The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-10-02 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

It is our wish always to hush up such cases as that referred to
by " A Ratepayer of Toxteth-park." We endeavoured to
ascertain further particulars on the subject yesterday, but
• were unable.

Or Ether/mai Manbarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, OCT. 2, 1849.

CONVERSIONS upon the subject of our Monetary
System are going on at a great rate. As if by one
consent, the various interests of the country are
turning their regards in this direction, as contain.
ing the cause of the non-fulfilment of their expec-
tations of approaching prosperity; and the admis-
sions, made by some of these, are widely different
from the opinions formerly propounded by them
with almost oracular dogmatism. The follow-
ing appeared, a few days since, in a leader in the
once violent builionist, the Lundon Times, on the
subject of the present prospect of the Railway
Share Market : _

- ------- -
" The gr,atest source of spontaneous fluctuations in
this country, and the most disturbing power, is the value
of the precious metals. It is always chang►ng. Thirty
years since a sovereign represented only half as mucleof
the necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of life as it now
does ; and its value has since been continually on the
increase."

What a splendid standard of value that gold must
be, which is the greatest "disturbing power," and
which is "always changing" ! " Thirty years since"
(says our contemporary,) "a sovereign represented
only half as much of the necessaries, comforts, and
luxuries of life as it now does." A black look out
this has proved to tax-payers, mortgagees, and per-
sons with encumbered properties; and a pleasant
one to annuitants, mortgagees, and such people as
her Majesty's Ministers !" " Its value," our con-
temporary adds, "has since been continual!y on
the increase." Taking averages of years, so it has ;
but it has also jumped up and down with surpris-
ing irregularity. It was worth for instance a third
more in October 1847 than in January in the same
year. Yet this is our unerring standard, by the
value of which every monetary engagement in this
great commercial country must be measured ; and
whoever had ventured to impugn which, the Times,
a few months ago, would have regarded as mad-
men or knaves !

Another great bullionist authority—the young
Peelite Chronicle—thus spoke of it no later than
in December last :—" Now in this country gold is
the standard ; it has been adopted, because it has
proved to be less subject to fluctuation than any
other commodity." We leave the two doctors to
settle their differences upon this point as they can.
The Times, however, sees now a prospect of a
movement in the opposite direction. The value of
the sovereign—or rather it should] he said of the
legal pound—is about to be gradually reduced.

" Looking," he says, " to the various probabilities of
the question, and with the fact of a whole American State
-being now actively employed over an immense territory in
the successful search of gold, we incline to the opinion
that gold will henceforth suffer a gradual, though slow,
depreciation. That, of course, has a most important
bearing on the question between fixed and fluctuating
dividends. Should there be such a depreciation, guaran-
teed shares will press less and less on the profits, which
will of course vary according to the general wealth of the
country, and not be tied to a metallic formula."

A surprising facility truly our contemporary pos-
sesses in the discovery of encouraging circum-
stances for his friends ! A sovereign is about to
decrease in value to 155., ergo a man who has given
100 sovereigns, at their present value, for a railway
share paying eight per cent., out of which he has
to pay a guaranteed sum of three sovereigns, is
benefitted by that three sovereigns becoming worth
three times fifteen shillings. What, however, are the
remaining five sovereigns worth ? Why just five
times fifteen shillings. What is the share itself worth,
still earning eight per cent and paying three ?
Why just a hundred times fifteen. shillings, or five
and twenty per cent., measured in commodities,
less than it cost ! This is certainly no very con-
soling state of things. In conclusion, we are glad
of the confession that fixed incomes now are " tied
to a metallic formula." We rather imagine that
every sort of income is in this predicament—" tied
to a metallic formula ;" and we should rather not
be thus tied.

We observe too that Mr. Hamer Stansfield, a pro-
minent member of the League, has discovered that
Free Trade is not worth having, without having as
well "free trade in money." Mr. Stansfield con-
ceives that his party havebegun at the wrong end ; and
has propounded his views in- a pamphlet, which
contains an approach, at least, to correct principles.
We shall he glad to see him pursue his inquiries
further; and, in the mean time, rejoice that he is
disposed to give honor to whom honor is due for
the discovery which he has already made.
In his introductory letter he thus addresses the
members of the Liverpool Currency Reform Asso-
ciation :

" GENTLEMEN ,—I am glad of this opportunity of ex-
pressing my obligation to you, for calling the attention of
the mercantile community to the all important question
of the currency," &c.
And he concludes his pamphlet by saying :
"We trust that the Liverpool Currency Reform Asso- '
ciation, to whom the credit is due of first organizing
themselves, and hoisting the standard of currency reform,
will never strike their flag until they have attained their
object. They have assumed an honourable and responsi-
ble position ; but have a good cause in hand, and right
eventually will overcome might."
Our contemporary, the Morning Herald, also in
a series of very able letters, signed " Justitia," has
lately been doing good service to the cause. On
Tuesday last, the writer offers the following remarks
upon the relative positions of the Banks of France
and England, the former of which, by a well regu-
lated paper currency, was enabled to sustain the
commercial classes of a country involved in the
turmoil of a revolution ; whilst the latter threw
the whole commercial fabric of Great Britain into
suffering and ruin, and herself only escaped insol-
vency by suspending the boasted monetary laws of
Sir Robert Peel.
" The revolutions of the years 1848-9, if they have done
no other good, have taught ono practical lesson, which
our statesmen, if wise, ought not to overlook, and that is
the relative position of the Banks of England and France.
"By the operation of the English banking laws, under
the acts of 1819 and 1844, all notes must be paid in gold
on presentation. So that, whenever we run short of
food, or the foreign exchanges rule against us, and gold
is sent out of the country, the money in circulation—that
is, the notes—must be restricted, the value of money
almost doubled thereby ; merchants must curtail their
exportations for want of accommodation, and their stocks
must be depreciated, mills closed, railway and all other
undertakings suspended, for want of extended or cheap
credit ; all incomes curtailed from trade or speculation ;
and many thousands of the industrious classes thrown out
of employment ; and all for the imaginary benefit of
securing payment for notes in gold on demand ; and yet
on three different occasions the Bank of England has been
so closely pressed for gold, that, had it not been for the
interference of government, the directors of the Bank of
England would not have been in a position to pay more
than a twentieth part of their notes in circulation in gold
or silver coins.
" If your readers will turn back to my letters in the
Morning Herald, of August 2 and 8, and September 8
and 12, they will there perceive, from facts stated on
authority, that by the provisional government of France
passing an ordinance restricting the payment of notes into
coin on demand, a greater security has been given to the
holders of the notes issued by the Bank of France than
at any previous period, for the notes now in circulation,
and the bullion and coin in the coffers of the bank, are
nearly equivalent. That is to say, they have precious
metals sufficient to pay all their notes in circulation, which
the Bank of England has never yet been in a position to
do. And for this gratifying circumstance the French are
indebted to a well regulated paper currency, which has
given employment to the artisan, and permitted the
manufacturer to send abroad his goods, to bring back to
France other produce or manufactures, or the value in
gold and silver coin, or other precious metals or commo-
dities.
When the Bank of England, as in 1847, should have
been in a position to give a stimulus to trade, by a cheap
and full currency, the reverse was the case, and British.
labour was suspended, to the ruin of capitalists and
employers of every grade."
Let us prove the correctness of the statement,
which we have marked i:i italics, by our exports, at
the period mentioned, to a single country—the
United States of America. In 1846, we had be-
come large importers of American grain, &c., of
which the natural result would have been, had we
been permitted to pay for such grain in manufac-
tured goods, that we should have increased our
exportations. Our gold, however, was in that year
the cheapest commodity for export; and whilst it
was rapidly drawn from us, contracting our cur-
rency, causing the operations of the merchant and
manufacturer to be suspended, and the labourer to
be driven to the verge of famine, we were enabled
to export of the two great staples of the cotton
manufacture—plain calicoes and printed and dyed
calicoes—only 10,640,000 yards of the former, and
13,556,509 yards of the latter. In 1847 we were
again large importers of American grain, in pay-
ment• of which gold continued to be drawn from
us, until, in October, the bank had to suspend cash
Payments, and the prices of every commodity bad