The Sun.
London, England, 1845-10-29 00:00:00

THE "TIMES" and the RAILWAY

SYSTEM.
(From the Sentinel, October 25.)
We may well question the purity of that public virtue
which aids and abets the very enterprise it unceasingly con-
demns, and are justified in doubting that consistency which
daily takes sums of money to a large amount for circulating
what it pronounces delusive and fraudulent. Such, however,
is the conduct of the Times, which publishes double supple-
ments of railway advertisements, and then declares to the world
that its columns are the medium by which swindlers may plun-
der the unwary. It certainly does not express itself in these
very terms, but the spirit and tendency of its writings justly
bear this unstrained interpretation ; for, if nine-tenths of the
schemes which the Times advertises are designedly con-
cocted to extract the deposits, without any intention, on the
part of the projectors, to go before Parliament, on what
moral principle can the Times justify itself in giving pub-
licity to such schemes? Why does it not virtuously refuse
the advertisements? 'Will its numerous readers be deterred
from speculating, when they hear that the Times is receiv-
ing, perhaps, a thousand pounds a day from the funds of
organised cheats? Would not the impression on the public
be far stronger, were the Times to drop its supplements, and
avow its resolution no longer to circulate advertisements of
a dishonest character? This is the test by which we would
try the mercantile morality of the Leading Journal.
The Times asks, " Can any one deliberately expect that
the thirty millions will be really forthcoming? Is it pos-
sible that the hundreds of thousands of shareholders can really
pay ten per cent. on each of the many millions of shares now
in the market ?" These questions are not fairly put. It is
assumed that three hundred millions of capital are about to
be invested simultaneously in railways, and we are asked,
whence the ten per cent. on that sum, or thirty millions, are
to be found? The assumption is erroneous, and the reason-
ing built upon it falls to the ground. In the first place, the
competinglines will coalesce after a trial of strength ; secondly,
many lines will be abandoned; thirdly, some years must
elapse before the schemes which will ultimately succeed, can,
by possibility, receive the sanction of Parliament. Therefore
instead of three hundred millions, one-third of that sum will
be sufficient for all the lines, and many years will elapse be-
fore the state of the works will require its advance. This
capital will not be invested simultaneously, but gradually,
and at intervals, so that, in whatever view we consider the
subject, there appears to be net the slightest cause for panic
or apprehension.
The general argument of the Times proceeds on the prin-
ciple, that no public work is to be undertaken in any country
unless it has heaped up in some cellar or store a certain quan-
tity of gold and silver. The intelligence of the people is not
to contrive, the physical strength is not to execute, any un-
dertaking, unless the precious metals are within their reach.
Their presence alone is to give activity to the brain and the
muscles. Nay, more, however necessary any new works may
be, even the reclaiming of waste land for the supply of defi-
cient food, they must not be commenced unless a certain de-
posit of some ounces of gold or silver is lodged in the hands
of a public functionary. It 'amounts to this, that none but
rich people or rich nations are to make any progress in civili-
sation. The absurdity of this argument will be obvious, if
we merely consider, that man did emerge from barbarism and
arrive at a very improved social state long before gold or
silver mines were discovered. Now, had the law, as it exists
in England, always existed among all nations, it is very
clear that man never could have emerged from barbarism ;
this reasoning is fundamental, and at one blow destroys all
the quackery of the bullionists.
If it were contended, that the supply of iron being limited,
railways,:into whose construction it enters, must also be
limited, we should admit the force of the argument, since it
is physically impossible for man to increase the quantity of
iron. He can only extract what is deposited in the bowels of
the earth. But the case of money is widely different. Money
is purely conventional: it may be multiplied indefinitely.
Just as population increases and industrial operations are
expanded, so may money be expanded. Money is the servant
of labour, not its master. It is the instrument or tool with
which labour works, and the visible, tangible, convertible
produce of labour becomes the substance and reality of
which money is the sign or symbol. Hence it follows, that
the only real limitation to money is the limitation to pro-
duction, for wherever there is property, there the holder of
such property ought to be entitled to create its representative
iu money. Under such a system civilisation would proceed
rapidly and safely, since nothing more would be required
in a state
.than industry, heads to contrive and hands to
execute.

The Birmingham Railway, for instance, is a visible and
tangible property. It is as much so as a gold mine, and its
revenue is as certain as the revenue of the Customs or Excise.
On what principle, then, can it be contended, that the pro-
prietors of the Birmingham Railway ought not to be per-
mitted to circulate representatives of their property in the
shape of money, say Birmingham Railway notes? Is there
any tradesman in London who would refuse to take such
notes, were they in circulation? Now let us suppose that
this Birmingham Company desired to extend their line, and
that the estimated cost of such extension were computed at
half a million. Why should they not have the power of
issuing notes to that amount, and thus, on the security of the
existing line, create the extension line? Would the con-
tractors refuse such notes, or the labourers, or the tradesmen
who supply the labourefs? These notes would be money in
the sense in which we understand that ward.

Now let us look at the monetary system under which we
live. We have made the commodity gold a privileged
metal ; we have fixed its price by Act of Parliament, and
made it the standard measure of all other commodities. It
is the master, not the servant, of British industry. Heaped
up in the Bank cellars, it lies there in sheer uselessness;
other metals are constantly performing some industrial func-
tion, but this aristocratic metal reposes in true lordly
idleness. Merchants, with feverish anxiety, look at the
Bank weekly returns, to ascertain how many ounces are
added to or substracted from the heaps; and when it is moved
away to the Continent, the intelligence of the wise and the
labour of the industrious are absolutely prostrated.
Yet our brains are not disordered nor our sinews unstrung ;
our productive power, our capability to direct the plough or
the loom, are just in the same condition ; but the wisdom of
Parliament has said, " People of Britain, unless gold abounds
in the Bank cellars, you shall not eat your bread in the sweat
of your brow; we will aggravate the primeval curse, and
sentence you to beggary mid want, unless the graven images
of the precious metals are brought back to their subterranean
temple in Threadneedle- street."
When, then, we are told by the Times, that we have not
3IONEY enough to execute the projected railways, we ask—
What does the Times mean by money? If, by the term, it
understands bits of bullion in the shape of sovereigns,
we agree that we have no sufficiency of that
metal ; but, we deny that bits of bullion are
moNEy; they are commodities, not money ; and then
the question arises, Are public works in the immeiate execu-
tion of which millions of operatives are employed, and whose
completion acids, through reproduction, to the permanent
wealth of the empire, to be suspended or abandoned, because
one particular metal may be wanting? Is that to be the
condition on which alone industry and intelligence are to be
PERMITTED to exercise their active and self-sustaining use.
fulness? We admire the Times for its noble denunciation of
the poor-law ; but when it upholds a monetary system,
which is the true parent of union workhouses, and now at-
tempts, through panic-mongering, to throw the labouring
classes out of employment, we blush for the ignorance or dis-
honesty of the Leading Journal.
We will proceed a step further. The social destiny of man
is progression through labour. The more that labour is em-
ployed under the direction of science, which itself is only
shifted labour, the greater will that progression be. In an
enlightened country labour can only be checked by the crime
of war or the folly of legislation. The brain is ever ready
to contrive and the hand to execute, and accumulations
of property are the exponents of their combined work-
ing. Since the desires of man are insatiable, there is no
natural limit to consumption ; and hence, under natural
views, by which we mean the constitution of humanity,
there never can be over-production. But, he who consumes,
must produce an equivalent, and that he will do under the
stimulus of the desire of consumption. Nothing more, then,
is wanted than a proper distributive agent, by which produc-
tions may be interchanged. That agent is money. If'you
limit it, you limit both consumption and production, and you
do limit it, when you enact that gold, at a fixed price, shall
be the sole distributive agent. When the gold quits the
country, the country is then in the state of a street, along
which the thoroughfare is impeded, by repairing the
sewers. In both cases, distribution ceases. Adam Smith
has compared money to a road. We widen and multi-
ply our roads as trade and population increase; but,
most inconsistently, we narrow and diminish our
money. Our accumulated property, visible and tangible,
swells from year to year, yet we will not allow that
property to augment the number of its symbols or re-
presentatives. Thus we make every description of property
subservient to that particular property called gold, and there-
fore the holders of the gold are the masters, the absolute and
despotic masters, of all the skilled and unskilled labour in the
country. More than that; if the gold is exported, the fo-
reigner does in effect become the temporary master of British
property, for large quantities of that property must be given
to the foreigner to (3-et back the metal. Our conclusion is,
that, if railway proprietors are wise, they will unite together
for a repeal of the money laws, and insist on issuing their own
notes on the guarantee of their respective lines.

THE LATE STORM.
(From the John o' Groat Journal of the 17th instant.)
The wind on Wednesday week blew from an easterly
direction, and raised in our bay a swell greater than any of
our oldest citizens ever remember. To look from any direc-
tion, the sea presented a scene of wildness and terrific fury,
which no pzn can adequately pourtray. The mountain
billows, as they dashed against the shore, drove every •
thing before them, and covered the ground to an incre-
dible distance with spray, so much so, that a number
of corn fields are entirely destroyed, and at several
sta-
tions along the coast, boats which were supposed to have
been drawn up far beyond the reach of the sea are
fmuch
a e injured.
number During
of
great tvhe
shores,issomfe of
of ear-
°them bearing signals of distress, and it is much feared that
many a sad and heartrending tale of woe will have to be told
as the result of the storm. So far as we have learned, no
great injury has been done in or to the harbours or creeks
along: our coasts. At Pultneytown
cur amongstcharbour, it was once
feared some disasters might o •'l •
the shipping lying
there, as the sea was inaking a clean breach over the South
Quay, and 'even the inner harbour, hitherto considered secure,
was in a state of considerable commotion with the swell.
Providentially, however, no injury was done, save the break-
ing of a few ropes, every precaution being taken by all con-
cernedlo prevent the occurrence of any catastrophe.
4, During the gale, a Russian brig, name unknown, since
put into LonghoPe, had the mate and one of the seamen
washed overboard. The cook had three of his ribs broken,
and others of the crew were more or less injured. At the
same time, stancheons and rails were carried away, and the
cabin skylight broken. A vessel from North America was
also driven ashore at Longhope, but it is expected she may
be got off without much damage. It is much to be dreaded
that, when the whole news of the gale shall have been added
together, it will present a catalogue of loss, both by sea and
land, of the most deplorable character. In the interior of the
country, the storm raged with unabated violence, and a
good deal of injury has been done to the crops. Such was the
tremendous surf along the coast, that, between Pulte ney -
town and Scarlet, several dead ling
.and skate were found
lying in the fields,7at a considerab
• le distance from the high-
water mark. On Sabbath, the gale moderated, and we
were favoured with a lovely but most delusive day; for, on
Monday, the storm again broke out with great violence, and
the sea raged. with extreme fury. On Tuesday, the weather
became once more traquil, and we would fain hope that we
will now be visited with more genial and agreeable times, for
at least 4 few weeks, until the precious fruits of the earth
shall have been wholly taken in in safety.
" It seems there is much loss of shipping in the Orkney
Islands, particularly in the islands of Sanday and Stronsay,
but the full particulars had not reached Kirkwall at the time
the steamer left. Accounts had been received of two wrecks
at Stronsay and three in Sanday—names nct given. We are
also informed that a large vessel, supposed to be from the
Baltic with timber, was also lost, with all on board, off one
of the Zetland islands."

Such has been the failure of the corn crop in the
upper districts of South Carolina, that conventions have been
held, and resolutions adopted to apply to the Legislature of
the State for aid in purchasing food.—New York Journal of
Commerce.