The Sun.
London, England, 1844-06-10 00:00:00

eltelling VITAL

LONDON, MONDAY, JUNF 10, 1844.

Y _.

The resolution of the Ayr Town Council, and the
" reasons " that operated with them in affirming that
resolution, we have transferred, in another column
from the published copy, extracted from the records
of the Council of that burgh. The "reasons " are
• valuable as a succinct summary of the mischievous
principles of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S measure for "ex-
tending or limiting the issue of Bank notes, in obe-
dience to the action of the foreign exchanges." The second
reason proves the ultimate tendency of the measure to
call.gald, as the instru:nent of exchanges, into much
greater use than heretofore; to thereby enhance the
val Lie of money, and aggravate the burden of all
debts and engavments ; and, by this conjoint effect,
to renew that fatal panic u hich, on three memorable
occasions, since the passing of the Act of 1819,
"have spread ruin and baukruptev over the land?'
The third shows that the gradual appropriation
of the profits on Ow issue of Bank notes, obviously-
contemplated by the Government, will prove an in-
strument of taxation, the effect of which must fall ul-
timately upon the public, not upon bankers. The •
fourth reason cautions the people of Scotland against
being lulled into a fond belief, by the Minister's
present abstinence from any pledge with regard to
that country, that he will not, at the earliest conve-
pported by the sanction of
plant opportunity—if supported
Parliament—apply the same legislative process as the
now pending measure comprises, in respect of Eng-
land, for suppre:sing or curtailing the currency of
Scotland. The fifth reason is an admirable exposure
of that almost unaccountable and certainly most un-
founded analogy which Sir ROBERT PEEL,
in defiance of fact and all fair inference,
endeavoured to deduce in his speech of the Gth of May
last, "that competition in the business of banking must
lead tiexcessive issues"—from the experience of what
had occurred in the United States of America. " We,
ourselves, should marvel at the Premier's having ven-
tured.on such an analogy, had we not read his still
:our: startling- asseveration that these American banks
j_wt!rful banks generally, with unlimited re-
-4)111 arancl wise regulations." As the Ayr
":C9l:4rve, this isWith aorlpable and most
r at purpose Sir Ito.
With
uttera
fe flee to tt
an • error” so no-
C\c.•-7
-
-
141 a bi

toriously wide of the notorious truth, is yet more un-
accountable. " They were almost without any ex-
ception, Chartered State Banks, with limited re-
sponsibility; their paid-up capital—the only guaran-
tee for their liabilities—being in reality, almost
illusory, and their notes were depreciated, not from
excess, but from general discredit and fraudulent
bankruptcy!" This is the real history of their case, in
a few words, sketched by the Magistrates and Council
of the town of Ayr. How came the Premier so to
pervert a plain tale, as he has done, in his speech of
the 6th ult.?

It is time, surely, that Members of the Legislature
should shake off the fatal apathy with which they
have hitherto looked on at the progress of this blun-
dering but most fatal proposition, with which the
rash incompetency of the Premier--unwarned by his
more juvenile experiment of 1819, unabashed by the
commercial ruin and social disasters which in suc-
ceeding years have associated his name with the de-
tested recollections of that statute of imbecile pre-
sumption and the wanton misery which it has in-
flicted—is now again, about to vex the monetary sys-
tem of this country. Five-and-twenty years might
have afforded him, one should have thought, leisure
for a searching examination into the results of his
destructive blunder, if they could not bring him to a
profound sense of his fault, and becoming sorrow for
the evils it had inflicted on the empire.
Contrasting those evils, recurring serious and ac-
cumulative as they are, with the impassable and
complacent igoisme to which we so lately referred, as
distinguishing the whob deportment of Sir ROBERT
in reference to this question—we beg to refer him to
another letter from Common Sense, which will supply
him with a reflection of his own capacity and powers
for dealing with a subject so complex and multi-
plied and vital in all its relations as our monetary
system, far more just, simple, and true, than the
estimate he has himself, so unhappily for the public,
formed of those properties. The letter we allude to
is headed " A Nearly Incredible Fact."

The Banner of Ulster contains the following re-
marks, in reference to the Government Landlord and
Tenant Commission :—" This Commi.sion are not to
report, it is now understood, during the current ses-
sion. The question which most deeply interests the
tenantry of Ireland is to be left over for another year,
and perhaps indefinitely postponed. The remon-
strances of the press were successful in compelling
the shadow of inquiry, but the shadow refuses to be
embodied in any palpable shape, at least for twelve
months, and the investigations of the press must be
recommenced. The report is delayed on account, it
is said, of the importance attached to the subject,
and the anxiety of the Commissioners to avoid
rash recommendations. The importance of the
matter cannot be doubted, and the anxiety
to recommend no course without due consideration is
highly laudable ; but the loss by delay should not be
forgotten. People want to know whether they are
really placed in favourable or unfavourable circum-
stances. The majority of the farmers are perfectly
confident that an improvement could be made, but
then they want to know whether it will be effected."
When this important Commission, from which so
much has been, and still continues to be, expected, was
first issued, it was concluded as a matter of course,
that no time would be lost by the Commissioners in
putting the public into possession of the result of their
inquiries; and now, it appears, that no report is to be
issued for the space of twelve months—a most injurious
delay, considering the present excited state of Ireland.
The very importance of the question is the best reason
why no dilatoriness should be manifested by the Com-
missioners. It is not • expected of them that they
should issue their report with railway speed, but
surely there is no good cause why they should delay
it for the space of one entire year. The truth is,
Government in this, as in every other question con-
nected with Ireland, seem unwilling or afraid to show
anything like activity or decision. They are in
earnest only in coercion, and shrink with the utmost
sensitiveness from the adoption of any step that wears
a conciliatory aspect. They have no hesitation in
putting down the monster meetings and sending Mr.
O'CONNELL to prison, but they cannot find it in their
hearts to apply a remedy to the admitted grievances
which caused those meetings, and have been the means
of arming the Liberator—despite his incarceration—
with all but sovereign authority. The session is now
more than half over; the House will probably rise
about the beginning of August, in order that the
amusements of the sporting gentlemen may not be
interfered with; and what, let us ask, has been done—
what will be done for the benefit of the sister coun-
try ? The answer is soon given—nothing—abso-
lutely nothing ! The Registration Bill—such as it
is—is abandoned, or on the eve of abandonment ; the
result of the inquiries of the Landlord-and-Tenant
Commission will be an Eleusinian mystery for the
protracted space of twelve months, during which
period agrarian disturbances will of course 'con-
tinue in their old spirit; and as for that colossal
nuisance the Irish Church Establishment, "it needs
no ghost from the grave"—as HAMLET says—to
assure us that it will be permitted to exist in all its
present enormity. When such is the policy—say,
rather, the no-policy—pursued by the PEEL Cabinet
towards the sister country, can we wonder that the
repeal agitation progresses ; that the indomitable
spirit of O'CONNELL, though he himself is locked up
within the four walls of a Penitentiary, pervades
every quarter of the country, infusing hope into the
timid, quickening the energies of the hesitating,
and arming the bold with additional determination
of purpose; and that the repeal rent turns
in without the slightest appearance of abate-
ment, to the amount of several hundred pounds
a week ? Doubtless Ministers confidently calculate
on the gradual subsidence of this popular ferment ;
but they will find themselves, we suspect, wholly
mistaken in their calculations ; repeal—thanks to
their blundering, vacillating, suicidal policy—is fast
becoming a principle—a faith—a religion with the
vast mass of the Irish community ; and that move-
ment on the part of Government which it was hoped
would crush it—namely, the imprisonment of Mr:
O'CONNELL--is the very step which will be the means
of imparting to it a tenfold impetus.

t does not seem to be the Premier's destiny to be
more fortunate in dealing with the silver, than he has
hitherto been in meddling with the gold element of
our currency. In former articles we have demon-
strated—(to those of our readers who had not already
arrived at the same conclusion by the light of their
own experience and judgment)—on the authority of
the "Enquirer after Truth," that the Premier was
" hurrying on the measure " now before Parliament
" with indecent haste." We have showed, from the
same pamphlet, the confirmation of our previous
charges against the Right Hon. Baronet:-Ist. That
he had really exhibited an incapacity to understand
the nature and properties of " money " in the larger
and more legitimate sense, wherein it is necessary to
consider it, in reference to any scheme for regulating
the general monetary system of a country. 2d. That
lie has essentially misstated the history of" one pound"
in attempting to trace it from earlier periods of the
monarchy to the present. 3d. That he has com-
mitted a double mistake in saying that "subse-
quently to the reign of WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, a
great alteration was made, not in the name, but in the
intrinsic value of the pound sterling, by debasements
of the currency ;" for, the " debasements" of our
currency have been probably less than those of any
other European State in all that interval ; and the
alterations of the coin, which have diminished its
" intrinsic value," have been produced by the diminu-
tion of the weight of that coin. 4th. That his asser-
t tion that the pound sterling means a definite quantity
of the " precious metals of certain weight and fine-
ness," is refuted and disproved by the very historical
J data which he had adduced to establish that assertion
affirmatively. 5. That the allegation of Sir ROBERT on
the 7th inst., " that it was not until a late period of the
reign of ELIZABETH that silver, being then the stan-
(lard of value, received that determinate weight, which
it retained without variation, with constant refusals j
to alter it, till 1716," is utterly overthrown by the
fluctuation in the relative value or proportion of silver
to gold, in that lapse of more than 200 years, from
10.095 to 1, to 15 to 1.6. That subsequently to the
late period (namely, 43d year) in the reign of ELIZA-
BETH, this "determinate fixed value" ascribed by Sir
ROBERT PEEL to " the gold pound of the value of
20s. of our present money, was so little determinate
sa fur from fixed, that it was altered, in 1604, to a
;old coin of fineness and quantity value 255.; in 1625
to 225. 9d. ; iu 1675, to 215.; and in 1815, to 20s.
It is curious to turn from blunders of fact, and

misconceptions of principles, like these, to this petu-
lant and contemptuous notice of that bold measure of
PITT'S, which, far unlike that paralysing Act of 1819,
restored the public confidence, gave energy to our
commerce, vigour to our finance, development to our
capital, and enabled us to sustain eighteen years of
subsequent warfare (intermitted only for some fifteen
months), against the combined strength and resources
the navies and armies, of all Europe, confederated
under the vigorous directorship of France. " Gold,"
said Sir ROBERT PEEL, "continued to be the measure
of value, legally and practically, until 1797, when
that fatal measure for restricting cash payments by
the Bank was passed, enabling parties to issue paper
money at their own discretion, without its being con-
vertible into coin."

We cannot quite blot out of our minds some school-
boy recollections associated with lEsor and the fable
of a dead lion, kicked by a quadruped of a different
race from that which, in a moment of post-prandial
excitement, last autumn, the Premier was betrayed
into a promise to purchase for the Tamworth
farmers, at Birmingham, at whatever price. To
read this flippant allusion to the daring experiment of
1797 and its wonderful author, does awaken recollec-
tions which it would be highly disrespectful not to
dismiss. We return, therefore, to the conclusion of
the sentence.

The "fatal measure" of 1797, was one, it seems,
" which disturbed not only the speculations, but "
(Oh ! horror of horrors ! Here we have the true
ground of quarrel on the part of the bullionist-
Minister with the Bank Restriction Act)—"the
theories and speculations of men with respect to the
standard of value." Happy had it been for this em-
pire had it scared Sir ROBERT out of his wits, or at
least his theory of the standard of value out of his
head ! We should then have been spared the monster
production of 1819. How bewildered Sir ROBERT
himself is in the expression of his own notions about
this " standard"—nhether he means simply " mea-
sure of value," or " standard measure of value"—is
shown by the "Enquirer after Truth," in his admir-
able tract, of which we this day give a further notice.
We had intended to advert, in detail, to the Pre-
mier's plan for regulating the future circulation of
banks of issue, by an average most unfairly taken on
their issues during the last two years. Those years
were, notoriously, seasons of agricultural, and, in
most respects, of manufacturing depression. The
average is, therefore, an unfair one, as selected to
govern the extent of this future business. But we
protest against the whole principle of the proposed
interference with the joint-stock and private banks, as
to their issues, as an unwarrantable, impolitic, and most
mischievous intervention with the first element of all
trading and commercial property, namely, the unfet-
tered investment of private capital. The same inter.
eeption, though contemplated with much more favour-
able intentions towards the Bank of England, is cal-
culated to work not less detrimentally, in the long
run, on the interests of that establishment. In the
disastrous disorganisation of the State Banks of the
United States we have had recent and irrefragible
evidence to the dangerous results of the mania of na-
tional legislation on the appropriation of private capital.
We are willing, albeit against hope, to suppose that
the House of Commons cannot allow itself to be led,
unresistingly as it were, into the full adoption of the
crude fancies which Sir R. PEEL has advocated, as
grave conditions that ought to be recognised for those
which shall hereafter regulate the relations of a fixed
and an inexpansible currency with a commerce per-
petually in movement, and exercising its tendencies
to expand and advance. The'data on which his pro-
positions are founded have been disproved and dis-
comfited risque ad absurdum. The propositions are
not less to be distrusted than the data on which they
proceed. To affirm, in its present shape, the scheme
which the Premier has manufactured out of such ma-
terials, would be an act of, folly and recklessness the
enormity of which can alone obscure, by rivalry, the
recklessness and folly of the Premier, whenever he
ventures so much beyond his depth, as he is sure to
do in the troubled waters of " banking and " cur-
rency!"

'We have much pleasure in referring to our adver-
tising columns of this day for the announcement of a

lecture by Mr. CAPPS, at the British Coffee House,
on Tuesday next, at one. The lecture is to consist
of an examination of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S plans, show-
ing their tendency and effects.
It may not be generally known that Mr. C4rrs is

the author of the well-known pamphlet, entitled
" Tho Nation in a Dilemma," and of another " The
Currency Question in a Nutshell." If the writer's
knowledge of the subject on which he treats is to be
estimated by his having foreseen the issue of princi-
ples under discussion, then may the writer of these
publications, by the following passage taken from the
latter of his productions, fairly lay claim to deal with
the subject of the currency as one perfectly his own
The passage is in answer to the inquiry put in 1838—
" What will be the result if the present gold standard
of value be obstinately persevered in, when it is evi-
dent that gold is so underrated, compared with other
articles ?"

"The effect will be, as has been stated already, that
gold will have a tendency to leave the country; or, if
it be compelled to remain, the prices of all goods must
be forced down until they are as low as gold, which in
many cases will be below prime cost. To reduce the
cost of goods, therefore, there will be an outcry
against the corn-laws, that we may have cheaper
bread, thus ruining the agriculturist. The order of
Providence will also continue to be subverted by un-
naturally forcing women and young children into
factories, that the cost of labour may be as little as
possible, thus destroying the legitimate effect of ma-
chinery, which ought to be the diminution of human
labour, and not the increase of it. And finally, we
shall have the mortification of discovering that these
expedients will be of no permanent avail ; for, after
all these sacrifices have been made, we shall find
that, as other nations gradually approximate to us in
the power of their machinery, we shall, with the im-
mense debt that we have hanging upon us, be unable
to compete with them. We shall then, also, pain-
fully perceive that this debt could only have been
reduced while we possessed the superiority we now
enjoy ; and that, when we had the power, we insanely
debarred ourselves from profiting by it, by fettering
ourselves with a false system of currency ; enabling the
foreigner thereby to abstract from us that wealth which
ought to have been applied to the redemption of our
own debts."

It is only necessary to add, that the year after
this prediction was made the stock of bullion was so
reduced in this country that the Bank of England
was obliged to seek a loan from that of France. All
the other effects, too, have equally followed.

Accounts from Madrid are to the 2d inst. Queen
ISABELLA arrived in Barcelona on the Ist. Though
the Royal party did not land till half-past ten at
night, Queen CHRISTINA with Queen ISABELLA im-
mediately proceeded in the midst of crowds of citi-
zens and soldiers to the cathedral, where they conti-
nued singing Te Deums and praying before the sanc-
tuary of St. Eulalia till midnight. The reception of
their MAJESTIES, though not particularly warm, seems
to have been satisfactory.

The alarm created by the measures of M. Mox, so
far from diminishing, appears to be on the increase.
At a meeting of capitalists, held at the Bank of St.
Fernando, on the 2d, a committee was appointed to
confer with the Finance Minister upon the subject.
A loan has been offered to the Government to the
amount of 1,500,000,000 of reels to meet its present
exigencies, but it would appear that M. Mow hesi-
tates about the terms. If matters are not soon ar-
ranged, there is every probability of a break-up of
the Moderado part, and it is difficult, in the present
circumstances of the country, to foresee the result.
The Envoy Extraordinary of the Sublime Porte
landed, from the Fenicio, Marseilles steamer, on the
2d. The troops concentrated at Barcelona on the
occasion of the QUEEN'S visit amounted to about
8,500 men.

The funds continued to decline, the Three per
Cents. closing at 264 for cash, and at 27 at 60 days ;
the Five per Cents., at 20t at 60 days ; the Float-
ing Debt, at 44k at 30 days; the Coupons at 23
at 60 days; and the Debt without interest at 51 for
cash, and 6/ at 60 days.

The Paris journals of Saturday are again occupied
by the affairs of Algiers, with regard to which, how-
ever, any new or positive information has not been
obtained. The Courrier attributes the increased
energy shown by the Arabs in their hostility to the
French, to the interference of England, the Emperor
of MOROCCO having been incited to the declaration
of the " holy war" by the British Consul in that
country. " British hostility," says the Courrier,
" conspires secretly with the natives whom we have
conquered, and with their neighbours, who are in-
dignant at seeing a country of Islam under Christian