The Sun.
London, England, 1845-05-30 00:00:00

recovered.

But, as we have said, we are so far from considering
that the industrial labourer, after the Bank Restriction
Act, had to endure a pressure of diminished wages, from
which be has never recovered, that we can prove that the

•
rate of wages between the commencement of the war in
1802, to its termination in 1814, and subsequently, down
to the passing of the Currency Bill in 1819, rapidly
rose to, and steadily maintained, a scale at which it
covered not only the depreciation in the value of money,

already alluded to, but the amount of indirect taxation
which he had to pay. The difference since 1819, or at
least since 1822-23, when the small bank-note circula-
tion of England and Wales was extinguished, has been
this—that the prices of commodities being reduced to
the gold, or natural standard, the manufacturer
has been unable to give that addition to the
wages of his labourers which would have represented
the amount of indirect taxation they have to pay, pend-
ing the production of his goods. It has been established
that the labouring community pay no less than
16,000,0001. per annum of indirect taxes, which it was
the interest of the Legislature in imposing them that the
consumer, not the producer, should pay. The institu-
tion of a gold standard simply reduces prices to the
same level they would reach in the most highly-taxed
country of Europe ; the wages paid are small in pro-
portion to these gold prices ; and the unfortu-
nate industrial labourer has to buy out of them,
in the most heavily-taxed of countries, the highly-
taxed means of his subsistence. Is it in the
face of such a state of things, that Lord Joins
RUSSELL will contend that the traces of the mischiefs—
the inexcusable and irreparable mischiefs—produced by
the crude monetary legislation of Sir ROBERT PEEL,
have passed away ? But such an inconsistency does
not surprise us. The support of that system, which is
in itself a violation of all the first principles of political
and commercial and fiscal consistency, cannot lead to
any other results. Let us try this question by a single
test. Sir ROBERT PEEL in 1819 (and again last year)
attempted to justify his pernicious interference with
the development and application of capital, by insisting
that to permit the continuance of a paper currency was to
encourage improvident trading, fraudulent speculation,
&c., and that to give unity and extension to the gold or
metallic system would be to consolidate commercial con-
fidence and mercantile stability. We shall say nothing
about the overweening confidence of that statesmanship
which assumes that it can draw, without prejudice to
this stability and this confidence, the arbitrary line of
demarcation that separates at any time tl.e limits at
which legitimate commercial enterprise and spirit ter-
minate from those where unwarrantable spe-
culation begins. We shall not pause to inquire
how these legislative attempts to limit even the
pernicious activity of speculation can be compatible with
that first principle of free-trade, which is identical with
the perfect freedom of capital and of its employment.
But if Sir R. PEEL'S monetary system were anything
else but specious cheat and delusion, certain results
must, ere now, have become matters of history and fact,
which are not only not so, but of which all that is the
converse of them is. Under the operation of a paper cur-
rency, from the Bank Restriction Act of 1797, till 1819
or 1820, legitimate trade should have declined;—gam-
bling speculation should have attained its height;—the
mighty bubble of British commercial superiority should
have burst; and 1819-20 should have found only a
mass of wreck and ruin to gather up, in order to combine
into a more substantial system calculated to work out a
far more prosperous future in all these respects
to this empire. From 1819-20, under a purely metallic
currency, combined with one only class of paper circula-
tion, convertible, on demand, into gold, at a previously
fixed ascertained price, we should, in 1845, be in a condi-
tion of unrivalled national prosperity. The control of the
commerce of the world ought to be in our hands. Ille-
gitimate speculation ought to have disappeared ; bank-
ruptcy to be comparatively unknown ; labour universally
employed, and waged fairly remunerating labour. Now
what is the fact against the hypothesis ? Between 1797
and 1819-20, we had almost engrossed the commerce
of the world. We were superior in all its markets. We
maintained for 13 years the most expensive and desolating
war on the records of history, out of which we emerged
triumphant. Our industrial community were, for the
greater part of that interval, well employed, and wages
comprised, over and above their natural relation to the
value of labour, that equitable margin which allowed for
the contributions to taxes payable by those prolucers.
Our commercial failures and private bankruptcies bore
no proportion to the amount they have attained between
1819 and 1845 ; and all the failures of banking• houses
were absolutely an insignificant aggregate by the side of
the ruinous convulsions of 1825 alone, and again of 1838.
Enormous private fortunes were acquired and diffused.
There was not one element wanting to a condition of
supreme pre-eminence in all that constitutes the
political and commercial grandeur of nations. What
have we encountered since 1819-20 ? The decay
of many branches of our foreign trade ; the successful
competition of foreigners in very many branches of our
manufactures. Gambling speculations, extensive and
reckless, in equal proportion to the intolerable pressure
of the screw put on by the currency legislation of Sir
R. PEEL (which operates to prevent the realisation of
propel ty, under whatever exigencies, except at ruinous
sacrifices, to meet the demand for its golden represen-
tative) have already shaken, and will frequently desolate
the money market. The poor-rates show no symptom
of permanent reduction. Vast masses of the labouring
poor are pining in fruitless, hopeless solicitude for em-
ployment. The revenue can only be made to keep pace
with the expenditure of the country by the imposition
of new taxes on property and income. Where is the
one single benefit which the country at large has de-
rived from the Premier's currency measures ?

Madrid journals of the 22d inst. have been received.
According to some of them the Court, or rather Queen
CHRISTINA, has some new measures in view not quite
acceptable to the Ministry, and one of them is said to
be the marriage of Queen ISABELLA with the son of Don
CARLOS. The Duke DE RIANZARES (Muxoz) had left
Madrid for Paris on the previous day, possibly to make
arrangements on the subject with the French Court.
The festival of Corpus Christi was celebrated on the
22d, and no business consequently was done on the
Bourse.

In the French Chamber of Deputies, on Wednesday'
the discussion on the extraordinary estimates for the
army in Algeria commenced. M. DUBOIS, the first
speaker, condemned altogether the system of military
colonisation, and more especially the present expedition
into Kab)lia, which lie considered unnecessary and ill-
timed. M. DE CORCELLES recommended the Govern-
ment to proceed with energy against the Arabs, as on no
other conditions could French dominion be established
in that country. M. DE Bs AUMONT than adverted to the
failure of the treaty with Morocco, and theinconsistency
of the Government journals, first praising the conduct of
General DE LA RUE, then condemning and disavowing
it, and contended that owing to the wavering policy
pursued, and notwithstanding the victories of Marshal
BUGEAUD, the colony was in a worse con-
dition than in 1844. He was left speaking
at the hour of post. The opposition journals continue
Morocco,
co
tmo
o discuss the policy of the Government in reference to
but we find nothing in them but repetitions of
charges alreadyo RT made\y uagainstnon. T
M.
resignation
Gu oT, the
of
and Sir
ne
as ad undoubted fact by all thee e
papers.
CARLOS in favour of his son ms to be ad l
One
of
them says : "Wo believe we are warranted in