curses of the present system. The ho-
nest and prudent would have facilities for convert-
ing their owe capital nit money, awl
known to all those who had money to lend,
would make them more cautious as to the charac-
ter of the parties with whom they dealt, and thus
I that false, because baseless superstructure of accom-
modation paper would have little or no existence.

:

6—Other collateral advantages would be felt, one
of which would be that by degrees the bank sofas

of one pound each would displace the sovereqns,
by which a large useless expenditure in coimge,
and the loss arising from abrasion, would be savld
—another would be the large surplus revenue from

the workingof the Imperial Thu k,-whieh would go i;
reduction of the annual but dens of taxation.

The Times, sir, which upon this as upon other
questions has not always held the same opinions,
writing on this subject on the Ist of May, 1841,
observed—" Our system of paper currency will
remain imperfect until some mode shall be dis-
covered of enabling it to apportion its supply and
demand without reference to the influx and reflux
of specie." I humbly submit that the plan I have
sketched, some portions of which have been advo-
cated by able men during the last 30 years at least,
will effect the desineratum pointed out by the
Times. Still, sir, I would not wish to be thought
touched with that mania for which Mr. Gladstone,
in the recent debate, playfully intimated it might
be necessary to establish a special asylum. Ido
not propound this as the only plan which will effect
a beneficial change, much less do I put it forward as
a scientific solution of the money question, for this
I know it is not, but a mere expedient; though I have
before observed, of as comprehensive a character as
in general information, or rather want of informa-
tion, on this subject will admit. To those of my
readers who wish to investigate any other plan of this
latter character, I recommend a perusal of Mr.
Hill's work already referred to, wherein he pro-
poses " that Government should prepare and issue,
under the authority of Parliament, an adequate
amount of interest bearing securities, almost iden-
tical with Exchequer Bills ; and that these be made ,
legal tender for their principal sum, together with
their accumulated interest up to the day of tender,
according to a table to be printed upon the face of
each bill, a prescribed amount of these bills to be
disposed of periodically by tender ; the tenders to
be made upon the rate of interest, and not upon
the principal sum."
Should any be disposed to look deeper into this
most important question, with a view to under-
stand it as a science, for such it really is, and to
discover how the theory enunciated by Mill and
M'Culloch, which ought to be true in practice, but
is not, may be made so, namely, that " production
is the cause of demand." He introduced to their
notice " Gray's Lectures on the Nature and Use of
Money" (Edinburgh and Loudon, 1848). Mr.
Gray agrees with the authorities mentioned that •
(money laws aright) the production of goods would
always be the cause of the demand for them : that
iu short, speaking always of aggregates, supply and
demand would be convertible terms ; or, in other
words, it would be at all times as easy to sell as to
buy. But as I have, I fear, already trespassed too
much upon your indulgence I must refer the reader
to Mr. Gray's book itself for further explanation of
his views. With many thanks for your courtesy,
I am, sir, yours respectfully,

WILL. PAM.
Seville Iron Works, Dublin, Dec. 26.
* " Principles of Currency," by Edwin Hill. Longman
and Co., 1856.

THE QUICKEST DESPATCH OF THE
INDIA MAIL.

The Calcutta portion of the India mails, consisting of
42 boxes, left Paris yseterday morning at 6.10, and
arrived at Boulogne by special train at 11 25. The boxes
were embarked in ten minutes on board the mail packet
Prince Frederick William. The vessel ran to Dover in
one hour and 38 minutes, the shortest time in which the
passage has ever been made. The mails were at the
railway station within 12 minutes, and the South.
Eastern special train started at 1.26, and came up to
London in one hour and 38 minutes, arriving at London•
bridge at 3 o'clock:

Speed per
Miles. hour. Railways, &c.
Paris to Boulogne 169 .... 32. 2 ... Northern of France.
Boulogneto Dover 30 18.37 Mail-packet.
Dover to London BB ... 56. 2 ... South-Eastern.
Thus the Calcutta mail was conveyed from Paris to
London, including all stoppages and time occupied in
embarking and landing, and conveyance to and from
steam-boat and railway, in 8 hours and 50 minutes. By
this special arrangement on the part of the General
Post-office, the London letters were sent out for de-
livery before 6 o'clock, and all correspondence for the
country was despatched by evening mail trains.