The Sun.
London, England, 1844-05-02 00:00:00

No. 16,135. LONDON, THURSDAY MORNING BU N,

MAY 2, 1844.

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lations allow for the accumulation of the guarantee fund up
to the present time.

SOCIETY FOR THE EMANCIPA-
TION OF INDUSTRY.

it was of h 0 fa-ult. in the measure of value—they could alter
that; only let them take care to discountenance every at-
tempt to trade and traffic in them to monopolise them, and use
them to the injury of their fellow-men. If this was not done,
they would not now have agitations going on for Ten Hour
Bills ; men did not sacrifice themselves, and,wives, and chil-
dren, froth indifference or selfishness, but it was from the
stern necessity of exerting themselves beyond their powers,
in consequence of this system depriving them of the
fair reward of their industry. Never had there been a coun-
try so oppressed as this had been by that from which no man
had profited. Every Government said, " Oh, the currency is
a difficult subject ;" but it was not a difficult one if it was but
attended to; it was inattention that had done the injury.
They had gold and silver as their measures at present, and*
they could not extricate themselves from them. Nor was he
desirous that they should do so. But there was another kind
of money which the people had not, because they did not en-
joy it. Every endeavour to gain it was crushed by the Go-
vernment, which made every attempt, and would make
every attempt, to preserve the equality, between gold and pa-
per, and if it should estabish one bank of issue, would almost
destroy every hope of the emancipation of the country from
the system.
The, discussion of the details of the question of the standard
of value was then resumed between Mr. Capps, Mr. Enderby,
and Mr. Sparkhall, and continuod.for some time in a very
animated manner. One gentleman, whose name was not
given, joined in the discussion, in order to maintain that labour
was the only true standard of value ;• gold was the worst and
the most pernicious, from its scarcity, and he wished he had
it in its payer to destroy it and convert it into iron, which
he thought would be preferable to- it - (thus reversing the
object for which the alchemists of old laboured so perse-
veringly—the conversion of all the baser meitala to the
noblest one.) This Spartan aspiration did not seem to be at
all shared in by the rest of the meeting.
Mr. L. MURRAY said, the question whether labour should
be the standard of valve had been Very ably discussed by
Adam Smith, and if the last speaker had said that labour,
instead of being the standard, was the origin of all value, he
should have agreed with him. But if he applied all the tests
that must be applied to a standard of value to labour, he
would find that his position was erroneous. It was far too
fluctuating in its nature to afford basis enough for such a
standard. The use of gold as a standard had, from the fluctu-
ations in the price of that article, caused great misery. It
was to alter this that the present Society was established; to
give emancipation to industry was the object for which they
had met that night.
Mr. RODGERS, in a short address, stated his preference to
gold as the standard of value. He contended that, though it
might fluctuate as far as this country was concerned, yet that
taking the whole world, it remained unaltered.
The CHAIRMAN then stated, that the time allotted to the
discussion had expired, and having announced that the sub-
ject at the next meeting would be " Bank Restrictions," the
proceedings closed.

FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—The law of debtor End creditor in this
country was, until the last few yeii.rs, in a most imper-
fect
state. Instead of being founded on the obviously
rational and just principle of rendering the property
of the debtor available to the payment of his debts—
which in other countries is principally aimed at by
their laws on this subject—personal restraint, aptly
described as a " power which exposes the liberty of
one man to the passions of another," was the remedy
provided by the Legislature for securing the payment
of 'debts. The unfortunate and the fraudulent were
treated alike. The dishonest debtor was no more
subjected to imprisonment than the honest one.
The man who had long struggled with misfor-
tunes—who had daily submitted to privations of or-
dinary comforts, that his means of 'meeting the pecu-
niary claims upon him naLht be increased, and who bad
distributed every pound he could acquire and save to
avert the calamities that eventually overtook him, was
regarded with equal eye by the law with the reckless
spendthrift, the headlong speculator, and the fraudulent
practitioner ! An alteration in this cruel and im-
politic system was contemplated with reluctance.
Partial ameliorations of its rigour were made at dis-
tant intervals, by the Legislature, which thus showed
the confidence that was felt in the efficiency of imprison-
ment to coerce payment of pecuniary claims, not merely
from the fraudulent, but from the unfortunate and impo-
verished. On moving last night in the House of Lords
the second reading of the Bill for assimilating the ex-
isting laws of creditor ana debtor, Lord Cottenham
entered largely into the legislative history of the sub-
ject. To the NobleTord's masterly exposition of the
imperfect principles and defective operation of the
successive changes which were made by Parliament,
we refer those who desire to become acquainted with
the-past.- They will there see how unwilling the Legis-
lature showed itself to interfere with the system of in-
discriminate imprisonment ; and, when•it did interfere,
what inexplicable distinctions were recognised and ap-
plied to different class of debtors. The pcorest, and
most unfriended—alike destitute of resources and of

The convenience gained by the public by the new arrange.
ment, independently of the saving, will be the transaction of
all stock business at the Bank of England. The question
naturally arises, what will become of the present Company
when its only functions are thus annihilated? Either, it
would seem, it must cease altogether, or it must charge itself
with the performance of some new duties. The project that
was started a little time ago, of a trust Company, with the
present Board of Directors, shows that these are willing to
continue their official existence, but the scheme seems to have
made such very little progress, that scarcely any hope is
entertained of its being carried into effect. .
The premium on gold at Paris is, 13 per mille,
irhich, at the English Mint price of 3/. 17s. 100. per ounc%
for standard gold, gives an exchange of 25 48; and the
exchange at Paris on London at short being 25 57i, it follows
that gold is 0.38 per cent. dearer in London than in Paris.
By advices from Hamburgh, the price of gold is 4351 per
marh, which; at the English Mint price of 3/. 17s. 10id. per
ounce for standard gold, gives an exchange of 13 10* ; and
the exchange at Hamburgh on London at short being 13 10,
it follows that gold is 0.12 per cent, dearer in Hamburgh
than: in London.

The weekly meeting of the members of this Society was
held on Tuesday at the office, Parliament-street, for the ur-
pose of discussing the nature of the " standard of value,' in
pursuance of the notice given, according to the rule of the
Society, at the last week's meeting. The attendance was
highly respectable. Mr. Spottiswoode was called to the chair.
In introducing the business of the evening, the CHAIRMAN
took occasion to correct an error that had appeared in a
Morning Paper in a report of the last meeting of the. Society.
It was stated that the Society intended to " agitate" in fa-
vour .of the principles they supported. Their intentions
were perfectly the reverse ; the Society were no agitators, its
object being, on the contrary, to allay agitation. They saw,
or thought they saw, in their present monetary system the
sources of great agitation, and the object of the Society was
to put a stop to that agitation, by providing a remedy for
the evils of that system. lie attributed the mistake to the
fact of the repOrter being so accustomed to hear of " agita-
tion" in other quarters—(Hear, hear)—that he thought this
Society must be agitators also. They did not look
to agitation for the propagation of the principles which
they knew to be 'true ; they only asked those who were
uninformed to listen to their arguments, that they might be
convinced. The question for this evening was, the "stand-
ard of value." It was not generally known out of doors.
that the currency of the country consisted of two parts—
one, the money of the Government, that was to say,
that money it issued for the payment of its expenses,
and receivable back in the shape of taxation, which was lite-
rally speaking money, but not sufficient for the wants of a
great country like this ; and the other part, the commercial
currency of the nation—that was the-issue of notes or other
representatives of value by private. persons upon private
credit. It was the want of seeing the simple distinction,
that neither one nor the other could be properly made the
entire commercial medium of the country, that had led
people into great confusion and difficulty un this question.
Some were now crying out for one bank ofpo, issue. There cer-
tainly could be but one Government ; but many seemed to
think that on that account the whole circulating medium of
the country must come from that one quarter. Others were'
for the issue of notes of hand and bank notes on private secu-
rities. These again were of a different character, and must'
take their tone and measure from the money of the country.
If the Government made an issue of 11. notes, those issued
by private bankers must be of the same value; and whether
they were for sums of one, five, or ten pounds, they must be
the ,same as the Government money represented. It was
over-issue
ee
indefinites banksu e
ooff
ma
ol
lra nee It-1:a
aonnr
issue,supposednu mbe because
to
of
fb bankers,
bn ek theyers dangerousa n
might
d taaotvhave
wast
he n more
notes; but the idea was preposterous. Nobody took the
notes of a bank and threw them into the street, nor did any
banker or bank part with its notes without value, or sup-
posed value received. If A bank chose to part with its notes
to persons of doubtful credit, they were speculators, just in
the same way as others were speculators. Both might lose,
and both might deserve to lose. But an overissue could not
possibly exist—it must cure itself in a short time. No men
parted with their property for nothing, or, for that which was
of no value ; nor could anything force them to do it. Unless
the public had confidence in a bank, no one would take its
notes; and unless a man had land, or warehouses, or pro-
duce, or property of some kind, which he wished to exchange
for something more convertible, no issue of notes to him
could take place. The cry of over-issue, then, was perfect
nonsense, and the attempt to give an equal fixed value to
the whole of the circulating medium was a great fallacy.
Where there was an immense weight of taxation, it was
equal folly to say that the money of the country should be of
the same price as if that taxation did not exist. With these
introductory observations he left the question open to discus-
sion by the meeting.
Mr. C. ENDERBY said he had some very considerable
doubts as to whether there could be any standard of value
at all. Value meant two things ; the value of one thing
could only be fixed by something else—by some peculiar
commodity, the object of doing so being to regulate prices.
The question was, did the standard of value, as fixed by law,
regulate prices ? Just the reverse; for it confused and dis-
turbed everything. First, with regard to gold itself, the price
of gold was fixed, but if the quantity of gold in the country
was extremely small, a counteracting circumstance took
place, and the price of the commodity was depressed. Now
came the consideration of the intention that was entertained
in fixing the standard of value; surely it could not have been
intended to disturb all the transactions between man and
man, and yet that appeared to have been its operation. When
gold became extremely scarce, the Bank contracted its circu-.
lotion, and this acted in the first place, perhaps, on East In-
dian produce. Tea fell in price 50 per cent., then sugar fell 30
per cent., and.other produce 20 per cent., and so forth ; every •
thing was disturbed Now he wanted to know if there was
any one object that could be considered a standard of value?
He never could make it out that there was one.
Mr. LAMIE MURRAY said he could easily understand the
object of the question. If they had no fixed obligation to
pay—no obligation which every year required the same
amount of money to discharge, there was no occasion to have
a reference to a standard of value. In that case every article
might be exchanged for some other article which the parties
making the exchange might desire to have. This would be
in fact a system of barter. But where they had a fixed debt
and obligation to pay, some standard must be agreed upon
in order to prevent the parties receiving it from having too
little interest for their money at one period and too much at
another; hence it became necessary to have a reference to a
standard of value. He believed that the true nature of a
standard of value had been very ably laid down by his friend
Mr. Taylor, whose works on this subject he had read with
great pleasure • he thought no man could read them without
acquiring muCle;instruction from them. He laid it down
that the market price of gold would be a good standard of
value. He agreed in this so far as the mere interchange of
commodities were concerned, because, as cost of pro-
duction entered into all articles, the relation of value
would be preserved between them, and except horn
the fact of an • over-issue on the part of the
Government to meet extraordinary . expenses, no
derangement to the incomes of all those whose incomes
were fixed could exist from purely mercantile causes. Mr.
Cowell, who had written on the currency, laid it down as a
new discovery that gold was the best standard of value be-
cause men insatiably desired to possess it. This was not
laid down as a jest or in satire, but with all the gravity of a
philosophic principle ; he considered it a discovery of quite
a new moral world.—(Hear, hear.) When he read his
pamphlet, he naturally asked how much did this insatiable
demand of gold amount to in the year, and he found that it
amounted to 5400,0001. a year, consumed in the arts out of
a produce of abut 9,000,0001. Suppose the insatiable desire
for the possession of gold only occasioned a demand for one
million out of the nine pioduce, what was the situation they
would be in ? They would have more gold on hand than
they had a demand for, and it would fall in its value as com-
pared with other commodities. Those having fixed incomes
would then complain, because their incomes would not com-
mand so much of the productions of the labouring classes as
they had before enjoyed. If, on the contrary, the supply of
gold was less than the demand, a great appreciation
of the standard of value would take place. What a fallacy,
then, to suppose that gold could be so insatiably desired,
when the whole demand for it did not exceed five millions.
This was mistaking effect for cause. Every one would agree
that in fixing a standard of value, they ought to fix on some-
thing that was in universal demand. And if anything could
be said to be in universal demand, it was surely that which
entered so largely into production, which wae the " staff of
life." In whatever point of view it might be examined,
wheat might be said to possess all the elements of a perfect
standard of value. And here again he was much indebted
to the gentleman he had before named, who had ably laid
down the nature of the standard of value and of the measure
of value. The standard of value might be corn, while the
measure of value might be gold, because the latter had great
intrinsic value in a smallcompass. But it made a bad standard
of value,_ because the demand for it was limited. Wheat was
bulky, but there was no article that fluctuated so little in price
in a long period of years. For many years previous to the passing
of the Bank Restriction Act, from 1635 to 1795, the price of
a bushel of wheat was as nearly as possible the same as that
of an ounce of silver, and to do justice to the productive
classes, they should endeavour to form a standard of value
by making the ounce of silver and the bushel of wheat
agree. This could be done by an average taken every seven
or fourteen years. Such an arrangement as this would en-
able them to do as they were doing before 1819, and restore
that prosperity to the country which was so much required.
If that was effected, instead of finding the taxes pressing
upon them so heavily, they would not feel them, while they
would be enabled to compete with every foreign country,
and the nation would become rich by the elements it pos-
sessed within itself to make it so.

Admission, Is.; Catalogue, Is. '
WILLIAM BARNARD, Keeper.

ROYAL COMMISSION of FINE ARTS.
The EXHIBITION of DECORATIVE WORKS, at 20, king-
street, St. James's, is NOW OPEN.
Admission (from Nine o'clock till Dusk), One Shilling. Catalogue,
SLxpence.

C. L. EASTLAKE, Secretary.

MUSIC 'OF GERMANY. •
Without Extra Charge to the Public, at the
1/OYAL POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTION.
The Directors have engaged Mr. C. E. HORN, to deliver
A SERIES of LECTURES on the MUSIC of EIGHT different
NATIONS, The MUSIC of GERMANY commences on the 29th
instant, and will be continued during the week on Monday, Wednes
day, and Friday Evenings at Eight o'clock ; and on Tuesday, Thurs-
day, and Saturday, at Three o'clock, n•ith VOCAL and INSTRU-
MENTAL ILLUSTRATIONS. All the other Lectures and Exhibi-
tions as usual. LONGDOTTOM'S PHYSIOSCOPE and OPAQUE
MICROSCOPE. NEW DISSOLVING VIEWS, ARMSTRONG'S
HYDRO-ELECTRIC MACHINE, &c., &c.
Admission, Is.; Schools, Half-Price.

THE FACTORIES BILL.

NATIONAL LOAN FUND LIFE ASSUR.
AWCE SOCIETY,
26, CORNIIILL, LONDON.
Capital .C 500,000.
Empowered by Act of Parliament.
The many novel and varied advantages bestowed by this Institu-
tion, both in its life assurance and deferred annuity departments, par-
ticularly the power to borrow two-thirds of premiums without ex-
pense or forfeiture—the great reduction of rates on short policies—
the option of selecting benefits and converting policies so as best to
suit the interest or necessity of the policy-holder during life,-ao well
as to afford the full benefit to his tinnily at death, and annual division
of profits, have already been so well appreciated by the public, that
the Society's great success and growing prosperity _enabled the Di-
rectors, at their General Meeting in last, to add to each policy
it the profit scale a bonus averaging 111ty-tive per cent. on the
remount already invested; end this bonus, according to an equitable
seale,.may either be paid in cash, or applied In reduction of fhture
premiums
Entry. 'Policy.' A sum I Anneal Bonus
No. rwl ' I Prem. I Added.

The factory question is now in the hands of the land-
owners. Solt has ever been in fact; but just now their
intimate relation to it happens to be more evident than
ever. Its opponents cannot be ca:led a party, either
Whig, or Liberal, or manufacturing; for it has its sup-
porters from all classes. " The Opposition" is divided
upon it. The Agriculturists, then, can, 'if they please,
pass Lord--Ashley's .amendment—not quite scot-free,
perhaps, for-they-are threatened with the perils and ex-
penses of a dissolution, or even a ehange of Ministry.
Still, if they choose to run these risks, they can pass a
Ten Hours' Bill without the smallest difficulty in the
world. They have only to say aye, and the thing is done.
Now this is a very important fact, and deserves to
be remembered hereafter, whatever the present result
may happen to be. Long hours are generally considered
the sin of the master manufacturers. These unnatural
monsters, it seems to be commonly supposed, in order
that they may accumulate enormous fortunes, get thirty
per cent. interest on their capital,—as the Agricultural
Protection Society informs us,—buy up the estates of
the impoverished landowners, ruin all the other manu-
facturers in the world, and perpetrate other like atroci-
ties, forcibly and illegally impress and detain from their
natural guardians myriads of helpless women and chil-
dren, regularly drain their life's blood out of them, com-
pelling them to work till they drop. By alternate
seduction and violence they get the miserable creatures
into their clutches, and only resign them as a spider—
the original of all cotton-spinners—resigns his prey, viz.,
when he has sucked it thoroughly dead and dry. The
agriculturist, on the other band, is represented as a dis-
tracted mother deprived of her children, roaming over
the face of the earth, and findiog them at last in the den
of the millowner, from whom she in vain demands her
own. The philanthropist, like another Theseus, is to
attack the Minotaur in his labyrinth, and by the extinc-
tion of the monster is to put an end to the cruel tribute
which he has hitherto been suffered to exact. Such is
the ordinary picture. But, like many a scene of ro-
mance, the course of human affairs has now made it a
practical question. It comes home to the landowners.
Here is the monster; here are his victims. It is in the
power of the landowners to set the victims at liberty, at
least to alleviate their miSery. What they have wished
and talked about so many 3 ears they now can do. Do
it. Why hold back? What's the the matter now? "If
we do,' they 'reply, "we shall turn out a Minister
or two, get into a mess perhaps with our own labourers,
and, horrendum dictu, have cheap corn." 0 rare philan-
thropists! 0 easy compassion! 0 flummery of talk! It is
an atrocious cruelty in the millowners to overwork women
and young people, because otherwise they cannot sell
their calicoes ; what is it then in you to acquiesce
'willingly in ths cruelty, because otherwise you cannot
keep your friends in power, or get a good price
for your corn ? Whatever you have said of
the manufacturers, posterity will surely say. of you.
Wise men have always been chary of benevolent
talk, from a sort of presentiment that they might
some day find a sort of necessity to eat their own
words. The wisest man could not have foreseen such an
emergency as this. There is no doubt that the agricul-
turists can pass the measure, but then it may possibly
touch their pockets. Yet how little mercy had they on
the pockets, and even the bare solvency and subsistence,
of the manufacturer! So long as somebody else was to
pay, their generous indignation knew no bounds. The
merest shadow of a possibility of the price coming out
cf the landowner's purse, puts to flight the whole army
of philanthropists.
We will coneess that we never have thought the land-
owner and the millowner to be different orders of hu-
manity. They are both of them capitalists ; and, as
capitalists, are generally found to possess a decided
leaning towards the fnterests of capital. They like other
things, but perhaps nothing so decidedly and constantly
as a good per centage. Amongst the things which they
do not like, unprofitable burdens, useless and superfluous
mouths, human waste and refuse, all that impediment
and friction that clogs and cripples speculation, are the
most odious. The treatment of the agricultural la-
bourer at the hands of the landowner is a sufficient indi-
cation of what every other industrial class must expect
from him. They who acquiesced so easily in the New
Poor-law will never pass an effectual Factory Bill, if
they can help it. Both of them are ultimately questions
of rent. The old Poor-law charged the land, or, what
comes to the same thing, the process of production, with
certain expensive social duties. A good Factory Bill
might possibly involve greater freedom of trade. That
is all the landowner wishes to know about the matter.
Everybody can point to the localities, and the councils,
where the fate of the factory question has been decided,
for decided we believe it is, for this turn at least.
The cause does not fare much better with the manu-
rorenej
Manchester,
et
cht t
n:eg c ttuz e
es two
osten-
sibly
facturer. Just now, perhaps, rather better; but there is
still the old story. "Do not limit labour, but remove
yof disjunctive duality, viz., the factory
sort
sbeplrdesteentx)dntshideemrselveS to a Lancashire mind
our burdens." For thirty yea
Last
and
'Tuesday
e sdduat)y,
aon
meetingraw c
sub-
jects ; and have universally endeodtdiroanimtns cause,ions
havesaa
vv
nee
been
rev
Wotatospnhre.settl. Innumerable meetings
peti-
tion for restrictingfactory labour, .
re-
solving on that •
and unanimously
against that obnoxious import duty.
for the latter purpose only ; and most pathetic was
the tone in which this grievance, real enough we think
it, was sucessively deplored by the speakers. But we
must confess to a slight abatement of our pity, from the
fact that almost every speaker, in the midst of some
most piteous whine about the duty he annually paid on
his raw cotton, interjected some angry flings about the
factory question. Has it ever occurred to any of these
lugubrious gentlemen, that if they had done their part,
the State might have done its part ? It is but natural
that a Government which knows more of definite
treaties than of uncertain speculations should refuse to
sacrifice revenue without securing that the benefit shall
light on the heads of those who most need it. The
Manchester meeting presents rather too close a resem-
blance to that committee of ironmasters the other day
which agreed to raise the price of iron 20s. a ton, and
before they separated signed a petition against a Ten
Hsairs' Bill.
Yet there is some hope from this quarter. Some of
the arguments used in the House on Friday, including
those of Mr. Cobden, aro encouraging. He considers
shortening the hours of labour not only desirable but
possible—compatible with social prosperity, and that in
England. We have sometimes heard what seemed a
contrary doctrine. ",More work, more produce, more
wages, mare comforts," &c. Not so, Mr. Cobden.
Holding that the desired result will be obtained by
ee d that advocatingthe
the systems d e
com-
mercial freedom, but retarded by legislative restrictions
on labour, he yet considers that shortened hours are
a result to be &tired
I
surest way, and the only sound and practical mode,
"
of shortening the hours of labour was by ntea oft, thelo long
supportershours,
theyof freem
at:t ttraai
nd
abolish-
ing restrictions upon trade. He would in two words
tell the House why he thought carrying into effect
repeated the
price
he
price
the principles of free trade would diminish the hours
of labour. He did not say, with the Noble Lord the
Member for the City of London, that
of bread, it would compensate the labourer for
the reduction of the hours
what he (Mr. Cobden) had often stated to the House,
that he did not think reduction in the price of wheat,
coffee, or sugar, would afford a sufficient compensa-
tion to the, operatives for a reduction of the
by reducing
labour. He
hours of labour. But if they enlarged their markets,
and allowed a free exchange to take place with the
commodities of other countries, the eftect would be,
that the value of labour would increase in this country,
and the capitalist would also derive great advan-
tages from the interchange. Under such a system
the labourer would derive as much benefit from
working ten hours as he did now by working twelve.
It was only last night that he had a conversation with a
large capitalist. That capitalist instructed him
(Mr. Cobden) to go into the House of Com-
mons and make a bargain for him. The capi-
talist said, if the House would consent to remove all
the restrictions upon trade, he would at once pro-
mise to give his workmen the same wages for 10 hours'
as he now gave them for 12-hours' work. Dr. Deacon
Hume said that the only effectual way of giving the ope-
ratives a Ten Hours' Bill was by removing the restric-
tions upon the commerce and trade of this country."
This may be all true. We hope there is this road to
a Ten Hours' Bill. But it certainly does considerably
damp one's sympathy for the free traders to see the
order in which they always place these two questions.
Trade first, the factory women and young persons next,
is not the order of humanity—perhaps not the order of
success.—Times.

EXAMPLES.

Wintry. Polley. Age. sum. Annual Bonus Cask Prem.
Iso. Prem. Added. Bonus. Reduced.
X £ s. d. X s.d. X s.d. X s.d.
1837' 39 . 59 1,000 07 8 4 132 14 6 58 19 9 8 19 4
1838 ll4 56 3,000 175 15 0 296 9 7 123 0 6 16 9 7

elp—were doomed to a prison. Persons who
could not meet their obligations to their creditors, if
their debts were of large amount, were relieved,
partially or wholly, from the degradation and misery
of incarceration. The law only reserved its un-
mitigated vengeance for the poorer classes—those
whose debts were small, and whose destitution was
absolute! Lord Cottenham, by the Bill which ho has in-
troduced, seeks to remove those .distinctions, and to
place the law of creditor and debtor on principles more
consonant with sound policy. Its object is to assimilate
the law relating to bankrupts and insolvents, b' abolish-
ing altogether imprisonment for debt, and giving to the
creditor greater facilities for obtaining cessio bonorunt.
Debts contracted without prospect of being aide to pay
them are to be treated as fraudulent transactions; and

Another Bonus Rill be declared in the present year.

DEFEERSD ANNUITIES.

The. hest and most varied provision fbr after-life hitherto offered—
every 2/. 12s. per annum, paid from the age of twenty, will, at sixty-
five, give the policy-holder the choice of an annuity of 471. Its. 6d.,
or 349/. I Is. cash, or policy at death of 4661. Similar advantages at
.I.fty, fifty-five, and sixty, through an increased annual payment—
two-thirds payments lent at anytime, and two-thirds returned to re-
presentatives in cases of premature death.
F. FERGUSON CAMROUX. See.

the delinquents may be tried before a jury, and punished
according to the flagrancy of the case. The future pro-
perty of insolvents, like that of bankrupts, is to be ex-
empted from the power of former creditors; and all pro-
ceedings in bankruptcy and insolvency are to be assimi-
lated, and carried on in one court, before one set of
judges. Such is the outline of this greatly beneficial mea-
sure, which will, we trust, shortly receive the sanction of
the Legislature. The honest and unfortunate debtor will
be relieved by it from imprisonment. Thus punishment
will be reserved wholly for the fraudulent debtor ; whose
case will be regarded, as it ought to be, in the light of
a crime against society ; subject to be dealt with, as
other offences against socieiy are, by a court of crimi-
nal jurisdiction, and be no longer left to the partial
and frequently malevolent passions of individuals.
Speaking of imprisonment for debt, Mr. Burke long
since said, " Every process of judicial order is subverted
by this proceeding. If the insolvency be no crime, why
is it punished with arbitrary imprisonment ? If it be a
crime, why is it delivered into private hands to
pardon without discretion, or to punish with-
out mercy and without measure ?" The credi-
tors of an insolvent will, by this measure,
obtain prompt possession and early and equal distribu-
tion.of the assets of his estate, comprehending every de-
scription of his property. This principle of cessio bonorum
has been long found to work most advantageously
in Scotland, and has been frequently urged on the con-
sideration and adoption of the Legislature, as well
calculated in this country to secure the property of insol-
vent traders from wa,te, by delay and mal-appropriation.
STANDARD.—Lord Cottenham last night introduced

a Bill for the abolition, in all cases, of imprisonment for
debt, leaving the fraudulently incurring of debt, or the
fraudulently withholding payment of a 'just debt which
the party is able to pay, to be dealt with criminally, as
a substantive offence. The Bill met the Mt= us irap-
probation of the House, and we trust will Soo the
law of the land. The power of imprisonment bt is
the most unjust, and, in a country where ninety men
out of a hundred have no estate but in their time and
their character, the most cruel tyranny that it is pos-
sible to imagine. Of the injustice of leaving with one
subject the power of depriving another of liberty, charac-
ter, and occupation—if the latter happens to be his
debtor—whether by misfortune, venial imprudence, or
the arts of the creditor himself—of the injustice of in-
vesting the richer class with this tyranny, to be ex-
exercised at their caprice, it is unnecessary to say
anything after all that has been said and written upon
acknowledged
2 y euaur si.y e
rThesal
ly
; b injusticeut
the
llast
the
degree of its cruelty is not so 11 genera y appreciated.
The injury inflicted upon a debtor by imprison-
ment, is frequently measured merely by the amount
of the pain of three months' confinement and by
three months' loss of time ; but this is a ridiculously
inadequate measure ; in the vast majority of cases—
we should say, that in every case where the debtor is
really an honest and industrious man—imprisonment is
ruin. They are only the knaves and. the dissolute who
make light of it. The poor labourer, the artisan, the clerk,
the professional man, who has no prospect in life but the
fruit of patient labour and of a fair character, finds impri-
sonment for three months a very dreadful matter ; turn-
ed loose at the three months end, he finds the place
that he formerly occupied filled up, and has to begin the
world anew, and work out a new place for himself
with worse than no reputation—with a damaged reputa-
tion. So dreadful are these consequences of impri-
sonment to industrious men of proper feeling,
that they will submit to any terms of
me-iintl;
ployers to avoid it, or make any bargain
the
usurers. Few who know the real lives of
struggling millions can have escaped seeing many
examples of men who might have adorned and served
e
their country in the highest stations creepingtnobcu
horrid
employments to mean graves, in terror of the
it will be
phantom of ignominious improvement. But
said, creditors are not generally so hard-hearted in
this Christian country. We do not know what to say to
this ; the love of money has a great tendency to hardent
the heart ; and with the example of Mr. Oastler s
three years' suffering, and the knowledge of the fact
that that gentleman's wealthy creditor, after wringing
two or three thousand pounds from the compassion
and sympathy of the people, still maintains his
position in society, we can hardly say that such
hard-heartedness is either rare or unpopular in Eng-
land. The trqth is, however, that the creditor
is not always the party to blame. He, a poor man,
perhaps, wants his money ; a , ready solicitor sug-
gests that it can be had on a peremptory demand ;
the demand is made, costs accumulate ; these
costs must be paid by the creditor himself, if he
cannot extract them from the debtor or the deb-
tor's friends ; so that he (the creditor) having once
begun, is forced. t) push matters to extremity,
if he would. evade greater loss. This is not
hard-heartedness—it is merely folly at first and
necessity afterwards. Abolish imprisonment for
debt, however, and what do you effect ?
You take fr urn creditors the temptation to commit this
folly, and you destroy at a stroke the trade of the worst
description ot usurers—the men who lend money at high
interest urou bills of exchange, in contemplation of
actions upon those bills, the lenders upon cognovits
and warrant to confess judgment. In nearly
every case these loans are contracted in order to
pay debts, because debts unpaid drag a man to
prison and to ruin ; but abolish imprisonment,
and men will have no motive for changing cre-
ditors at the exorbitant cost of flying to usurers. In
this way a pestilent trade will be extinguished, and a.
considerable amount of capital let loose for fair com-
mercial purposes; while the moral effect must be to en-
hance the value of character by making character the
only safe ground for giving credit.

Mr. ENDERBY did not clearly understand how corn could
be made a standard of value, when it was always so fluctu-
ating in price between the end of one season and the be-
ginning of another ; and it appeared to him that this must
always be the case.
Mr. Munr.AY explained that on an average of years corn
would be found to fluctuate in price less than any other
article.
Mr. RICHARDSON said, Mr. Murray had talked of the
market price of gold. What idea did that convey to them ?
By what standard or measure was that price to be taken? It
amounted to nothing, and they were all yet completely at sea.
Mr. MURRAY said, that if the price of gold was not fixed by
Act of Parliament, it would be discovered by finding its own
level in the market.
A discussion, in the nature of a conversation, took place on
this point between Mr. Richardson, Mr. 'Vickers, Mr. Capps,
and Mr. Murray. In the course of it, one of the speakers said
that the issue of 1/. notes from one bank would be a curse to
the country; there was an anxiety on the part of the Bank
of England to get into this mode of having one bank of issue.
Mr. TAYLOR said he had taken some pains to ascertain
what had been the prices of corn for many years before the
Bank of England came into existence, and he found, adopting
' the estimates given in the transactions of the Royal Society,
that for six hundred years 'the price of wheat had averaged '
445. a quarter. The English grower bad that price for his crheat
when the taxation of the country only amounted to two millions
—how much better then was he paid all through that period
than he was at present?—(Bear, hear.) He defended the
principle of adopting corn as the standard of value, showing
that even in the time of the Romans there was a relative
proportion between the metals of their currency, which re-
mained nearly the same down to the discovery of America.
But the measure of value was now provided for them by the
Government in the taxes of tbe people, and it bad no longer
anything to do with the old metallic money of the country.
The Government now made its paper as valuable as gold or
silver; this it had no right to say. Let it fix the value of
its paper, but it was impossible to alter that of gold or silver.
The Government said there shall be a maximum of value;
though it would not attempt to fix a minimum of wages ;
then why fix a maximum of value, when they were every
year doing something to raise that maximum. There were
three states of money. There was the condition of barter, in
which no money was required ; another state was where the
precious metals came into operation, still a condition of bar-
ter, but one in which the exchange was for something besides
eatables, or drinkables, or clothing. If both parties fixed
the price in metal, and were both satisfied, there was no rea-
son why they should not buy and sell as they chose. But
when they got to such a state of things, in which the Go-
vernment stepped in with its taxing power, it did by that
taxation press down the metallic value of articles, and yet
levied the taxes just as it did before! This was what they
complained of. It Was of no fault in the standard of value,

MONEY MARKET and CITY NEWS
CITY, TUESDAY EVENING.
TIMES.—The impression produced in the City by the
Budget has not atall corresponded with the expectation it
had previously raised, the only important deduction from it
being that it is not absolutely certain that the property-tax
will be continued after the three years. In general, the un-
willingness of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to suffer any
encroachment upon his surplvs by a premature remission of
taxes accords with the feeling of prudent men of business in
the City, who conduct their own affairs precisely upon the
same principle. The only subject upon which much notice
has been bestowed is the arrangement proposed to be made
with the South Sea Company. This is generally approved,
as getting rid of an anomaly in the administration of the
public debt, as well as affecting a considerable saving to the
public. This may be illustrated in the following manner :
Ile guarantee fund that has always accumulated amounts
to 379,446/. 10s. stock, consisting of 122,2781. is. sd. Consols,
and 257,168/. Bs. 7d. Reduced. To make this up to the re-
qUired amount of 610,464/. Is. sd. (one-sixth of the capital),
_the sum of 231,017/. 1 ls. sd. is required, and must be pur-
chased or created. By the Chancellor of the Exchequer's
declaration, it appears that the former course will be
adopted, and the annual saving, which is estimated at
11,520/., will be at once effected. This sum is composed
of the expenses of management, which are set down at
mustsaustlhhb.
8,900/., and the "compensation in lieu of duties," set down at
3,720/. The aggregate of these items is 18,520/., from which
theut lt.
degreei n
rt e ree interest
from
eomn awaretthhe
those
tdehdaitti
citedot nh additional I stock,fibgy utrhethe
Chancellor of the Exchequer, but that is becalm our calcu-
,eeerdletlehdi,desuff2coestarLeldia6nrtahostfles.h,directors and clerks, set down at

The statue of the late lamented General the Duke
of Gordon was last week placed on its pedestal, in Castle-
street, Aberdeen. The statue is by Campbell, and is 11 feet
3 inches in height; including the base and pedestal, the
height, in all, is 21 feet 6 inches.

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TEI\ANTS 81.
OF LORDS, Aram 29.
_N ON SECOND READINQ.
MAJORITY, FOR--
DUKES. EARLS.- ti MD
Richmond _ Clarendon
Wellington Dalhousie
Falmouth
MARQUISES. I.or elace
Clanricarde Lucan
Salisbury Morley
Normanby Malmesbui
EARL,. Zetland
Auckland LORD/.
Besborough (Tottenham 1