The Sun.
London, England, 1844-05-16 00:00:00

SOCIETY FOR THE EMANCIPA-
TION OF INDUSTRY.
SIR B. PEEL'S BANK CHARTER RESOLUTIONS.
The weekly meeting 'l)f the members of this Society was
held 'on Tues4ay, the subject of discussion being the Bank
Charter Resolutions of Sir R. Peel.

The Earl of Mountcas:hel was present. Mr. Spottiswood
presided. • •
The Cria.war.tx opened the business of . the evening by a
speech of some length. Having announced the subject of
discussion, he said it was not only a question affecting the
charter of the Bank of England, but one connected with the
whole currency of the country—a subject, he need not say, the
Most important that could be discussed either by the Minis-
ter, the Parliament, or the people. They had now been suf-
fering for twenty-fire years under a system which the Prime
Minister now boasted of having propounded, a system which
superseded one that he was pleased to call a "fatal measure,"
but under which the country was rich and prosperous, and
defeated the whole world that-was in arms against her.
Under that system it employed and fed the whole of her
svorkingpopulation, and during the war and after it paid off
many millions of the National Debt. The Measure which
superseded this fatal one had stoppedthe payment of the debt,
had increased by a double weight the burdens of the people, and
had continued to impoverish every class of the Community,
except one. But that class itself had begun to be pinched
at last. Though their fortunes had been tripled since 1819,
under the operation of this system, yet they found that now
they could not receive more than one-third of the interest for.
their money that they used to do. That class, therefore,
would make one struggle more, and the present system was
not only to be continued, but to be made more screwing than
ever. Ile ,then explained the nature of the currency of the
'country, and its division into two parts, as discussed at length
•at former meetings—one, the commercial currency of the
country ; the other, the money of the Government ; and
stated that it was a truism that the Government should be
the only issuer of money, but then it did not follow that all
the currency of the country was to issue -from one source.
If this was his only principle, he should pronounce the plan
of Sir Robert Peel to be a total failure, contrary to the prin-
ciples of common sense and to commerce. He vensured the
plan of reducing all to one bank of issue ; and stated that
the principles of the plan were those which the Society
could not entertain, and they should think it their duty to do
all in their power to stop the Minister from taking so rash
and fatal a course. That a man in such an elevated posi-
tion should be so misguided and misadvised as to.throw away
all the popularity he had gained, and finish his public career
as the enemy of his country instead of its protector, was
a thing that, a short time ago,-sras beyond his comprehen-
sion. He thought it the more strange that he should persist
in this policy, since he had already been three times defeated
by it in. the House of Commons. The three adverse divi-

sons on Lord Ashley's proposition arose from the conse-
quences of this system; it had acted through the master on
the labourer, and produced such a mass of distress and mi-
sery, as to oblige the House of Commons to devise a remedy.
He objected, also, to the short time allowed the country to
consider a proposal of such magnitude. To give only a fort-
night for the consideration of this question, was trifling with
the nation ; it would take a twelvemonth to consider it
thoroughly.
Mr. ROGERS opened the discussion by adverting to the
measure of Mr. Pitt—the Bank Restriction Act—stating his be-
lief that Pitt had been unjustly praised for his wisdom in fram-
ing it, when, in fact, it was forced upon him by the circumstances
of the time, there being no other mode for the Bank of Eng-•
land to escape the disgrace of stopping payment altogether.
He reprobated the infamy of the Act of 1819, but it was in-
famous, not because it was unsound in principle, but:because no
:equitable adjustment was made, which was necessary then.
The consequence of this was, that the poor suffering people of
this country had been subjected to a course of extortion—he
might say, swindling—ever since. But the remedy for the
evils must not be a course of direct hostility to the Bill of
1819 ; and he complained that no one had stated what that
remedy ought to be.
Mr. LANIE MURRAY said, with regard to the question of an
" equitable adjustment," according to the plan proposed by
Mr. Cobbett, it was a giving up of private property for the
use of the State. An equitable adjustment between the
debtor and creditor interest might have been made in 1819,
but it could not have been done on Mr. Cobbett's principle—
that would-have caused endless confusion. He did not believe
that Mr. Pitt was highly. praised as the author of the plan to
which he had recourse in 1797 ; he had only stated, that
had not Mr. Pitt adopted it, the country could not have gone
on, nor could it have attempted those great undertakings
which it did attempt during the war. He was not an ad-
mirer of Mr. Pitt's Act, but that Minister discovered, by ac-
cident, an approach to a better system of currency, and
should they be involved in another war, they would be
obliged to have recourse to that system again' With respect
to the measure of Sir Robert Peel, which he now approached,
he almost shrank from discussing it at any length; he felt,
however, that if Sir Robert Peel should carry it without some
remonstrance from those who had studied the question, they
would be guilty of injustice to their own countrymen, if they
did not lift up their voice, however feeble it might be, to
warn the country of the gulf it was about to be plunged
into. The plan was to contract the currency. One would
have thought that the Bill of 1819 would never have
been re-enacted by the same man by whom it was
introduced, one would have thought the consequences
of that Bill had been so shocking in themselves, and so
palpable to the eye, that no man would have had
the hardihood at this time of day to have tightened
" the screw" which that Bill laid on. The consequences of

that Bill had been the successive panics of 1822 and 1825, and
the clouds that had ever since appeared in the commercial hori-
zon. This, it might have been thought, would have prevented
any man from glorying in that Bill, however much he might be
bent upon increasing the fortunes of the great annuitants of
this country.—( Hear, hear.) He was glad, however, that
Sir R. Peel had discussed the question. They might now
take his sped; as the text of the bullionists ; yet, if they exa-
mined it they would find that every sentence of that speech
contradicted each other. It divided itself naturally into two
parts, one on banking, and the other on currency, but both
so interwoven as to effect the grand object—that of restriction
of the representative of value of the country. Sir Robert
Peel had asked what was a pound sterling? Did he suppose
it was an unanswerable question, or that he alone was able
to give its solution ? The sovereign he produced with an air
of triumph was but a bad representative of a standard of
value. As gold, it was subject to more variations in its quan-
tity than any other commodity the produce of labour, and
yet it was in this commodity that it was sought to give
to a certain fixed weight an invariable value. The produce
of industry might fluctuate as it pleased, the same quan-
tities of them commanding at different times more or less of
the precious metals, but gold alone was to be exempt from
fluctuation. The same quantity must always represent the
same value. This was, in fact, constitutingthat which, should
be the servant of the public, its master. But it might be
asked, why was this so ? He would tell them. The fund-
holders, the Government annuitant of all classes, and the
capitalists were the masters of this and every other Govern-
ment. It was they who not only cried out for an unvarying
standard, hut although they lived by the taxes, they hated
beingpaid in tax-burthened money. He would reply to Sir R.
Peel, by asking him if the weight contained the pound
sterling, or ounce of gold, had not also' an intrinsic value,
and, if as such, it was not liable to fluctuate in relation to
other commodities, as other commodities fluctuated in rela-
tion to each other? He would also ask if it was not possible
to discover the intrinsic value of all articles of production, by
ascertaining how much of other things were consumed in
their re-production, and if this argument held good, what a
great injustice was committed when you fixed the price of
one article, gold for instance, above all others the most liable
to fluctuate, as a standard of value, for other things the least
liable to vary either in quantity or cost price. He contended
that the great commerce of the world was carried on without
the intervention of gold, or without a standard of value at
all, other than the intrinsic relationship of value existing in
the things exchanged It was at home that a standard be-
came necessary to measure the quantity the creditor had power
to demand from his debtor, that a common measure became
necessary; but was it fair to the debtor interest, which
comprised the tax-paying part of the community, to demand
payment by any other standard than that which regulated
their means, of payment ? Corn was this standard—it was
the very element that ruled the intrinsic value of all things
in this country, and the least fluctuating in a given number
of years. There could be no objection to the use of gold as a
coin, but itivas unjust to theproductive classes to say that
dgiven weight of gold should always represent a given sum
of money, while their wages and the product of their in-
dUstry were permitted to fluctuate. In answer, therefore, to
Sir Robert reel, he would say let the pound sterling repre-
sent a certain number of bushels of wheat, say three bushels
—let this be fixed on the average of ten years. This is
what people could understand, and whether the circulating
pound sterling was composed of 5 dws. 3 grs. of gold, or a
bank note, the people would know how much corn they were
entitled to' for every'pound sterling they earned in wages.
If.the world only consisted of Consumers and producers, men
would contrive to do without such a measure of value as
gold, by exchanging
_the commodities that each had to bring
that Sir
ctizt. opetehleenbdaenakvinnugrepdart to olf, theen
lessen
into the market. He considered • this an answer to the
question Sit Robert Peel had asked with such apparent
c subject,s n p l a i t
en c
appearedy. Vit
the quantity. of- money in circulation.. During the last year
the Bank acquired a greater power of issue than ever it had,
And thif caused money to be cheaper, not because men had
increased their property, but because money laid in the
hands of the private dealers, and the Bank of England was
l-hthar
ready to go into the money market and compete with them
in the discount of bills, &c. This had naturally caused a
great deal of envy on the part of private capitalists, and they
were glad to see this measure of Sir Robert Peel's for reducing
the circulation of the Bank to 14,000,0001. ; for they said,
when the demands of the country require more than this
amount, we shall have the power of charging whatever the
public will be able to afford for the use of our money. The
measure, therefore, was one that would benefit the capitalists ;
but what might prove beneficial to the capitalists might not
be beneficial to the producing interests. This should make
the agriculturists, as the chief producing interest of the
country, look sharply after Sir Robert Peel, and
not believe in all the calmness and, tranquillity
that reigned in the City of London. In fact, it
was a " joy suppressed." They must not take the
opinion of the moneyed capitalists, the plan would work in
their favour, as they had money to sell ; but those who had
to sell corn, coals, or iron, or wool, would be injured and
mulcted of a portion of their profits. And the evil would not
fall alone on them, but on the working men of the produc-
tive classes, whose wages would be lowered and profits
diminished.
Mr. CAPPS confined his observations entirely to the cur-
rency part of the que,stion. He denied the truth of the posi-
tion asserted by Sir R. Peel, that the " pound" had always
been fixed and invariable. It was at first a pound weight of
silver, but it had undergone many mutations. Henry the
Eighth altered it no less than four times, and Edward the
Sixth reduced it to a very low amount indeed. Bet in con,
currence with it was another kind of pound, consisting of the
Exchequer
eqfuo errtmheo Henry the First. He
a
of a Government money to the amount
of the taxation of the country, stating, very forcibly, that by
heney, issue or tallies issued by
the system of indirect taxation the Government has effec-
tually raised the price of commodities, or made less sellfor the
same money, as if they adopted the old and barbarous plan
of sending a man with a pair of 34.aq to cut ' twelve
inches from every yard of Cloth imported; a process from
01A rseilt woo E4Cise WM 441 ml,