The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-16 00:00:00

ENGLISH MONEY FOR ENGLAND.

(Prom the Derbyshire Courier of November 7.)
That ingeniously contrived instrument of torture
—Peel's Bill—is now getting into energetic opera-

' In his evidence before the Bank Charter Commit-
tee, on the 7th of July last, Lord Overstone an-
nounced that " the great principle of the Act of
1844 is to make the amount of paper money in th.
country conform in its variations to what would be
the variations in the amount of a metallic cur-
rency."
• That is to say, having established a system by
which the Bank of England is allowed to issue
14,475,0001,, against securities and above the bul-
lion held in its coppers, and by which the other
banks in Great Britain and Ireland can issue
17,384,424/. independent of bullion, the Act of
1844—a worse Act than the monstrous Act of 1819
—attempts to make this paper currency fluctuate
as a purely metallic currency would do.
The immense monetary affairs of this country
could not for a day be carried on, nor the taxes
raised with a metallic currency. Peel and Over-
stone knew this as well as any one e'se But
merely to carry out a puerile currency crotchet
the idle theory ( f ignorance and conceit, they have
plunged the industrious classes of this country, at
peliodically recur' ing times, into the greatest pos-
sible distress, privation, suffering, and ruin.
Sir Robert Peel was himself the cre ►cure of paper
motley—his father obtained his fortune, and wai
enabled to place h:s son in the prominent political
position which unhappily for his fellow countrymen
he filled, entirely through the assistance afforded
to his enterprising spirit by paper money. The
first Sir R. Peel began life as a poor working max
without capital. Paper Money stood his friend,
and he became a rich one. Ho always acknow-
ledged his obligations to Pitt's system of Paper
Money, and to the last opposed Peel's Bill. The
fortune which the first Sir Robert Peel made was
greatly increased in value by the bill which his son
passed.

Lord Overstone, whose father, still alive, was a
Unitarian preacher in Manchester before be became
a banker, has accumulated the largest fortune ever
made in this country, in a lifetime, partly by the
very paper money system which he now reprobates,
and very considerably since the passing of Peet's
Bills of 1819 and 1844 by the facilities which
these pecuniary measures give to capitalists to
enrich themselves in time of commerzial pressure,
by obtaining exhorbitant interest for their capital,
and by purchasing securities which the money
law which he, Lord Overstone, assisted to make,
have depreciated below their intrinsic value. The
bill which has ruined so many families, has
worked extremely well for its supporter—Lord
Overstone. Now Lord Overstone, in the evidence
before referred to, explains the working of the Act
of 1844. " The operation of tile Act is this, that
the bank notes, in other words the money, of the
country must decrease as the drain of bullion goes
on. That decrease in the money of the country
must augment its value ; that augmentation of its
value must produce two effects : one is, that it
causes a temporary rise in the rate of interest to
which the bank must conform ; the other is, that
it induces the bullion merchants of this country to
write to their correspondents abroad to say, 'Money,
in relation to all other thingß, has become more
valuable in this country than it was ; therefore, in
your transactions with us, remit money in prefer-
ence to other things,' and in that way the ex-
changes are soon rectified." (Question 3,651.)
Very well, money goes up to eight or nine per
cent.: merchants and manufacturers feel the enor-
mous rise in interest. But that is a trifle to what
ensues. Money "augments in value," that is,
commodities of all kinds decline in price. A man
closes his hand in bills of lading, which to day re-
present 100,000/. ; he opens it, and finds that to-
morrow they are worth 75,0001. or 50,0001. The
merchant prince of to-day is the needy suppliantof
the Bank Parlour to-morrow, and a ruined manthe
day after. But what, Lord Overstone, becomes of
the working man ? The man, whom you, Lord
Overstone, are above all others bound to consider
iu the laws which you make, orwhich you support?
Let, what is at this moment occurring, according to
the Bullionist organ, the Times newspaper of Mon-
day last,.give an answer.

Manohester. —The depression of trade is making
itself very severely felt upon the working classes,
not excepting the most highly-paid servants of our
city mercantile establishments. It would-be difficult
to form an estimate of the still greater extent of
the suff,ring among the mill operatives, resulting
from the unexpected commercial crisis. Not only.
in Manchester have great numbers of working peo-
ple been partially or entirely thrown out of employ-
ment by the stoppage of mills or the resort to short
time, but the surrounding towns are some of them
feeling the depression of trade more acutely. The
silk trade of Macclesfield is, perhaps, in a still worse
state ; but in .A..thton, Stalybridge, Stockport,
Bury, Bolton, Dar wen, Blackburn, Preston, Roch-
dale, Oldham, and other large towns iu the cotton
districts, distress has manifested itself widely al-
ready, and led to an increase of pauperism. At
Preston the whole of the operatives in more than a
dozen cotton mills have been thrown out of employ
by an entire stoppage, while about 30 mills there
are running only three or four days a week. At all
the places above enumerated mills have entirely
stopped or have reduced their productions very
considerably, and with it the employment of the
working classes. Prices continue to give way in
most descriptions of yarns and cloth."
We observe in passing, that Lord Stanley, as•
suming that we have 160,000 horse power of steam
engines employed in cotton mills, estimates the
stoppage of them for two days as costing the mill
owners 640,0001., or iu a working season of about
20 weeks, 13,000,0001. sterling.
At Norwich, we find that "the number of un-
employed weavers is considerable."

At Leeds " a good deal of short-time working."
At Halifax "short-time working has increased."
At Bradford "business in all departments •f the
worsted trade remains paralysed. Short-time work-
ing has become general.
How much privations and distress, agony of mind
and suffering of body are involved in these business
details ! Well may acorrespondent, who writes to
thank us in our exertions in what he designates as
" the cause of every poor man. and of ev, ry good
man in the kingdom," exclaim, " The terriblescenes
which no eye but that of God is witnessing just
now in Manchester and other hives of industry,
and which are directly traceable to our present pe-
riodical-panic-making Bank Act, would rouse the
blood of the people, and they would will the extinc-
tion of that Act, did they but understand its ope-
ration."

Yes, the time will come when it will be under-
stood, and for the sake of our suffering fellow
countrymen we pray that it may some quickly.
"In that way," says Lord Overstone,—in the
way, that is, of deprecating all commodities, stop-
ping mills, and starving operatives by the thousand,
in that way the exchanges are soon rectified"
and so we get back a few millions of gold, the noble
lord count up his gains, the ruined merchant re-
tires into obscurity, the wives and children of the
working classes issue from the workhouse, to be per-
mitted to labour, if they can get work, till the next
Panic.
But is bullion so certain to return to us in 1857
as it did in 1847 and 1825 ?
We diminish our money and boat down prices.
But just now other nations are doing the same. In

(Prom the Derbyshire Courier of Nov 14.)
In 1811 Lord Castlereagh described the " inon-
vertible" Bank Notes which then existed as form-
ing "a circulating medium of undoubted credit,
proportioned to the wants of the nation." This
money bad, he said, "for the first time solved the
problem of reconciling national prosperity with a
state of war ; the country having risen in mann-
factureß, internal improvement, revenue and com-
merce, with a velocity which had never been ex-
perienced in a year of profound peace." Budgets
are stubborn things, and when the speech from the
Throne in February, 1811, announced that " the
revenue, unaided by any new taxation was greater
than was ever known in any preceding year," it
stated a great financial fact.
Legal tender Paper Money, inconvertible into
Gold at a fixed rate, based upon the integrity of
the British Government, and the wealth and hon-
our of the British nation, carried this country not
only with safety, but with every evidence of sub-
stantial prosperity, and social progress and happi-
ness, through political difficulties cornparedtowhich
those of the last 40 years have been insignificant.
We are now suffering from a drain of Bullion.
This drain has come upon this country at .a time
of peace—for the Indian disturbances can scarcely
be magnified into a war—at a time when we are
told, again and again, that trale and commerce
were never in a more healthy and wholesome con-
dition, and when we have bad at least a fair average
harvest, at a time when science is doing more to
assist the energies of productive industry than was
ever before known to be the case, and at a time
when California and Australia have in a few years
poured upwards of 150 millions of solid gold into
the commerce of the world.
Compare the effects of the present drain of
specie with those which occurred in 1810. Every-
thing was then against England, as everything
now has been in our favour.
Sir A. Alison thus narrates the circumstances
"The prodigious absorption of specie for the
use of the French and Austrian armies during the
campaign of 1809, joined to the immense cost of
the campaign in Portugal, and the importation of
one million five hundred thousand quarters of
wheat to supply the deficiencies of a bad harvest in
1810, had occasioned PO great a dearth of specie in
Great Britain in the latter year, that gold and silver
had almost disappeared from the circulation, and a
light guinea was worth 25, and sometimes 27 shillings.
But what then I The banks increased their issue in a
-Mailer proportion ; that of the Bank of England was
raised to twenty-eight millions ; its discounts reached
twenty millions in a single year. All other banks did
the same ; and by this means, not only was the crisis
surmounted without diffi'mlty, but 100,000 combatants
and 40 ships of the line were assembled round Lisbon,
which hurled back the French from the lines of Torres
Iredras. A commercial and monetary crisis which, be-
yond all question under our present system, would have
involved the nation and all the commercial interests in a
general public and private bankruptcy, was not only sur-
mounted without distress, but the property of the indus-
trious clases was unimpaired during its whole continu-
ance : and the nation commenced in the middle of it
those gigantic, efforts which at length turned the tide
against France and brought the contest to a glorious
termination.

All this must appear to the bullionist faction as
extraordinary, as it undoubtedly is true.
But it is nothing to what remains to be told.
" It is," says Sir A. Alison,
" It is remarkable that this admirable system, which
may be truly called the moving power of the nation
during the war, became, towards its close, the object of
the most determined hostility on the part both of the
great capitalists and chief writers on political economy
in the country. Here, however, as everywhere else,
experience, the great test of truth, has determined the
question. The adoption of the opposite system of con-
tracting the paper in proportion to the abstraction of
the metallic currency, by the Acts of 1819 and 1844,
(followed as it was necessarily by the monetary crises
of 1825, 1839, and 1847,) has demonstrated beyond a
doubt that it was in the system of an expansive cur-
rency that Great Britain, during the war, found the sole
means of its salvation."—Alison's History of Europe,
vol. xx., p. 79 80.

It is equally "remarkable" that the system of
Peel and Overatone has counteracted the onward
progre-s and prosperity of the British nation under
a combination of the most favourable possible cir-
cums:ances.

Wt may be told of the American panic. But let
it be remembered that in 1810, ten milions of pro-
perty, belonging to British merchants, were seized
in six weeks in the Baltic ports and confiscated.
Let it be remembered that the United States of
America at one time perfectly and entirely closed
their markets for British productions. Yet with
paper money this country surmounted all enormous
commercial difficulties, and Prospered in spite of

IThe drain of bullion was exercising its pernicious
effects in April last when the discount was raised to
0 per cent., and again when, before the American
panic, it was, after a temporary reduction, raised
to 7 per. cent. Affairs in America might be
in a bad state, and English merchants trading
to America would undoubtedly suffer, but
this is a thing which, as the instances we have
named prove, could have been without difficulty
surmounted had not the money laws forced a con-
traction of our domestic currency. A firm like
that of Denistouu and Co., of undoubted character
and solvency, would have been assisted in their
hour of need and have been rescued. Such a house
as that of Naylor, Vickers, and Co., of Sheffield, of
whom we are told that "the entire proceedings
connected with their stoppage, instead of damaging
the future reputation of the partners will add to
the confidence hitherto placed in them," would
have got something better than these empty wiirds.
Sanderson and Co., with ample means, would not
have been unexpectedly and suddenly brought to a
stand.

Of course, among many f:tilures there will be
some whose business has been speculative, some
probably whose transactions have been frad ulent.
But we say that the working of Peel's monetary
system directly stimulates speculation and encou-
rages fraud. _

On the 22nd of April, 1852, the Times, announc-
ing the reduction of the rate of discount to 2 per
cent., complains that, " the absence of a courage-
ous spirit of enterprise is the penalty which weighed
down the country since 1847, and the old feeling of
healthiness will not be restored except by the diffi-
culty of obtaining any return for capital in the
routine channels (i. e., by patient, honest trading),
coupled with apprehensions of a possible further
lowering of the public debt."
_ _

It is this miserable, debasing, and demoralising
system by which money is at one time made a
" drug in the market," and speculation stimulated ;
and at another time an all ificial famine of money
is created, which is destroyiug the high character of
British merchants and ruining the fair and honour-
able spirit of commerce.

But there is more bitter consideration for the
true patriot behind. These fluctuations and de-
pressions and panics rule the merchant and menu-

facturer.

But what becomes of the thousands and

hundreds of thousands of industrious artisans and
operatives ?
What is the condition of the working classes in
Glasgow What will it be this winter ? What
will be the state of the operatives throughout
Lancashire Poverty, destitution, desperation,
and crime are let loose upon our manufacturing
districts by the direct application of Peel's mone-
tary system, and by those wh.l, tor no other ,)bj.ct
but he support of an idle currency cr(lchet for
which they can render no intelligent reason, sup-
port that system.
The fact is that there is more than the support of
a theory at stake. The Bank Charter Act is a rich
man's Bill. Its constant tendency is to make the
rich richer, and the poor poorer. While it enables
the wary merchant to keep his head ahoy.) water,
it engulphs the honest and intelligents trader of
sufficient but moderato means. Ite enables the
uch atnhe Peel's p
Bill
r
k 00
rich capitalists to got 10 per cent. y ,
morenow ntlsianantd a
that, as
admits
—and
suitpporTeroesf.
Under the operation of
people are periodically reduced t
this sysstotaermvtewo classes
the English

Usurers and their Victims.
Government seems quite inclined to let the act
takes its course. We warn them. There will come
a day of retribution. The many will not for ever
allow themselves to be sacrificed for the few.

FATAL ACCIDENT IN A COAL PlT.—Chesterfielo, Sun-
day._yesterday 12 men were suffocated in a coal pit
at Stavely, in attempting to extinguish a fire which
had broken out in a cabin in the 0 )141 pit.

HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE.
JULL [EN'S CONCERTS.
MDLLE. JETTY TREFFZ.
• The Last Night but Eleven.
The highly Successful INDIAN QUADRILLE, and
GENERAL HAVELOCK'S TRIUMPHAL MARCH,
THIS EVENING (MONDAY, Nov. 16), will be pro-
duced (for the 4th time) the New Grand Descriptive Composi-
tion, by M. Jullien, entitled THE INDIAN QUADRILLE,
and GENERAL HAVELOCK'S TRIUMPHAL MARCH,
performed by M. jullien's Orchestra, assisted by the drums
and fifes of the Grenadier Guards, the Coldstream Guards,
and the Scots Fusilier Guards ; and a Grand Chorus, " Rule
Britannia " and " God Save the Queen."
races of Admission—Promenade, is • Upper Boxes, Is. ;
Gallery, ls. ; Dress Circle, 2s. 6d.; 'Private Boxes, 10s.
tid. and upwards.
Prospectuses, with full particulars, may be had at the Box-
office of t:le Theatre ; of all the principal libraries; and at
Jullien and Co.'s, 214, Regent-street.

HE R MAJESTY'S THEATRE.—The
GRAND BAL MASQUE, which will
close 3f. Jullien's Nineteenth Season of Concerts (1857), will
take place on moIITAY, Nov. 30.

ApPlioations to 1)..* made at the Boa-office of the Theatre.

THEATRE ROYAL, HAYMARKET.
Lessee—. Mr. J. B. Buckstone.

MIS EVENING, to commence at Seven o'clock. with
a new Comedy, entitled .4N UNEQUAL MATCH. Princi-
pal characters by Messrs. lluckstone, Compton, Chippendale,
W. Farren, Miss Amy Sedg wick, Mrs. Buckingham White,
an Mrs. E. Fitzwilliam

After which, LEND ME FT VE SHILLINGS.
To be followed by THE STAX OF ANDALUSIA.
Orchestra Stalls (which may De retained the whole of the
evening), 6s. each. (No charge for booking.)
First Price. s. d. Second price. s. d
Dress Boxes 5 0 Dross Boxes 3 0
Upper Boxes 3 0 Upper Bores 2 U
Pit....
Lower Gallery 1 011:ovver Gallery 0 6
Upper Gallery 0 ENo haLf-price to Upper Gallery.

ROYAL FRINCESSIB THEATRE.
Proprietor, Mr. Charles Kean.
LAST WEEK BUT TWO OF THE TEMPEST.
TH!S EVENING, will be performed Sliakspere's Play of
THE TEMPEST.
Preceded by (first time), a new farce, in one act, entitled
A CASE OF CONSCIENCE.

THEATRE ROYAL, ADEL PHI,
Lessee—Mr. Ben. Webster.

THIS EVENING, will be performed BETTY MARTIN.
Alter which, a new romantic drama, called THE LEGEND
OF THE HEADLESS MAN, and in which Mr. Benjamin
Webster and Madame Celeste will perform.

Pollowed by the original Apropos Sketch, entit:ed THE
DRAPERY QUESTION ; or, Who's for India f Messrs.
Wright, P. Bedford, C. Selby; Miss M. Wilton and Miss
Mary Keeley.

ROYAL LYCEUM THEITRE.—Lessee, Mr.
Dillon.—Under the joint management of
Miss LOUISA PYNE and Mr. W. HARRISON.

THIS EVENING, will be performed Balfe's new opera,
THE ROSE OF C 4 STILLE. Characters by Miss Lon'sa
Pyne, Miss Susan Pyae, Miss Marian Prescott, Mr. Weiss,
Mr. A. St. Albyn, Mr. G. Honey, Ir. Wallworth, and Mr.
W. Harrison. Conductor, Mr. Alfred Mellon.
To conclude with (10th time) a new Farce, entitled A
PAIR OF PIGEONS. Mr. G. Honey and Miss Cuthbert.
Private Boxes, £2 12s. 6d., £2 25.. and £1 lls. 6d. ;
Stalls, 6s. ; Dress Circle, ss. ; Upper Boxes, 4s. ; Pit. 25.;
Gallery, ls.—The Box Office is now open daily, from 11 to
5, under the direction of Mr. Chatterton, jun.

ROYAL OLYMPIC THEATRE.
Lessees, Messrs. Rolcoon and. Emden.
THIS EVENING, will be performed A SHEEP IN
WOLF'S CLOTHING.
Followed by the new comedy, called LEADING STRINGS.
Messrs. Addison, G. Vining, H. Wigan ; Miss Marston and
Mrs. Emden (late Miss Somers).
To conclude with A CONJUGAL LESSON.
Commence at half-bast Seven.

STRAND THEA.TRE.—THIS EVENING,
will be performed
TEIE GENTLEMAN OPPOSITE.
Anse which, THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH. John
Peerybingle, Mr. Emery; Dot, Miss M. A. Victor; Bertha,
Miss Herbert.
To conclude with TAKE THAT GIRL AWAY. Mr.
Tilbury, Mr. Leicester Buckingham, and Miss Herbart
Commence at Seven. Stalls. 3s. ; Boxes, 25.; Pit, ls.;
Gallery 6d. ; Private Boxes, 11. is.

ROYAL SURREY THEATRE.
Lessees, Messrs. Shepherd and Crsswick.

THIS EVENING, will he performed a new and powerful
drama, entitled INDIA IN 1857. Messrs. Shepherd, Cres-
wick, W. Smith, Vollaire, B. Potter, Widdicomb, Belmore,
Tapping ; Miss M. Ebnrue, Miss Webster, Miss Chalmers,
Miss Johnstone.
After which, THE BARRISTER.

Followed by OUR TRAVIATA. The Blighted One, Mr.
Widdicomb.

CANTERBURY HALL, Westminster-road.—
OPEN EVERY EVENING.—The follow-
us, company of Vocalists are engaged for the performance of
'elections from all the popular OPERAS, MADRIGALS,
CTIORUSES, GLEES, DUETS, ac., viz.:—Miss Russell,
Mrs. Badacy, Madlle. Marietta, Mrs. Palmyre, Nliss
Brn-
nell, and Madame Marietta ; Flerr F. Jonghmans, Mr.
llenshaw, li. Grover, T. Farrant, S. Tones, J. Barker,
W. Melling, Senor Antonio. E. L. !lime, and Mr. St.
Albyn ; Messrs. S. Collins, W. I. Critch9eld, and E. Mack-
no?. Pianoforte, Mr. Cecil Flilks; harmoninm, Master
Williams; Director, Herr F. Jonghmans. Commence at
Seven o'clock precisely. Suppers, &c., until twelve o'clock.