The Sun.
London, England, 1844-02-15 00:00:00

4 iOSIT# Mt

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1844

The Lords did not sit last evening.
In the Commons Mr. BRUGES took his seat for the
borough of Devizes.
Mr. FERRAND made another exhibition last even-
ing which surpasses all his former feats. He stated
that Lord DENMAN, in a case which came before
him relative to the separation of mother and *child,
had delivered a judgment, which was he unanimous
opinion of the Court, that there were some cases in
which it was necessary to break in upon an Act of
Parliament, and he quoted, in confirmation of his
original statemeni, reports in four morning papers.
Lord DENMAN, we are ready to admit, assumes very
high ground with regard to the jurisdiction of the
Court in which he presides; but, if he said this or any-
thing like it—if he-said that a Court of Justice could
break iai upon the law of the land, he ought at once
to be put into Bedlam, with Mr. FERRAND for his com-
panion. Sir J. GRAHAM, in answer to this strange
assertion, said he could assure the House, from the
highest authority, that Lord DENMAN not only did
not make use of such an expression, but exactly the
converse of what had been imputed to him. Mr.
FERRAND did trot reply.
The Small Debts Bill and the Superior Courts of
Common Law Bill were read a second time.
Mr. STUART WORTLEY moved the second reading
of the Horse. racing Penalties Repeal Bill, which
might be more properly entitled the Betting Penal-
ties Repeal Bill. He showed the necessity for the
Bill, and related some anecdotes on betting which
rimy be interesting to- gamblers.
Mr. M. Ginsox opposed the motion. The law
which had been said to be obsolete, or which had not
been acted on for fifty years, had actually been car-
ried-into effect against a person of the name of BortD,
and he had been ruined by a conviction. But when
it touched the higher classes then the cry was raised,
and a Bill was brought in to stop the actt'on
that Bill had been sanctioned by the Episcopal
and
that
Bench. No Bill of Indemnity had been brought in
for BOND—no statute bad been passed to prevent the
rich itom setting.a bad example to the poor. He
concluded by moving for a Select Committee to
examine into the existing statutes against gambling
of every kind, Lord J. MANNERS and Colonel PEEL
supported the Bill, Mr. VERNON SMITII and Mr.
Hums opposed it ; and on a division there were for
the second reading 112, and against it 25. The Bill
was then ordered :to be committed on Wednesday next.
In answer to a question from Lord JOHN RUSSELL
Sir jAMES. GRAHAM said it was the intention of the
Government to give precedence to the adjourned de-
bate on the Irish question. Lord 'avow; then re-
,
sawed the adjourned debate, and supported the motion
of Lord JOHN RUSSELL.
Mr. B. COCHRANE agreed with many of the re-

marks made by Lord JOHN RUSSELL, and considered
that they should legislate for Ireland, not only on just
and wise principles, but generously.
Lord CLEMENTS followed, and supported the 'no-
tion.

After speeches from Mr. YOUNG, Sir GEORGE
GREY, and Lord ELIOT, the debate was again
adjourned.
A motion made by Mr. FERRAND relative to the
Poor-law Commission was negatived, and the House
adjourned at Half-past Twelve o'clock.

Another of the great weekly meetings of the Anti-
Corn-law League will be held this evening, at
Covent-garden Theatre. We are glad to find this
powerful national confederacy thus resolutely bent on
persevering in its strenuous and wholesome course of
agitation, and opposing to the monopolists—with the
time-serving Premier at their head—a front of stern
and bold defiance. The Leaguers owe it to them-
selves, not less than to the vast mass of their fellow-
countrymen, who have honopred them with their con-
fidence, to persist at all hazards in agitating the
momentous question of free trade ; to abate one jot
of their determination—to exhibit, but for a single
instant, the slightest symptom of despondency—would
just now be death to all their hopes, and arm the
monopolists with tenfold power. It may be imagined
by some timid but well-intentioned persons that Sir
ROBERT PEEL'S late declaration in Parliament has
inflicted " a heavy blow and great discouragement"
on the cause of free trade ; in reality, however, it has
done no such thing, but has supplied the advocates of
that cause—by rousing the energies which a too
great confidence of success might have lulled
into a partial lethargy—with just the sort of brisk
stimulus that is necessary to carry them triumphantly
forward. They must now see that the time for
parley—the time for trusting in the favourable dis-
position of Sir R. PEEL-is for ever past ; and that
nothing can henceforth serve their turn, or bring
eventual victory to their banner, but a fierce, sys-
tematic, continuous, sleepless, and unwearying course
of agitation. The Leaguers must strictly fol-
low the advice given some years since to the
friends of Catholic Relief--they must " agi-
tate—agitate--agitate !" This must be their
first—this their second—this their third prin-
ciple of action. And in this spirit they will act,
and the result cannot fail to be a decided triumph.
For let no man dream for an instant, that because the
Premier has declared himself this session against free
trade, he will of necessity repeat the same declara-
tion next session. You may as well expect that an
April wind shall blow for a month together from
the same point of the compass, as that our fickle,
fluctuating Minister will abide by a past de-
claration—no matter how unqualified its tone—
when he finds it essential to his interest to throw it
overboard. He will be governed, as he always has
been throughout his not, very brilliant career, by ex-
pediency, and by expediency alone. It is lucky
for the Leaguers that this is the case, for they have
in the Premier's utter disregard of consistency,
their best assurance of success. They have only
to look sharp after the election branch of their system
of agitation, and achieve, as opportunity offers, a few
more such solid triumphs as they achieved the other
• clay at Durham,Kendal, and London, to compel Sir Ro-
. BERT PEEL to withdraw his opposition, and come for-
ward as an advocate for a further alteration in the
corn-laws. But this will not be enough. No-
thing ought -- and we are quite sure that no-

thing will— satisfy the League, but a total
abolition of this grinding impost. They must "go
the whole hog " in agitation, and not rest satisfied
with such a small concession as a fixed duty. As the
grievance is oppressive, so must .the remedy be com-
plete and not partial. Meantime, as regards the mo-
nopolists, these men are just now, we perceive, in a
high state of tumultuous exultation. They are effer-
vescing in all quarters, and think that they have
at length got the slippery Premier fast in their
eltitches. But they are mistaken ; for, like an eel, he
has got a trick of slipping through men's fingers just
at the moment when they are most sure of him. As
he acted with Catholic Emancipation and the Test
Acts, so will he act with the corn-laws. The

movements of the League will be the barome-

ter by which he will be guided. When he
finds them wresting a few more towns and cities
from the tenacious grasp of the monopolists, and
adding daily to the number and weight of their sub-
scriptions and their proselytes, that instant he will
cry " Peccavi," tip his party the " cold shoulder,"
and hold out the right hand of fellowship to the
triumphant Member for Stockport.

The letter of a Correspondent in our Paper on
Saturday has befittingly recalled our attention to the
important subject of the currency. Our previous
article had gone far• to show the miserable folly of en-
deavouring to effect the transactions of a great com-
mercial country lace this through a metallic medium,
and the terrible injury and injustice to which the
mercantile community have been subject through
the endeavours to use. it.' Here we have a practical
illustration of the .
.robbery, for we can designate it by
no better name, to which the public are always liable
in the use of coin. _ _ _

Without adverting to the peculiar character which
coin bears as being expressly the most palpable and
efficient instrument of despotism, an instrument which
irresponsible power has so often used, first in deluding
and then in oppressing the people, we have in the
fact stated by our Correspondent a definite and
tangible base on which to calculate the loss which the
country sustains, in these days of freedom, through
the agency of an illusory evil for which no one can be
made answerable. The advocates of a metallic
currency have invariably laid down its unalterable
and intrinsic value as the chief of its merits. But
how different the fact really is may be very briefly
shown. In all the decisions of moral adjudication
it is an invariable principle, that he who causes a
wrong should make recompense for the injury he oc-
casions. Yet, in the case of a metallic currency,
put into circulation by the Government, it is a
well-known contingency, apprehended and anti-
cipated before a sovereign is issued from the
Mint, that, in the course of years, it must
be abraded and reduced in value, and that which
is sent forth to the world as of the full worth of 205.,
is, in every third exemplar, taken back as entitled to
be exchanged for only 19s. 61. This may appear a
trifling loss; but there is a good old Scotch adage, to
the effect, that many small units form a large aggre-
gate, and this aggregate will be seen to consist of no-
small amount.

Besides the loss from abrasion, the admirers of the
metallic system, who pin their faith on the supposition
of the permanent and unvarying estimate of a gold
price, will be surprised to learn, that since its original
issue in the time of JAMES 1., with little difference in
its intrinsic worth, our principal gold coin has been
altered by authority no less than twelve times in its
monetary value, to say nothing of the perplexing and
injurious influence of those fluctuations which have
been caused by, political events. What these were
during the war the greater part of those now living
can very well remember.
It is, however, of the silent and comparatively un-
observed robbery perpetrated on the public, *and too
often on that portion of the public who are least able
to bear it, that we would now speak. The amount of
gold coin issued by the Bank of England from
January, 1821, to the 15th February, 1833, is stated
by Mr. HORSLEY PALMER to have been 38,500,000/.
Deducting from this 8,500,0001., supposed to have
been exported from the country, the export of which,
by-the-bye, cannot have been otherwise than a dead
loss, we have just 30,000,000/. left in the hands of the
public.
We will say nothing of the 5,000,000/. at that
time in the vaults of the Bank, because it is reasonable
to suppose that some portion, from the hoarding of in-
dividuals,
or from its state of rest in the hands of
bankers and others, would remain free from that
degree of abrasion to which the other portion of the
metallic currency would be subject. Thirty millions
of hard sovereigns, then, have been rubbing and
jingling together in the hands of the public since
they first came forth from the Mint.

Now, we give no light advantage to our opponents
in supposing that none of this gold is chargeable
with any deficiency till three years after the last
piece has passed over the counter of the n
we will ascertain what loss has been sufferedau b;y butthe
public on this mass of bullion, and in doing so we
quote from one who, whatever may be his judgment,
has at least proved himself a zealous partisan
for the tin of metal in the transactions of life.

The account, however, is official, and we, therefore,
use it with the less hesitation, notwithstanding
the source through which it has come.
The following is the amount of gold coin tendered
at the Bank of England, together with the amount
'rejected as light, during the several years specified :
Amount tendered. Amount rejected.
1836 £6,427,749 £637,565
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841

1842
6 214 439
to June 25 ' ' 2,067,091
We have here a total, tendered at the Bank,
during six years and a half, of 59,880,9714 while,
during a period of more than twelve years, the
amount issued and circulating, in the hands of the
public, was only 30,000,0001., showing, even on
this presumption, that the coin issued between
January, 1821, and February, l 833, was all of full
weight, a presumption more favourable than any the
Bank or the Government are entitled to; that the
whole of the gold currency, or that which was equi-
valent to the whole, had been tendered to the Bank four
times over; four times over had been deliberately exa-
mined by ,the authorities in Threadneedle-street, who,
gradually sifting from the amount 13,403,650/., or
about three-eighths of the whole amount, which had
been thrown back upon the public (who were
thereby being called upon to endure a further
loss on that amount), had received the remainder
from time to time, not as being of full weight,
but as not, at the different times of the receipt of the
different portions, being so light as to be unfit for
circulation ; or, in other words, as not being suffi-
ciently deprciated for them to derive the greatest
gain by its acceptance.
The proportion of light gold to the whole gold cur-
rency rises rapidly from 10 per cent in 1836 through
13f in 1837, 20 per cent. in 1838, 22 per cent. in
1839,28 per cent. in 1840, 26 6-10 in 1841, to 33 3-10
at the end of June in 1842.

We impute no bad principle to the Bank—we be-
lieve the Bank Directors to be as honest and as
honourable men as any in the empire. But we do say
that these facts prove one of two things—either that
the Bank knowingly issued, from year to year, a large
amount of gold coin with the cognisance that it was
light, and uttered it at the rate of value in which
every sovereign was counted out to the public as of
the worth of 205., with the assurance that it would
be returned and received at a less worth, and they
would, thereby, make a gain of it, and a greater gain
according to the length of time at which its receipt
was deferred; or else a metallic currency is subject
to so rapid a depreciation, that an inevitable and
great loss must be annually sustained by the public.
We believe the latter to be the case. We believe
that the Bank, unwilling to inflict a loss, and unwilling
to bear it, kept the coinage afloat as long as it
' could, and ultimately received it at a loss to the com-
munity. At the end of June light gold was received
in Threadneedle-stieet at the minimum Mint rate of
31. 17s. 104 d. per ounce, and by the end of 1843 the
amount so received was estimated at more than
10,000,0001., or one-third of the original issue. This
was the final loss, but how great a loss had been borne
by individuals previously, who can tell ?
We have, however, facts to guide us. By all the

laws of proportion in the estimate of fluctuating sub-
jects, we have a right to take the average ; and during
the whole of the period, from 1836 to the end of
1843, nearly one-fourth of the whole gold circulation
was of light weight; and, consequently, of depre-
ciated value. We find that during the actual trans-
actions of commercial life, the loss is about 21 per
cent. Now, without overburdening our readers
with a multitude of figures, we may allow the loss
not ascertained, but which must be incurred by
individuals whose grievance is never known, such as
that of the artisan, the labourer, and the little trader,
to go against the loss saved by the yearly amount of
gold abstracted from circulation, and replaced by
pieces of full weight. We have, then, an annual de-
ficiency of two-and-a-half per cent. upon 7,500,0001.,
or about 375,000/.; and if we add to this the loss oc-

casioned by the admixture of spurious coin,
said to be about 600,0001. a-year, we have
an aggregate loss, through the use of a
metallic currency, between the beginning of
1836 and the end of 1843, of no less a sum than
7,600,0001. A loss wrung out of the very hearts
and sinews of the people—a loss which has, not once
only, but again and ,zgaio„,--pduced the pittariL
the poor, and made the hearth which was almost de-
solate before, look bare indeed ! When will men
open their eyes, to see the sophistry of deluding
suppositions, and the injustice that may be
imposed by the following of groundless notions?
We hope our readers, at least, will not put
implicit credence in the representation that gold is
always safe. We have a few more facts to show that
if no loss could be sustained through its use, the
mere amount of a gold currency must always be so
inadequate for the purposes of trade, that whilst re-
tained as the main representative of value, though
the country may be rich, the people must of necessity
be poor. '

From the last print of the "Poor-law Further
Amendment Bill," brought in by Sir JAMES GRA-
HAM and Mr. MANNERS SUTTON, and now before
the House of Commons, we observe that the principal
points of difference between its proposed enactments
and those of the law now in force, regard-4, the ex-
isting remedy iri bastardy cases of the parish against
the putative father, and the remedy for the mother of
a bastard against the same father. 2. The regulations
of parish apprenticeship, and the future abolition
of compulsory apprenticeship. 3. The scale of voting
for elections of guardians. 4. Regulations as to
claims of owners, and as to proxy-votes at such elec-
tions. 5. Miscellaneous provisions. 6. Miscellaneous
powers of guardians. 7. Burial of paupers. 8.
District pauper schools, and asylums for occasional
poor in London and other large towns. 9. Parishes
under Local Acts.

We have, in a recent article, expressed our views
upon the general_ effect of the first set of these clauses,
and remain of opinion that their general effect (of
which we highly approve), will be in danger of being
neutralised by the proviso, that the application of the
mother for a warrant against the putative father
" shall be heard and determined within the space of
forty days from the service of the original warrant."
This is to allow the poor woman no sufficient time, in
many cases, to leave her room with safety, in order to
make her appliCation before the justices. The limit
must be extended. The power which is given, by
clause 11 (as it is at present numbered in the Bill)
to the Poor-law Commissioners, by order, under their
hand and seal, to direct what trades or businesses
poor children may be apprenticed to, does not ap-
pear to us an unreasonable one. From the union,
or the parochial poor-house, in which they have
been brought up, it is to be supposed that the
parties best qualified to speak to their capacity or
turn, will have, from time to time, reported their
,observations in a form sufficiently conclusive to
enable the Commissioners to form a correct judgment,
and one therefore most advantageous to the children
so about to be placed out. In the next place, the
scale of voting seems to be judiciously altered, both
as to rate-payers and as to owners. Instead of two
tables, as formerly, the one for the latter, the other
for the former class, it is proposed henceforth to sub-
stitute one table applying to both. Thus, owners
and rate-payers, rated upon a rateable value of lts3
than 501. each, shall be each entitled to one vote ; of
501., and less than 1001., to two votes ; of 1001., and
less than 1501., to three votes ; of 1501., and less than
2001., to four votes ; of 200/., and less than 2501. five
votes ;of 2501., and upwards, six votes. N o owner of
property is to vote, either in person or by proxy, until
fourteen days after he shall have given to the overseers
that statement of the property in respect of which he so
claims to vote, which was required under the 4th and
sth WILLIAM IV., c. 76 ; and no person (unless he
be a bailiff, steward, land agent, or collector of rents)
to vote as proxy for more than four owners of pro-
perty in any one parish ; no proxy to endure, or
remain in force, more than two years from the
making thereof. Clause 25 is an important, and may
prove, we think, in' working, a highly beneficial one.
It authorises the guardians of any parish or union
constituted by the Poor-law Commissioneri to apply
all money raised or borrowed for the purpose of de-
fraying the expenses of emigration, subject to the
conditions and restrictions of the Act of GEO. IV.,
C. 48. The 27th clause is calculated to meet the
complaints, and assuage the feelings in which those