The Sun.
London, England, 1845-03-07 00:00:00

WAY (IRELAND.).

This petition was unopposed. Mr. Yenables appeared
as agent. The length of the line is 97 miles, and the
Capital 1,200,0001. Engineer, Sir J. MeNeil. Standing
orders complied with.
SOUTH-EASTERN RAILWAY.

The next petition called on was that of the South-
Eastern Railway Company.
Mr. BURKE appeared as the agent in support of the
promoters' petition.
Mr. HAYWARD appeared in support of a petition com-
plaining of non-compliance with the standing orders, by
Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, Chairman of the North Kent
Railway Company.
Mr. Dvsos appeared to support a petition, presented
on the part of Lord Bexley, a landowner on the line.
The Bill is to enable the South-Eastern Railway
Company to make railways in connexion with the South-
Eastern Railway, or the branches thereof from London
to Chilbam, and Tunbridge and Paddock-wood, with a
branch to Faversham creek and to Stone, near Dartford;
and also to make railways, or branch railways, from the
South-Eastern Railway and Tunbridge to Tunbridge
Wells, and from Maidstone to Rochester, and from
Ashford to Hastings ; and also to alter and extend the
Cautcrbury, Ramsgate, and Margate branch of the said
South-Eastern Railway, and to make a branch therefrom
to Deal, and to widen certain parts of the London and
Greenwich Railway, and extend the same railway, and
for other purposes connected with the said South-Eastern
Railway.
Mr. BURKE put a witness forward to produce the pub-
lic notices with respect to the Tunbridge and Tunbridge
Wells branch. The only newspaper in which the notices
bad appeared was a Kent newspaper.
Mr. HAYWARD objected to this, on the ground that,
as a portion of the Bill applied to works to be done in
the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, the notices
should have been inserted in newspapers in the three
counties. _ _

Mi. BURKE said the newspaper applied to a branch
which a as confined to the county of Kent.
Strangers were ordered to withdraw, and
The Committee decided that the standing orders had
not been complied with, as notices should have been in-
serted in the newspapers of Surrey and Sussex.
Mr. BUNKE then prayed fur an adjournment, in order
that the promoters might consider what steps they
should take. . .

This was granted, and the Committee adjourned for a
week.

WHAT IS POUND ?
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN:

Stn,—The Government having in the speech from the throne,
announced its intention of extending the present banking
system of England to Ireland and Scotland, it becomes es-
sential that we inquire whether this system is as perfect as
its votaries would induce the community to believe—whether,
in fact, it is based on correct principles, or whether its po-
pularity is not owing to its not being understood.
It will be in the recollection of every one that when the
Right Hon. Baronet at the head of her Majesty's Govern-
ment introduced the present system of banking to the notice
of Parliament, be began by asking, what is a pound? and
lie defined the pound to be a quantity of gold of a given
weight, and of a certain degree of fineness. Now, I am not
inclined to quarrel with this definition of a pound, but I could
have wished the Right Hen. Baronet had gone one step
further, and after having toad us what the pound is, he then
would have informed us how it gets its value, or in other
words, how money gets its value? and I think it will be
found that, on this last question, and not on the first, the
whole theory of the Lurrency hinges.
To reach the first principle of a currency (and thereby as-
certain how money gets its value, and to deduce therefrom
its true nature) is the object of this letter, and I think 1
shall find it more easily by searching for it amongst the
simple transactions of primitive life, than if I attempted to
trace it amidst the complex relations of our own marvellous
country.
I will, therefore, take a tribe of naked savages, roaming
the forest without any other means of subsistence than that
to which chance directed them. The principle of progression
being innate in the human character, even these unfriended
beings would not always remain in this degraded state, and
the first step theyiwould take towards ameliorating their con-
dition would be to protect themselves from the inclemency of
the weather; they would build themselves huts, they would
clothe themselves with the skins of the animals they took
in the chase, and they would cultivate small
.plots of land
around their huts. In the nature of things one man would
be the more successful cultivator, and another the more
successful hunter, and the natural consequence of this would
be, the hunter would have some of the spoils of the chase
to spare; and the cultivator would have some of the pro-
duce of his field to spare. These two, seeing they respec-
tively possessed a superabundance of that which the other
wanted, would naturally be desirous of effecting an ex-
change. I will suppose the hunter saying to the cultivator—
" Winter is coming on, I have more skins than 1 want; you
have more corn than you require; I will exchange my skins
for_your corn." "Granted," says the cultivator, " but how
are we to exchange ; my corn has required the labour of half
a year to bring it to perfection, whilst you can procure a
quantity of skins in a few hours ; my corn is therefore of
more value than your skins." They would, however, ulti-
mately come to an equitable adjustment, and effect their ex-
change with reference to the labour represented by the re-
spective commodities.
As their little society progressed, they would find it neces-
sary to have a regular medium of exchange—money, in fact ;
but, being ignorant of the metals, they would be obliged to
substitute something else for their medium of exchange ;
for argument's sake, I will say the beaver skin. So the
beaver skin would become the money of this tribe, its value
beitLe based on the trouble it would take to procure it, and it
would exchange for other commodities with reference to the
labour they represent.
I would here direct attention to the distinction I am en-
deavouring to establish, and which, if I succeed in establish-
ing, wilt strike at the root of what I consider a popular de-
lusion respectin, money ; it is, that money is not both the
medium of exchange and the standard of value too, but that
it is only the medium of exchange, and that labour is the'
true standard of value—a standard by which money should
be estimated .-qually with every other commodity.
Let us test this by what is going on around us; a yard of
cotton, which can now be bought for a shilling, would, fifty
years ago, have been worth two shillings; so that, if we
wanted to buy a sovereign with cotton, we should have to
give twenty yards for it, whereas, before, it might have been
bought with ten yards. Why is this? The improvements in
machinery have enabled us to dispense with sixty or seventy
per cent. of the labour that used to be worked up in cotton.
Cotton, therefore, not representing the same quantity of la-
bour, has become depreciated in value, and we have in con-
sequence to give a greater quantity of it for those things
which represent an unvarying, or nearly an unvarying quan-
tity of labour.
Again, if a mountain of refined gold were to be disco-
vered, gold avould immediately become cheaper, and the
twenty yards of cotton might purchase two sovereigns; not
that cotton had become dearer, but that gold had become de-
preciated. But why, under such circumstances, should gold
have b'ecome depreciated, seeing that its value in use had
remained precisely the same? Simply because it would be
more easily obtained, because less labour would be used in
obtaining it.
The concurrent approbation of mankind has selected gold
as the chief medium of exchange on account of its inde-
structibility and hardness, but there was not any inevitable
necessity for its having been selected. The concurrent ap-
probation of mankind might have selected tin or iron as the
medium of exchange; yet no one will contend that this con-
current approbation would have given to iron or tin the
same value as gold But why not? Because they would be
more easily obtained, because less labour would be used in
obtaining them. If we do not make labour our standard of
value, we are absolutely without any standard by which to
estimate the value of gold ; and, then, when we ask how
money gets its value, we are told that is the concurrent ap-
probation of mankind which gives it its value, or some other
reason is assigned equally absurd and unphilosophical.
If I have succeeded in showing that labour is the origina-
tor and standard of value, it follows, as a natural sequence
that the circulating medium representing such value should
expand with the creations of industry-, whilst the new system
of banking is based on the directly opposite principle, that of
limiting money without reference to production.
The practical effect of this change must inevitably be, that,
as production increases, each unit of money will represent
a sreater quantity of the creations of industry, and that
prices must continue to decline so long as production coal-
nues to increase.
This would not be of so much importance if society were
in a less Lir:inch( state; but, as it is constituted in this
country, the new banking system will act most severely on
the producing classes for the benefit and advantage of the
non-producing classes. It will greatly increase the value of
all fixed incomes. The owners of estates having annuities
to pay out of them will find this measure will increase the
real value of those annuities, inasmuch as, though the money
value remains the same, it will command a greater quantity
of those productions which spring from and give value to
their estates. On the same principle, it will increase the
interest of the national debt, and increase the value of all
salaries paid to public officers.
It must be a self-evident proposition that a very low range
of prices and a very high rate of taxation cannot long co-
exist, The sweeping charge which has been made with
respect to agriculture will render other changes inevitable,
which are now scarcely dreamed on—such as the sale of the
national estates (except those which are requisite to maintain
the splendour of the throne), and the appropriation of the
proceeds to the liquidation of the National Debt, the reduc
tion of the interest on the debt, and the reduction of al-
official salaries, both count)' and national. These are some
of the fruits which will ultimately spring out of the
legislation of the last four years.—l am, Sir, your obedient
servant,_
A CONSERVATIVE.

Lincolnshire, Feb. 28, 1845.

,
FORMER CHARACTER OF T 110 'mAS HOCKER.-,-The
n
Ipswich Express observes, in refere th the late murder at
Hampstead :—" We have understooel that Thomas Henry
Hoeker, the individual now in cust,odsymn% the charge of mur-
dering 'Mr. James Delarue, was
illi(a,ravhsto2s,:f Holbrook,
employedstat d to
since, a resident at the Rev. 5. B. W
in this county. During his stay there
be for the purpose of recruiting .us health) hees
es 1 ilicaosfirteuiiitiasontt the school,
oarniliws , from
nean-
S:b on Clx, , t by several influential families."
at,,,, "Iltff .
_.'t.)l le, OsNOPtiOrLelSdTa3.—Eight widows hay-
la got tnikr d!•F d in y the spinsters of that
icio:wrt rkiage- ..t/ s t_. requisition for a public meeting to
re adept thy f•,... •_•.“. oor resolutions, and " put down" the
Otlfalnguk-Oiab .1! r marriage. To such an extent has this
-Econorioingo .., •'. in 1842 the number of widowers and
Figows whool .. , tied in England was no less than 26,198!
Nbivernoi Atm