The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-26 00:00:00

ASTLEY'S ROYAL AMPHITHEATRE OF ARTS.

Under the Management of Mr. Batty,. Proprietor.
Triumphant Success of the Equestrian Novelties and Pantomime.
THREE GRAND NATIONAL HOLIDAY CLOSING FETES.
The succession of crowded houses and increased demands for
Places at the Box.ofEce, compels the Proprietor to announce that
this Popular Establishment will remain Open a few Nights longer;
and, by srecial desire, and in concurrence with the wishes of
Astley's Patrons, according to annual custom, for a series of British
National Fetes, pourtraying the Victories of England's Hero
Wellington, with all its Military Effects, New Dresses Scenery, and
Appointments,
THIS EVENING, JANUARY 26,
Will be performed the Grand National Spectacle of THE BATTLE
OF WATERLOO. Napoleon Buonapirte, Mr. Gomersal, his ori-
ginal character. _

New Scenes in the Circle.
To conclude with the Pantomime of HARLEQUIN TAM
O'SH A NTE R.
Acting and Stage Manager, Mr. W. D. Broadfoot, Stalls, ss. ;
Poxes, 45.; Urper Boxes, Ss.; Pit, 2s. ; Gallery, Is.; Upper Gallery,
M. Box-office open daily from Ten till Four. Stage Boxes, One
Gain, a ; Half-price to Ditto, Hall-a-Guinea. Private Boxes, Two
tilineas; Half-price to Ditto, One Gu►nea. Half-price, Half-past
Eight.

DAVIDGE'S ROYAL SURREY THEATRE
As usual, the funniest and most successful Pantomime.
THIS EVENING, JANUARY 26,
Will be repeated a New Drama, entitled STELLA RITTERS-
DORF. Supported by Messrs. Saville, Hughes, Hicks, R. Honner,
Neville, Vale, Smith, Johnson, Lewis, r eslop, Mrs. R. Honner, Mrs.
Daly. Mrs. Hughes, Miss Terrey, and Mrs. 11. Vining.
After which an entirely new Grand Comic Pantomime with
Splendid Scenery, Superb Dresses, Inimitable Properties and Tricks,
every thing new and of the most costly description, HARLEQUIN
GRAMMAR, or, Lindley Murray,and AE I 0 U. Harlequin, Mr.
W. H. Harvey ; Grotesque, Mr. Stilt ; Clown, Mr. Fuller; Panta-
loon, Mr. Hawkins ; Columbines (alternately) Miss M. R. Fair.
brather and Miss Sharpe.
Places and Private Boxes to be had of Mr. Kerschner, at the Boz-
o See, from Eleven :o Four.

ROYAL VICTORIA THEATRE.
THIS EVENING, JANUARY 26
Will be performed an entirely New Domestic Drama, entitled
POVERTY; or, Mary Graham. Leonard, Mr. Freer; Jessamy
Tacit, Mr. Nantz ; Squire Graham, Mr. Dale; Patty Parrot, Miss
Arden; Mary Graham, Miss Vincent.
After which NATURE AND ART. In which Miss Vincent
will sustain her Five Original Characters.
To conclude with HARLEQUIN LINCOLN LUCKY OF LAM_
IiETH ; or, The Three Sisters of Witch Willow Dell. Harlequin,
Mr. Chapino ; Clown, Mr. Scarbrow ; Pantaloon, Mr. Morelli;
Columbine, Miss M. Schmidt.

THE WEATHER.—SUN OFFICE, JAN. 26.
THERMOMETER, Lowest, 37 ; High( st, 43 ; Noon, 42.
BAROMETER, 30.35.—W1ND, S.W.
NOTE.—The number 32 on the Thermometer denotes
the freezing point, and 55 temperate. In Barometers
'air is usually placed opposite 30, and rain at 29.

rit(iti WATER AT LONDON-BRIDGE THIS DAY.
Horning ... 55 minutes alter 5.1 Evening ... 12 minutes alter 6.

represent and embody the peculiar spirit of its
age. This the Monopolist Association does not
do. On the contrary, it is in direct opposition
to that spirit; and, as a necessary consequence, must—
notwithstanding its exertions—grow weaker and
weaker in exact proportion to the progress of en-
lightened public opinion. When men are groping
about in the dark, nothing is more likely than that
they should mistake one thing for another—a dwarf
for a giant ; but when they come forth into the broad
day-light they see things as they really are, divested
of all exaggeration, and reduced to their just
dimensions. Now the people are no longer grop-
ing about in the thick darkness of ignorance; the
broad steady light of intelligence has been let in on
them, consequently there is not the slightest appre-
hension that they will mistake the small, trivial circum-
stance of a monopolist Confederacy for a "great fact"
like the League. But, alas, for Sir R.PEEL ! The agitation
of the corn-law bigots, though it has no terrors for
the free-traders, will be quite imposing enough to
alarm his delicate political sensibilities. He, who is so
apt to take fright at phantoms, will be pretty sure to
mistake the shadow for the substance; and we
should not be at all surprised were he to make
another retrogade move towards the monopo-
lists, on whom last session he had all but brought
himself to turn his back. Well, let him do so; it is
not one PEEL, nor a hundred PEELS, that can stop
the triumphant progress of the League ; it moves for-
ward in spite of him ; and the day is not far distant
when we shall see this man of many faces—this ex-
pounder of solemn plausibilities—dragged an unwilling
captive at its chariot wheels.

Since the above remarks were written, we
have read, with the attention it deserves, an
account of the great meeting of the League,
which took place at Covent-garden Theatre last
night. What a striking contrast does not this meet-
ing exhibit to those which the monopolists have of
late contrived to get together with such difficulty !
In the one case we find earnestness—sincerity— con-
fidence—and inflexible determination of purpose; in
the other, faint-heartedness, scarce hidden beneath
the flimsy disguise of noise and bluster—
clumsy special pleading, with which conviction has
nothing to do, substituted for plain, manly, sound
reasoning—and coarse abuse attempted to be palmed
off for energetic appeals to the feelings. The League
directs its efforts to enlightening the understandings of
its audience—the monopolist Confederacy, to the
strengthening and confirming of their prejudices. The
one states broad, undeniable facts—the other runs
riot in the realms of fiction. The one describes
things as they are the other, as they are
not. Every successive meeting of the League is at-
tended by enthusiastic crowds—every successive
meeting of the Monopolists, by a set of sulky de-
pendents, to whose intelligence and quick-wittedness
we should be sorry to depose on oath at Bow-street.
In referring more particularly to the proceedings of
the League last night at Covent-garden, we cannot
avoid noticing in terms of high praise the admirable
speech delivered by Mr. Fox. It was just what such a
speech should be—animated—argumentative—full of
lively illustrations drawn from the most obvious and
familiar sources happily timed and skilfully
adapted to the taste and temper of the audience to
whom it was addressed. Mr. Fox, speaking
the sentiments of the Leaguers, boldly re-
pudiated the idea that they entertained any-
thing like a compromise. They were entitled to
a full rirlef.'.s-ure of justice, and they would not be put
off with light weight. They were the chosen repre-
sentatives of the interests of the industrious classes,
and for those interests they would struggle through
all difficulties, and at all hazards. " The total, the un-
conditional, the immediate abolition of the corn-laws,"
observed the speaker, " wets what they asked of all. They
sought no more—they would take no less, whether
from Sir R. PEEL on the one side, or from Lord J.
RUSSELL on the other." Mr. GrnsoN, in the course
of a pithy, closely-reasoned address, lashed the
Monopolists in such scientific style, and
with such evident heartiness as would have drawn
bursts of applause from one of Lord CARDIGAN'S
drummer-boys ; and Mr. BouvEßlEtinstituted a suc-
cessful comparison between Sir ROBERT PEEL and
that punctual and dextrous man of figures and ac-
counts, Mr. Alderman GIBBS. In point of spirit and
energy the meeting was one of the most remarkable
that has yet taken place in the metropolis.

The strength and force with which the influence
of the currency upon the public weal daily grows
upon us, has prompted us to redeem our promise of
returning to the subject, and we are the more in-
duced to do so from the perusal of a pamphlet, by
Mr. GILLIBRAND HUBBARD, which has just fallen in
our way. It is natural to look upon the observations
pehresnontl:7yPorsesfeesrsintog the matters with
more than ordi-
nofaraynwoeffiiaigcht,l
w
which he is presumed to be daily conversant. For
this reason we were inclined to study the opinions
contained in these pages with no little respect ; but
we must confess that -we have seldom been more
woefully disappointed than in this instance. Going
over a large field, andcchinprising topics of the most
various and extensive. importance, and hav-
ing one definiteob3ect in view, we had
a right to anticipate straightforward argu-
ment and logical deduction. The unity of his
objects—the demonstration
arriving at it by the clear
of the necessity and
yises and the natural deduction of
utility of a national ban}: of issue--gave him an ad-
mirablemstatements of his page of contents
cdoelealruasti
iooonnps p.
oo
fr
Tt
puhrneeit
would, one would con ceive, have helped him mate-
rially, for it is to all appearance satisfactory enough,
but in the course of considering the texts of his
several chapters, he has: contrived to mix up so much
of ill-arranged thoughts., and sophisticated argument,
ash to render his conclu si ons altogether wide of the
truth. It is painful to speak thus severely of, no
doubt, a well-intended effort, and the more so in the
present case, as it is impc)ssible to follow the author
through the whole of his range in the confined space
of a newspaper article, and our observations must,
therefore, have a general. bearing, rather than a per-
sonal reference.

Mr. HUBBARD appears, with all the advocates for
a metallic currency, to entertain a confused notion of
the nature of money. -.H.e has been so much accus-
tomed to the sight of bforth-notes and sovereigns that
he has learned to consider nothing really of value
until it has keen convected into these representatives
of value, not being satied with a bank-note itself,
indeed, except insomuch as he has a certainty of turn-
ing it into sovereigns, thus; at all times, possessing
the power of putting what he conceives to be of in-
trinsic value into his pocket. He forgets that gold
itself is but so much shining trash, except in so far as
it can be exchanged for commodities, which, as they
conduce to physical coxnfort, or mental elevation,
can alone possess the value he desires. Every grain
of corn that tends to the bodily sustenance, and every
yard of cloth that covers from the cold, possesses an in-

trinsic; value and a piece of printed paper, impressed
with an authority posse 3sing the power, legal through
enactment, and moral from position, of rendering it
available to the community at large, becomes as ser-
viceable in the purchase of commodities, as the
brightest sovereign that ever was coined—nay, in-
finitely more serviceable--as it is free from the con-
tingency to which gold, as the circulating medium
between nation and nation, is liable, of being at any
time withdrawn from the country, by the operations
of trade ; while it possesses, moreover, the additional
advantage of accommodating itself with less incon-
venience to the various requirements of the social
public.

The great evil occasioned by the advocates of a
metallic currency, consists in their promotion of the
notion that gold is of more service as a currency, be-
cause it possesses, as they conceive, an intrinsic value,
not recollecting that the currency of the social system,
is, like the vital fluid in the corporeal system, only the
medium through which the means of nutriment is
conveyed to the whole body politic, and that through
the very scantiness of the mass, and through its
great liability to waste by depletion, either from
abrasion and loss at home, or from draughts for
abroad, utterly insufficient for the purposes for
which it is designed. The very circumstance of gold
being of exchangeable value gives it a double cha-

racter, and consequently renders it acause of dis-

turbance in the internal circulation. If used solely
as the medium of internal currency, so as to prevent

this disturbance, its natural action must be to reduce

all prices in Britain to the Ineaswe of those countries

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY El ENING, JANUARY 26, 1844.

with whom commercial dealings occur, and whose
taxation is not a third, perhaps not a fourth, of the
imposts of our own Government, and would just in
that proportion render our trade, home as well as
foreign, more advantageous to others than ourselves.
How taxation affects prices is well intimated in
the admirable definition given of money in the
" Catechism of the Currency," published some
years since. It is there stated that "Money is a
token of value of certain nominal amount, issued by
Government in return for value received, and payable
into the Exchequer in taxes, whence it becomes, of
necessity, a general legal tender." In the "Essay on
Money" this is happily explained, and the origin of
the authorised currency stated in the issue of the
Exchequer tallies. The reality of the addition to
prices, caused by the imposition of taxes, is still more
evident in the different effects rroduced on articles of
use by direct and indirect taxation. If the maker of
any particular article has been accustomed to dispose
of it for 205., and he suddenly finds a tax of ss. put
upon it, he must, of course, not only add the same
ss. to the price, in order to reap the same reward for
his labour as he did before, but also some-
thing additional, in order to provide himself with
the means for conducting his business, and
pay him for the increased capital employed
in it. This increase and this 'payment is forced
by the State, which imposes the taxes, in its
promises to pay, issued for the articles which its ne-
cessity demands. Now, so long as these promises to
pay can be rendered available to the general ad-
vantage through a medium by which no loss is in-
curred, so long the country is benefited by the
greater consumption of its commodities; but the
moment a medium is employed, which possesses a
different value, and which has always a great
tendency to appreciation, and little or no tendency to
depreciation, that moment the monetary affairs of the
country begin to be deranged, and just in proportion
to the introduction of such a medium will the great
body of the people, who are producers, and who have
little opportunity of retaining much, or any of it,
be impoverished. The wealthy will obtain the power
to oppress the poor ; capital will accumulate in few
hands; and a condition of apparent affluence will
only cover an inconceivable amount of misery, poverty,
and distress.

The attempt, therefore, to retain a high taxation
with a metallic currency, which has always a ten-
dency to establish natural prices, is neither more nor
less than obliging the productive portion of the people
to pay all the imposts out of their labour ; leaving the
rich to acquire, day by day, fresh power, to occasion
a series of oscillations in the circulating medium,
the slightest vibration of which twinges the heart-
strings of him whose little may in a moment become
a nullity.
It was apparently the oversight of this principle
which occasioned the monstrous mischief wrought
by Sir ROBERT PEEL in carrying out Mr. HES-
KISSON'S principles of the currency. By the re-esta-
blishment of a metallic monetary standard, he at once
knocked off the taxation-addition from all the
commercial produce of the country, while he
failed to reduce the taxation by which those prices
had been enhanced. Gold became the governing
medium, and contracted the circulation, according to
its natural habitude. The people have to pay high
prices with little money, and the consequence is, that
the taxes have since been paid in the goods, and con-
sequently by the labour of the producers of the goods,
instead of in the money of the State. How terribly
this has acted will be evident by an inspection of the
following table of the proportion of taxation and
prices before, through, and after the war ; and a
greater indication of national loss, and therefore of
individual misfortune, could not well have been de-
vised. We extract from a valuable pamphlet, enti-
tled the " Monetary Policy of England and America."
" Let us take the average rate of prices at certain
successive periods, as they are shown in centessimal
parts, in a very useful set of Tables of Currency,
Taxation,' and Prices, for fifty-four years, commenc-
ing in the year 1784 and ending in 1837. In this
work the exact prices of eighty-eight different arti-
cles of produce are stated, independent of any particular
duties levied on each. The eighty-eight articles of
produce collectively are thus expressed as to
relative prices, free of duty, at the following periods,
in centessimal parts.

1784 to 1790 lOO
1791 to 1797 l2l
1798 to 1804 149
1805 to 1811 175
1812 to 1818 lBO
1819 to 1825.. 126
1826 to 1832.. lO5
1833 to 1837 lO5.

Say pence,

. .
shillings, or
pounds sterling.

"To the fairness of this statement nothing can be
objected ; but it may be urged that, as the taxes (ex-
clusive of property and income-tax) produced in
1805 to 1818, the sum of fifty-two millions per
annum, and the amount now is but forty-eight
millions, a reduction in proportion should be made
in prices for the same period. Let us, then, take off
one-thirteenth (being the difference) from 175, and it
will leave 162 as the average comparative sum re-
ceived by producers in 1805 to 1818, for those com-
modities which they now sell for 105. It requires,
therefore, an addition of 56 per cent. to our present
prices to return producers the fair amount of their
taxes—to place them in the same relative position as
to taxation which they stood in from 1784 to 1790,
before the war commenced—from 1791 to 1797, before
the Restriction Act was passed—and from 1805 to
1818, when taxation and prices were at the highest.
To this extent are they injured by the return to cash
payments under our present amount of annual taxa-
tion."

In the eighty-eight articles alluded to are
comprised -M1 most necessary for commercial opera-
tions and social comfort. We think there could not
have been more convincing evidence given of the
anomalous and injurious state of our currency than
this. Alone, it is enough to awaken every man who
has a business to conduct or a family to provide for
to active exertion to correct the evil ; but there is
an almost interminable abundance of testimony
equally strong to show the folly that must be evinced,
and the ruin that must attend upon a metallic stan-
dard under our national circumstances. To Mr.
HUBBARD'S notions respecting currency we will
return another day.

The Madrid journals of the 18th inst. have reached
us, but are totally destitute of news.

The Three per Cents. were done at 26i at 60 days,
the Five per Cents. at 19k, and the floating debt at
44 for cash, and 42 at 60 days.

The discussions in the French Chamber on the
address are drawing to a close. The address consists
of ten paragraphs, and of these six being the most
important had been adopted without amendment.
The debate, or rather conversation, on Wednesday,
referred almost entirely to the commercial relations.
of France with the United States, and certain of
the South American republio.s. It will be found
under the proper head. While the talk is going
on in the Chambers, the Government is actively
employed in hastening the completion of bastiles,
not only at Paris, but elsewhi Te, as will be seen from
the subjoined paragraph in tla to Commerce:—" Those
of Mont Valerien, St. Denis, Noisy-le-Sec, Rosny,
Nogent, Vincennes (the new fortress), Charenton,
Ivry, and Issy, are now occupied by the military.
They await but their armament. Rouen, like Paris,
is about to have its detached fortti. There are to be
three citadels—one on the immei -Ise plateau of Bon-

secours, a second on Mont Ribond et, and a third on
the Havre road, about 600 metres from the gate of
Rouen, which opens on that road. The fire of those
three points, which command ROUE n from a height,
comparable NA ith the buttes Montmartre, will com-
mand not only the whole city and env irons, but also
the whole course of the Seine from Font de l'Arche
to near Bouille."

MARTINEZ DE LA ROSA, the new Spanish Am-
bassador, presented his credentials to the KING on
Tuesday, and made a brief address on the occasion,
to which his Majesty replied—

" I accept with the greatest pleasure the sentinu "•nts which you
have just expressed in the name of my august niece, her Majesty the
Queen of Spain, to whom I am united by so matt. v ties. I desire
most ardently that her Majesty may be able to establ, in Spain a
temperate, constitutional monarchy, to prevent the return of dis-
orders which every one has deplored. I am most wit iting to give to
the Government of her Majesty the Queen of Spain every kind of
moral support, disinterested as that support must be, as France has
no other object but to see Spain tranquil and pro stperous. To
arrive at this result, her Majesty the Queen, notwitb. 'landing her
own qualities, will need, on account of her youth and I,lexperience,
the aid of all loyal and enlightened subjects, in the numl, 'et" of whom
is distinguished her present Ambassador at this Court."

The funds continue to decline, On Wednesday

the Three per Cents. closed in Paris at 82f. 30c.; the
Five per Cents. at 124 f. 65c.; Orleans Railroad
shares at 860 f. ; Rouen, 840 f.; Avignon, 697 f. 50c.

V' 441. :tEllft/&`. 4,. , ~
o.clisif Y ift A ):.
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SECOND EDITION.