The Sun.
London, England, 1859-05-07 00:00:00

SUSPENSION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS,

Russia, Austria, and Sardinia have suspended specie
payments. Other States may follow before the war is
much older. How will these countries be affected, and
what is the influence likely to be exercised on ourselves and
other specie-paying nations ? There are few points more
apt to give rise to ridiculous fancies. It is a common de-
lusion that a country in some way protects itself by re-
fusing to pay its debts in the precious metals, and in old
times the question used to be asked, If all other countries
suspend, how is England alone to go on discharging her
liabilities in cash ? To dispel all mystery on the matter it
is simply necessary to bear in mind that a suspension of
specie payments by any individual State is but a rough way
of confiscating the property of certain classes of its inhabit-
ants and of throwing additional taxation upon all. It is
merely a matter of internal arrangement, and can never in
the smallest degree affect the commercial intercourse of one
nation with another. There can be no such thing as a sus-
pension of payment in the foreign trade of any country. If
the Sardinian Government desire at this moment to buy a
certain quantity of iron in the London market, they must
pay for it just in the same manner 11 .4 heretofore. We do
not make the contract for notes of the Bank of Turin,
but for a specified amount of gold or its equivalent to be
'handed to us here. Hence, if every nation in the
world were to resort to an inconvertible currency,
it would have no operation whatever on the ge•
neral current of our transactions. If they want any-
thing from us, they must find gold or its equivalent to
send in return, and if by the home discredit consequent
upon their proceedings they have induced their people to re-
sort to hoarding, and have thus increased the ordinary diffi-
culties of procuring it, that is theiraffair—not ours. The im-
possibilityof anation gaining anything by stopping payment
being thus obvious, what can be the inducement ? Nothing
but to evade its debts at the expense of certain classes, in-
stead of resorting to open taxation levied fairly upon all.
To the fundholder, the annuitant, the office-holder, and all
to whom the State are bound to make fixed payments it is
an announcement that 10, 20, or 50 per cent. (according to
the extent of the depreciation in the inconvertible notes as
compared with specie) will in future be impounded. It is
therefore confiscation, and nothing else. At the same time,
the State are enablei to use it as a most ruinous substitute
for raising loans. Every new issue of inconvertible paper
is precisely tho same as a loan, since it represents a debt for
which the credit of the State is pledged. But it is always
contracted upon deplorable terms as compared with those
on which an honest loan might have been procured, because
the public have no security as to the extent to which it may
be carried, and have also been sufferers from the original
breach of contract, by which they were defrauded of the par
value of their dividends. And not only is its home credit
but also its foreign credit thus ruined, since although
it may apply for money in other markets, and offer
to guarantee that the dividends shall be paid at all
times in hard cash, capitalists are apt to reason that
a State that has defrauded its own subjects may in time of
severe trial treat foreigners in a similar manner. It will
thus be seen that a suspension of specie payments, which
by almost every one on the Continent, and by not a few in
England, is considered a very natural and protective step
at the beginning of a war, is but a contrivance for extorting
funds from the people in a partial, covert, and ruinous man-
ner, and for raising forced loans in a way utterly destructive
of that credit upon the maintenance of which the power of
raising loans with economy solely depends. History shows
that inconvertible issues in times of war have usually been
carried to the point which terminates with beggary and re-
pudiation. Russia, France, Austria, and a number of other
States have each repudiated enormous national debts con-
tracted on the faith of Government notes. England alone
came out of the great war of the past generation without a
stain. Sir Robert Peel's Act of 1819, by providing for the
discharge of all our promises in full, repaired as far as pos-
sible the evils that had resulted from the ignorant and sui-
cidal folly of suspending cash payments ; and, although by
writers of the school of Sir Archibald Alison that measure
is regarded as one that has ever since threatened our na-
tional existence, it is the cause of the English Three per
Cents. being at 90 while Europe is in a blaze, and of the
indomitable confidence which every man feels that, what-
ever perils may lie before us, we shall emerge from them at
last triumphant, not only as regards men, but money.—
Times.

TIIIS 1141" S MARKETS.

COVENT GARDEN.

The supplies of fruit and vegetables are moderately
extensive, and a fair average business is doing in them, as

follows :

Faun.
s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d.
Pine apples, per lb 6 oto 8 0 Cherries, per lb.. 0 oto 0 I
Colonial do., each 0 oto 0 0 Filberts, per lb .. 0 10 to 1 0
Grapes, per lb 10 otols 0 Cobnuts, per lb 00to 0 0
Foreign do 2 oto 4 0 Almonds, per bus 0 oto 0 0
Melons, each
Peaches, perdoz 0 oto 0 0 Figs, per d0z..... 0 oto 0 0
Nectarines, per dz 0 oto 0 0 Strawberries pr lb 5 oto 10 0
Apples, per bush. 5 oto 10 0 Gooseberries,/ sv. 0 oto 0 0
Pears, per doz 2 6to 8 0 Currants, per do. 0 oto 0 0
Oranges, per 100 soto 10 0 Plums, per do. 00to 0 I
Lemons, per 100 3 6to 7 0 Greengages, pr do. 0 oto 0 0
Apricots. per doz 0 oto 0 0 , Raspberries, pr ptl 0 oto 0 0