The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-12 00:00:00

TO WITH EDITOR, OF THII CTN.

SIR, —ln a very recent number of your most admirable
evening paper, The Sum, that of Friday if I recollect
rightly, I read a very moving article as relates to the
state of our currency and the drain of gold, to supply (not
the real but the panic) wants in foreign states. Permit
me to solicit the introduction of the present letter wherein
I offer a sure and immediate remedy for the safety of
ourselves, which statistic article I feel sure the masses of
the commercial, manufacturing, and trading members of
our country will appreciate to its full value. I begin
with the long-standing error, the first point, the imbe-
cility of our many and various administrations of Whig
and Tory, that of baying never thought of an Order
in Council (the quickest work) or an Act of Parliament,
to make any portion of our different denominations of
stocks (the Funds so called) a legal tender. The whole
Debt is a fiction, for not a guinea was ever paid to
Government on any loan—it was paper, symbolic and
in other forms, every 401. of every 1001. a swindling pre-
mium to get 601. Allow me to suppose that this
very simple law had been, from Lord Bute's time,
in George the Tbird's reign, declared by an act of
Parliament, to be a► legal tender, no such embarrassments
as those of 1796, 1819, 1823, and 1837, as well as the
present, could by any possibility have occurred. I am
au aged man, born in March, 1775, an octogenarian, (in
vigorous health), addicted from very early youth to think
deeply and intensely.
I may and can safely say, that no Chancellor of the
Exchequer nor any First Lord of the Treasury, a Prime
Minister from the time of the rogue and deceitful Wal-
pole in 1700, when our debt first bad a beginning, ever
exhibited a particle of genius, even in the mode of taxa-
tion, or i❑ easing the people when making laws. I per-
fectly recollect the loud commendations heaped upon the
salt tax, a tax amounting to 34 times the real saleable
value of the article. We had our salt doled out in conical
wood baskets.

I do not intend, nor do I mean to insult the thou-
sands of wisesheaded men who have adorned our coun-
try ; but I mean to say, if any one has had a useful
fiscal idea, it is somewhat astonishing that it had not
burst forth from the womb of the mind.
I shall commence with the famed William Pitt. That
oratorical Minister persuaded the Commons of the ne-
cessity of our country going to war with France in 1793.
He persuaded the nation to believe it was the intention
of the French Revolutionary Government to invade and
seize by force of arms and strategy, old England. The
false the of Mr. Pitt's mind on this proved costly and
wicked folly ; the extravagantly ruinous folly as it now
appears to us of the present time, was inflamed by the
brilliant oratory of Edmund Burke. To carry en this
sinful and most outrageous insane war, he raised loans
by 60 millions, and at 100 millions at a time, and
offered the usurious interest or bonus of 40 per cent, to
get what I that is the question—why, millions in bank
notes, the only payment to Government for shares of
his unfortunate love of loans. When our guineas in
the Bank were reduced to 99,9001. by unlawfully
subsidising Austria, paying Prussia and the Grand
Duke of Hesse Cassel ; and thus draining every guinea
obtainable from the daily demand for our currency, and
after scandalously violating his sacred promise made to
the Governor of the Bank of England, Mr. Jeremiah
Harman (my fast and ♦aluable friend), who, alarmed,
sent a messenger with a written notice to Mr. Pitt, that
the directors would have to declare the insolvency of that
great institution. The directors told this overrated
minister that he must instantly resolve to call a privy
council to sanction the issue of 11. and 21 -notes, to save
the nation from universal bankruptcy and ruin. An
order in council was soon dished and served up, to
make these non convertible notes a legal tender for
six months. This order in Council was frequently re-
newed 'tail it was finally resolved by the Privy Coon-
cit, the order should continue till and for six months
alter the signature of a peace. This peace was effected
in 1814, but the notes circulated till 1819, when Sir R.
Peel lost his senses, and by an act of the Legislature
we were to return to a Olden currency. To return to
the year 1796, Mr. Pitt had such dread apprehensions
that riots would follow the suspension of cash payments,
that he silently caused a large body of the militia to
surround London, keeping at 10 and 12 miles distant.
How small was his mind 1 So far from riots occurring,
in a week the whole community felt as satisfied with a
11.-note and a shilling to represent a golden guinea as if
no change had taken place in the form of the currency ;
that all manufacturers, merchants, and the vast mass of
our trading people remained contented and satisfied with
the paper currency for 27 years—that is, from 1796 to
1825, the year of awful memory, which paper circulatio❑
enriched England beyond all precedent in our reoords.
The first dreadful national spasm occurred in
1819, when Mr. Peel first carried his meas
sure—that of returning to a metallic currency.
He found it impossible to carry his impolitic measure
slap bang, and deterred it to 1823, when the nation had
another spasmodic convulsion. Expediency, the goddess
of Sir H. Peel, forced him to postpone the national
orash, to serve his insanity, until 1825. Then it was
that 260 millions of country paper was annihilated by
being called in, and about 25 millions of extra issue of
Bask of England notes, making a total of 285 millions
of currency. _

Many are still living who can remember the emphatic
denouncement of Peel's father, echoed by a few similarly
foss-sighted, wise members of the House of Commons,
who predicted all the fearful calamities sure to follow in
the wake of so insane a measure. Why do I boldly Call
it an insane measure / Because England, by the faith
placed in her, and the credit she enjoyed over the whole
surface of the earth, made her paper money of equal
value to gold.

Gold or silver currency prevail only in poverty-stricken
States, like those of Germany and Italy. They inspire
no sort of confidence—ergo, have no credit. Austria is
now trembling ; her shivering being produced by her
injustice and rascally cruelty to the once famed and
glorious Italy ; where the arts, and sciences, and poetry,
raised their heads above all the world. This appalling
panic happened in Novs, 1825, when one of our farefamed
horrible, thick, yellow fogs prevailed, and gas supplied
the feg-hidden sun, producing a darkness almost super.
natural, which increased the horrors of the day. I heard
that my banker, among others, had stopped payment.
I was incredulous, so I put on my hat and hastened to
the city. Arrived in Cornhill, I saw a vast crowd, half
of the men hatless, at the door of Sir John Lubbeck.
The same at Smith, Payne, and Smith..; ditto eat
Messrs. Masterman and Co. Mr. Jeremiah Har-
man .having a Russian Government balance in
his and his brother's hands, went and tendered
, 600,0004. to the Mastermans, offering more if it were
wanted. That saved the firm. The house of Barings
and Co. could obtain no accommodation at the banks,
his Chinese sycee ingots of silver being refused as
security. Other great merchants were in like manner
refused. Bills were hourly falling due, and nothing in
hand to meet them. It cost all those who could stand
the sacrifice exactly 71. 10a. per pound sterling. Nine-
teen private banks fell smash at one fell swoop. Country
banks were nearly all found to be rotten concerns, and
they went to the wail wholesale. It was computed and
proved that when the Bank of England, to save a run for
gold, withdrew two and a-calf millions, it cost the menu-
taring and commercial community forty millions in sacri-
fice to save themselves. If at any time the Bank were
to withdraw four millions, it would make the country
bankrupt. We require a national bank. Lord Overtone
and numbers of pamphleteers I among the many
—advocated the measure as imperative. I shall say no-
thing of my plan at present, but hope in another address
to you, Mr. Editor, to explain it in as brief a manner
as words can express, as it forms part of a project for
our immediate money relief, which I offered to Sir
Cornewall Lewis, who would consider my project, but
could make no conditional promise of reward for years
in contemplation, and weeks in writing—the details ,
filling a rather large book, where all the calculations
were minutely stated.
To return again to the panic in November, 1325,
and the Bank of England records prove, that the Bank
stopped payment 12 times in 44 years ; averaging 3
years and three-quarters each. I ask what commercial
firm could have stood eo many severe shocks 1 Not one ;
but we have to recollect that our Government owed, and
owes still, from eleven to twelve millions, therefore orders
in council ars ever easy to obtain, or Messrs. the Direc-
tors and Chairman might stop payment to Government,
and refuse Exchequer Bills, &c. &o.
To conclude, I must return to Mr. Pitt's want of
foresight, and the absence of all fiscal perceptions.
Had he, or had his predecessors, ever thought of
returning loans of 60 and 100 millions by granting in
exchange debentures carrying 12 per cent., to fall in at
the end of fourteen years as a debt cleared off, we should
never have had the frightful incubus which weighs every
business wan to the ground. Taxation could never have
reached 12 millions for State expenses, instead of 26
millions to pay the interest only of our debt.— I am,
Sir, your most obedient servant,
Professor BARON VON REMAGLE, C.E.

Marylubone-street, Regent-circus,
Nov. 9, 1i47.