The Sun.
London, England, 1858-11-08 00:00:00

tial a member, will ensure a prolonged tenure
-of office, and may safely - set all the
machinations of the disappointe factions
at defiance. Should an appeal to the country be
deemed advisable, the people will promptly and
enthusiastically respond to the w'shes. of those
who will have given the most convincing proof
that they have the true interests of the people
sincerely at heart.
It is desirable, then, that every monetary
reformer should endeavour, to the best and utmost
of his abilities and opportunities, to direct public
attention to the subject, and to remove that mysti-
fication, which is the great stronghold of " the
hard. calculators." They strive to complicate the
question so as to disgust the community, and in-
duce them to. leave the matter in the hands of
those who have made themselves masters of the
abstruse and difficult. Even amongst those
who fancy themselves to hold seats in Par-
liament, and to make laws for the future
government of the nation, there is, with at least
four out of five, or probably nine out of ten—an
unblushing avowal of ignorance. They have not
had time, forsooth, to study the topic. They admit
its vast importance, while, at the same time, they
are willing to legislate on it in profound darkness.
The subject is by no means so difficult as it is
advisedly made to appear. We see that, under
one system, the nation has been enabled to carry a
protracted and formidable war to a successful ter-
mination and to sustain a lavish outlay, such as
was never encountered by any kingdom of the
world for an equal period. We find that the
people enjoyed prosperity and comfort notwithstand-
ing the enormous weight of taxation by which they
were oppressed. The rate of discount remained
equable—never more than 5 or less than 4 per
cent. for more than a century-and-a•quar-

ter. Fortunes were realised, trade flourished,
and every one of the industrial population was cer-
tain of that great desideratum, " a fair day's wage
for a fair day's work." Trade flourished, gold and
silver were purchased for the adjustment of balances.
at their fair market prices, but there was no diffi-
culty thereby imposed on our merchants. It was
an additional element to be considered in their cal-
culations, but they were always sure of being en-
abled to obtain cash or bank notes for any safe
security.

Such was the state of affairs with inconvertible
£1 notes circulating from hand to hand, "worth-
less rags," as they were contemptuously designated
by the "hard calculators." What was it in 1847,
when that perfection of human wisdom, the Peel-
Overstone Bill, was in full operation ? Mr. T.
&tows, M.P.- for South Lancashire, •eloquently
described it. He said " there was a complete want
of confidence • between man and man. Hardly a
contract could be entered into. Such, indeed, was
the general feeling of instability and alarm, that by
the last packet advices had been sent by many firms
to America countermanding the orders they had given
for the importation into this country of articles of
prime importance as food. The same distress pre-
vailed in other branches of trade in Manchester,
and producers of goods for foreign exportation
were most unwilling to go on increasing their stock,
and were activelyattempting to convert their hills
into bullion. In fact, both as to imports and ex-
ports, we were at a dead lock. * *

The alternative arose of either allowing
the drain to continue until we parted
with our remaining gold, or of permitting the
people to starve. The position of the country was
simply this—that mills and manufactories were
closed and closing, that operatives were being
thrown out of work, and that artisans and work-
men of all sorts are being reduced to an equally
distressed condition.

Let the people look on this picture and on that,
and say which was the most beneficial for the
nation—the reign of paper or the reign of gold.

The Metropolitan Board of Works has a magni-
ficent power which it is above all things desirable
should be used with daring, though not with reck-
lessness. Hitherto we cannot but think there has
been an over caution in the adoption of any s weep-
ing measures of improvement. Wheneer, for
example, it has been suggested that a monstrous
obstruction, such as Middle-row, Holborn, should
be rased to the ground for the advantage of one of
the main thoroughfares—the proposal has been set
aside, timorously, as altogether impracticable. A
similar proposition has often been mooted in
regard to the block of houses standing obstructively
in the centre of the Strand, wedged in between the
two picturesque churches of St. Mary•le-Strand
and St. Clement Danes. But that notion also
has been no less summarily dismissed as altogether
out Of the question from its presumed extravagance.
This, moreover, notwithstanding the obvious ad-
ditional advantages certain to accrue from the re-
moval of the. Strand obstruction by the consequent
destruction of the most pestiferous little byeway
in all London—a 'moral plague-spot, branded upon
the map of the metropalis by the tainted and noto-
rious name of Holywell-street. Sweep away the
southern side of Holywell-street, and the- northern
side, by being laid bare, would have, as a matter of
necessity, to be rebuilt and beautified—it would
be Holywell-street no longer, but one of the
noblest parts of unquestionably the noblest
street in the English capital—that " Strand"—
which has been so eloquently eulogised as the
finest street in London, by the present Chancellor of
Her MAJESTY'S Exchequer, in one of the. Right
Honourable Gentleman's popular novels that
Strand, which has been - designated the world's
highway, by N. P. Wm.'s, one of the most obser-
vant of living Americans. The bodily removal of
what may be accurately termed the Middle-Row of
the Strand, would, beyond a doubt, be one of the
most noticeable and splendid • metropolitan
improvements that could well be adventured
upon. It would bring out to view yet more pic-
turesquely than ever the two curiously situated
churches standing in the centre of the great
thoroughfare—the two remarkable churches already
particularised. It would serve not only for that
doubly decorative and not obstructive effect but would
open up a clean sweep of the Strand from Temple
Bar to Charing-cross. It is, in its way, an improve-
ment as obviously , desirable as that long sug-
gested—but the realisation of which has
never yet been attempted—the opening up
of Sir CHRISTOPHER WREN'S great master-
piece to the river by a grand thoroughfare
leading directly from the Thames to the south side
of St. Paul's Cathedral. These, however, are pre-
cisely the kind of improvements that are carefully
avoided by the Metropolitan Board of , Works.
The hammer
it disdains •to useofl' it. Nay,
is in its grasp, and
Nay, a smaller im-
provement than any -we have yet mentioned
—but still a very obvious improvement—
has just now been all but rejected by the board as
wholly impracticable, as altogether too expensive,
as one not to be thought of for one instant. Yet
it is an improvement the cost of which would ac-
tually not exceed the sum of £3,232 10s.—being
restricted simply to the setting back of five
houses in Newgate-street, namely, Nos. 78,
and 82. Granted that the
se
t,tiriegsBo
back 81
of those five tenements would be a