The Sun.
London, England, 1844-04-01 00:00:00

THE WEATHER-SUN OFFICE, APRIL 1.

THERMOMETER, Lowest, 37 ; Highest, 54 ; Noon, 47.
BAROMETER, 30.3.—W1ND, E.
NOTE.—The number 32 on the Theimometer denotes the
free-zing point, and 55 temperate. In Barometers fair is
usually placed opposite 30, and rain at 29.

HIGH WATER AT'LONDON-BRIDGE TRIS -DAY.
Morning ... 9 minutes after 0 I Evening ...3t minutes after 0.

vital importance to the best interests of the empire,
will devote some portion of the interval to its most
careful consideration. Those who may not have
hitherto addressed themselves to the study of our mo-
netary system with that degree of attention which
they would devote to any other subject involving a
necessity for some degree of statistical research, we
would entreat to render themselves acquainted with
the more prominent facts and principles that are in-
dispensable to found a correct judgment on the merits
of the controversy now sustained between the advo-
cates and the opponents of our present scheme of
currency, governed as that is by Sir ROBERT Fuzes
Act of 1819. Those who had not only studied the
bearings and details of that system in all their ex-
tent, at the time that Act was passed ; but who took a
part, more or less active, in the debate and arguments
that attended its agitation, we would respectfully re-
quest to re-consider the same subject under its
new and actual aspects in 1844, irrespectively of the
weight and authority of the great names which, in
times past have sanctioned the most adverse proposi-
tions. Let all bear in mind the fact, that not a
step can safely, honestly, or logically be taken, in
the renewal of the Bank Charter, without raising the
question of continuing or abrogating our present
monetary system.
To re-invest the Bank with their charter, unshorn
of the tremendous powers which it confers on this
corporation, of contracting or expanding the currency
at pleasure, would be, first, to continue that unen-
durable depreciation of the wages of industrial labour,
the existence of which is the real barrier to a com-
promise on the factories' labour question between the
advocates of Twelve and Ten Hours' Bills, and the
opponents of all legislative interference whatever with
the details of factory employment. Secondly, such a
re-investment will assure the "certain return at un-
certain periods"—as we have shown in former articles—
of the hideous commercial panics of 1825 and of two
subsequent periods. In both these cases we as-
sume that the gold standard of 1819 would be ad-
hered to. See how it would continue to operate, as
it has ever since operated. You leave the Bank with
its liability to pay any uncertain quantity of its issued
notes upon demand, on gold of a standard fineness, at
a standard price fixed by your statute. This price is
very often cheaper than that given in the bullion mar-
ket. Sometimes the latter rises very considerably ;
and the inevitable operation of such a rise being to
make holders of notes send them in to be changed for
gold, which is thereupon forced into the bullion
market in exchange for silver, bills, &c., or
paid for foreign commodities, until the market
price subsides to the Mint price of the metal—the
Directors of the Bank (wisely for its own purposes,
but it may be fatally to the activity of commerce and
to commercial confidence) reduces, as much and as
fast as possible, the issues of that paper to which its
bullion on deposit can never bear more than a very
inferior proportion. That its own notes are by law
convertible into gold at a given price per ounce—no
matter what may be the uncertain and higher price
in the market, and the consequent loss and difficulty
to be incurred in obtaining it—is sufficient reason to
induce the Bank to limit its liability to pay in gold
by withholding the usual issue of its paper in propor-
tion to the demands of increasing trade, &c. Those
who rely on the maintenance of their issues to an
adequate extent, according to the custom of the Bank
when circumstances are not unfavourable to its ob-
servance of that custom, for the discount of the com-
mercial bills they hold, or advances on their OW7I.
bills and securities, whether to complete investments
for export, or to pay for investments imported by
them, suddenly discover themselves unable to obtain _
money in any proportion to their requirements, al—
though they may have securities in their strong-box,
or goods in their warehouses, to,a hundred times the
amount—in value. If this be the operation of a gold
standard of value, as it is called, on the market of
money, and thereby on the -general market of trade
at home, its operation is still mote disastrous on_the_
wages of industrial labour, and has the deplorable
effect of placing the reciprocal interests of the manu-
facturer and the labourer, however fairly the former
may desire.to deal with the latter, in those false rt—
lotions which constitute, as we have seen, the *h.
difficulty of the factory question.
.So long as the
taxation .of this country continues at its pre-'
sent enormous height, and commodities o stliz-
4istence contribute, in the shape of Customs and
Excise, so largely to that revenue, it is evident tht,
the wages -of the manufacturing artisinJor example,-
cannot be adequate ones, if they do not represent--be-
sides the value of his labour—that proportionate
amount of taxation which, although he actually pays
it in the progress of his- labour, it was the uiaoubted
meaning of the Legislature should be paid by the
wealthy consumer.. Now• the manufacturer, -owing-
to the competition of foreign rivals, and. to the pre-
ference that-the foreign customer, or importer,.shosis
for the gold into which he can convert the Bank notes
he is paid in (for his raw material, his earn, or his '
fabrics), over returns in our manufactured goods.
really cannot obtain more than the natural or gold_
prices of his goods. It is impossible-for •him,-then, to
pay wages to the factory labourer vvhich• shall repre-
sent, as they ought to do, the taxation, addition to
the natural value of his labour.. The factory labourer
is thus reduced to the alternative of even
his present pittance of compensation, by an added
term of his already. protracted daily labour ; and the
manufacturer to that of retaining his services on these
hard terms, or of discharging him. • •

Such, then, being the resulting effect of a deii-
ciency inherent in our "gold standard" currency, we
would press it upon every Member of the Legislature,
as a sacred duty, to re-consider some great principles
whi.eh were singularly lost sight of in the delibera-
tions that preceded the settlement of that standard in
1819. We would beg them to observe that the pur-
port of the Bill of 1819 was a great anomaly. It
was, in effect, to make gold cheap, under any and
every condition of circumstances, in which it should
naturally, as a commodity, be dear ; and this cheap-
ness was to be obtained at the expense, and to the
loss, of every other commodity. . ,
The same Act consecrated by legislative authority
the most fatal of all erroneous principles in the policy
of a State—viz., the giving the highest degree of
intrinsic value to money, which should be always, to•
the greatest convenient or practicable extent, the
representative, not the actual merchandise, of value.
And if the working of the system has since been as
disparaging as we have desciibed it, to every interest
in the country but one—the men of realised money
capital—if the wages of industrial labour, manu-
facturing and agricultural, have so declined under it,
that starvation, pauperism, and discontent are mani-
festing themselves at all times, in some district or
other of the country, with more or less of organisa-
tion—we put it to those who are to determine on the
renewal of the Bank Charter, whether it will not be
true wisdom to arrest the great evils of such a system
and such a statute, before their pressure shall have
precipitated numbers into a war against capital? Let
not those to whom the discussion of such a question
in Parliament may fall be frightened from considering
the expediency of repealing PEEL'S Bill of 1819, by
vague declamations about the danger of re-opening
questions, unsettling contracts, &c. The perils, the
derangements, the frauds, and hardships of the past—
the inevitably-recurring panics and crises of the
•future---are and will be the fruits of retaining this
Act upon the statute-book. The abolition of the
standard, the relief of the Bank from the necessity, to
pay in gold, except at its market value, will go far
to the completion of that simple and safe process
which only is needful for the accomplishment of our
return to a better monetary system. To further
other enactments which it may be expedient to pass,
more especially in reference to the future relations be-
tween the Bank and the Government, we will advert
hereafter.

The Madrid Journals of the 24th ult. are almost
entirely occupied with an account of the rejoicings
which took place on the entry of the QUEEN
DOWAGER, on the previous day. The procession
was met at the Atocha gate by the munici-
pality and the civil and military authorities, about
half-past one. Three Aides-de-Camp of WAR-
VAEZ attended, one carrying a crown, and the others
splendid bouquets for the two QUEENS and the IN-
FANTA.. At a quarter-past three a salvo of artillery
announced the approach of their. MAJESTIES. After
having witnessed the dancing of girls, received the
felicitations of the municipality at the Atocha gate,
and heard a courtly harangue from the political chief,

their MAJESTIES entered the Church of Atocha
where they passed some time in prayer. On leaving

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SECOND EDITION.