The Sun.
London, England, 1844-05-28 00:00:00

TEE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY' EVENING, MAY 28, 1844.

irrational and inconsistent than another, that is the
course they will honour by their adoption. Mean-
time, despite all their eel-like twisting and twirling,
and open and secret opposition, the Protection-
system, for which they have so ungrudgingly made
these stupendous sacrifices of character, verges
fast to its fall. Yes, the hour Speeds on that is bear-
ing:on its livings the doom of every species of mono-
poly. .Conservatives themselves—such is_ the cruel
necessity, of their position—are made the instruments
of the oterthrow of their own darling prejudices First,
they are compelled to concede a tariff; next, a Canadian
Corn Bill; and before they have wed get over the
shbck of these afflictions, their inexorable task-master
exacts from them another sacrifice ; and, true to his.
favoiiiite system of expediency, which has ever a
discreet eye to the "pressure from without," will
never let them rest till he has wrung from their fears
and their subserviency such an alteratidn in the corn-
laws es shall bring joy to the heart of COBDEN, and
set the pulse of BRIGHT bounding within him like one
of the "little hills of Hermon."

We resume our notice of the Premier's speech of
yesterday week with the remark that although, in its
commencement, the Right Hon. Baronet complacently
talked of this new " rider" to his monster blunder of
1819 as " this great scheme," (!) it was, in truth, a
miserable evasion, from beginning to end, of his own
questions of the 6th inst., namely, " What is a pound ?"
" How does the adoption of a gold standard of 'value
operate to regulate the currency ?" This Tamworth
Wizard has forgotten the promises of his own "
He has.still to show us how the danger of over issues
of paper money is " inevitably consequent" on the
abrogation of that standard. lie has still to tell us by
what process of reasoning the conclusion is arrived at
that in future tke circulation on issues upon securities,
of the Bank of England, should be limited to
14,000,0001.; and "the remainder of its issues to
take place on bullion alone." It is scarcely necessary
to insist on the truth, in all its rigour, of the remark
made ,On Tuesday last by a Morning Contemporary,
" that Sir ROBERT Pew, seemed to be incapable of
defining what money was ;" but any such worthless
quibbling upon words where precise definitions were
required—any such pantomimic failure as the Right
Hon. Baronet's, who, in answer to his own question,
"What is a pound ?" produced a sovereign, and abso-
lutely chuckled at the drollery of what he no doubt
imagined to be his irresistible demonstration, we trust
the House is nut doomed soon again to witness.
When Sir Ronzar finds in a bank note, after the
word " one pound," which it promises to pay to bearer
on demand, this descriptive indication, "or one gold
coin of the realm called a sovereign," he may begin to
persuade himself that he has identified the idea with
the thing—that -he has identified the conventional
signification of the phrase with a palpable symbol of
the ,value it proposes to express. In the meantime
the gold sovereign is not a pound of bullion, twelve
ounces of gold, or twelve ounces of silver ; and it is
equally certain that twelve ounces of bullion,silver or
gold, are not one gold sovereign.
But we proceed to more important details. It seems
that Sir ROBERT is determined that not only is a total
currency, of convertible paper and gold, amounting to
30,000,0001. amply sufficient for all the purposes of
the country, but that of this limited amount a large
sum would be, generally speaking, uncalled for:—
"Take, for instance, the case to be as it was at
present, that the Bank was possessed of a large amount
of bullion, not less than 16,000,000/., the banking de-
partment of the Bank would • possess 30,000,000/. of
bank-notes, fourteen millions on securities, and sixteen
millfons on bullion. Now, a great portion of the sixteen
millions would lie dormant in the coffers of the Bank,
for about 22,000,000 L would be all that would be required
for the legitimate supply of the demands of the country."
By what sort of - ",private-view" priority of infor-
mation Sir ROBERT has arrived at this important
secret of
.the specific amount of circulation that
would thus be required, we are of course as ignorant
as we are of what may be signified by the "legitimate
supply of the demand " of the country. To our
humble apprehension, it appears that if, in the nature
of human affairs, it were possible to divine before-
hand- the amount of circulation needed by such a
community as ours, for the transaction of all its
enormous business,—for its prodigious home trade, its
weekly and daily recurring disbursements for in-
dustrial wages,- to agricultural and machine labour,
its machinery-cost of manufacturing-production, its
investments and remittances on account of its incal-
ulable foreign trade, and its absolutely countless calls
for, and transfers of, cash in the hourly transactions
1f social intercourse—the grand and primary diffi-
culty of any monetary system would be, at once, re-
inoved. But Sir Ronsar, knowing that the in-
iincible vice of his " great scheme" and the inevitable
inadequacy; from mere physical or natural causes, of
Coy metallic currency that could be launched, to the
migencies of ' the British people, was interested to
ake out as good a case as he could in the matter of
guatitity, for a practical base upon which to start.
kle,---therefore, modestly assumes that the. Bank, upon
an average of bullion stores, will keep in its cellars
'6,000,0001. in bullion. Why, it is true, that it has
almost that amount in, its vaults at the present
boment. But it is equally certain that it never had it
efore—even when it has accumulated gold unde more
'avourable circumstances than it operates with now.
Ivor would it be quite prudent to assume that—even
bow—this stock has been got together, or can be kept
Up,.except at the sacrifice of a premium, which, how-
ever the -Bank may be disposed to pay it, pending
pertain- recent negotiations, and the final decision of
Parliament upon terms so greatly favourable to its
monopoly*
ge,sO as those under debate ; it does
t Follow would hereafter be either williug or
ol
l 0 w
thatp i privileges,
it eNs
i)repared to pay. But if this assumed scale of bullion
deposits he hereafter practically diminished, to any
considerable extent, the whole of Sir ROBERT'S anti-
cipations as to this elementary principle of his "great
iicheme' falls to the ground. The country, if it allow
Itself to be duped by his assurances, will find that with
the disappearance of; or wasting of the geld stock, the
keneral circulation must be proportionably contracted
(for silver is not to be a legalised tender at all); and
then: t ewh
aollee currencyh must-acquire an oppressively
enhanced u. On tat scarcity of circulation and
vi
consequent dearness of money, a. frightful, wasting,
ensue, which, with all its
tnonelcormuiinteonuts .Psoafnie mustbarrisruptey, terror, and commercial
ruin,.the whole resources of the Tamworth Wizard's
legerdemain will be utterly powerless to arrest or to
Mitigate, -And it is' clear that Sir Ronxsty is himself
awake to the probabilities of such a disastrous eventua-
tion of his ‘.great scheme." He, therefore. falls back
from, his own expressly stipulated postulate "that
bullion shall be, taken to- intend GOLD only ;" and dis-
overing—in the course of his speech=that 'it would
be idle-to expect that any such stock of GOLD could

be kept 'up as 16,000,000., he submits that, of the
deposits in• bullion to be maintained, in-conformity
with-the proposed Act of Parliament,• by the Bank of
England, "one fourth may be in silver." That is,

that if .the Bank could retain in stock• 16,00,0001. of
bullion, it shall satisfy the Act in question if 4,000,0001.
thereof shall be in silver, and only 12,000,0001. in
gold.

In dealing with this hypothetical relaxation of the
"golden screw," •we meet with the same whimsical
vacillation of purpose to which we alluded in our

paper of yesterday, as the Macheath foible of the
Premier

" The Bank, by the arrangement which he proposed,
would hold comparatively little silver. He had given
much consideration to the suFgestion that the Bank, to
a limited-extent, should give silver in exchatige for their
notes when so required. The result was, that he felt
'that great inconvenience would arise if they prevented
the Bank issuing' any portion of their notes, and taking
as the basis of their security silver in their coffers. In•
admitting this; however, it was not intended to depart from
the great principle that gold was the only standard, and
that those to whom debts were due had arigh eto demand

payment in gold. He proposed that still—the only legal
payment by the Bank should be gold."
- If the Bank is " to hold, comparatively, but little
silver,". there is so much the less reason why they

should not be required to receive it at a given or

Mint price, seeing that the gold standard of 1819 is

:o be continued. If the Bank is not to be bound so

:o receive it, the value of silver will depreciate to an

extent which will still further enhance ,the value of

gold. Put if the Bank, as Sir ROBERT resolves in
the conclusion of this preposterous " great scheme,''

may hold one-fourth of its bullion deposits in silver,

it is clear that it will hold comparatively a LARGE,

and not a LITTLE, amount of that metal. Now let us

take Sir itOBERT'S own assUrnption--4,060,000/. To
be a bullion deposit at all, it must have some determi-

.
nate value. To represent one-fourth part of the just
value of gold anti silver bullion deposits, this silver
must- -have a-. certairi,, relative, fixed, - proportionahle-
value to that gold. For otherwise, what is the tan-