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

fallen ruinously. What was the operation which
ensued ? It was this. Gold had appreciated in
this country. It was matter of life and death to us
to procure a supply, in order to restore our circu-
lating medium ; and to get that supply, we had to
export, in 1847, at the ruinous sacrifices which
American holders were enabled to wring from us,
41,519,244 yards of plain calicoes, and 44,425,017
yards of printed and dyed calicoes! Had we, like
France, possessed at this time an expansive and well-
regulated domestic currency, nothing of this kind
could have, by any possibility, occurred. The total
exports would have been pretty equally spread over
the two years ; and the drain of specie, the con-
traction of our medium of exchange, with their
fearful consequences, would not have taken place,
to an extent to interfere at all with the commercial
and industrial occupations of the country.
A fortnight ago, our readers may remember, we
showed the misapprehension of the working of our
monetary laws contained in the project mooted by
Mr. Disraeli to the agriculturists at Aylesbury, for
producing " cheap capital (!)" for the landed inte-
rest, by an increase of the land tax to £5,000,000
a year. and the application of that sum to form a
sinking fund for the liquidation of the national
debt. We contended that it was not " cheap
capitfil" which the agriculturists wanted, but
"cheap money;" that cheap money meant, in
reality, an abundant supply of legal tender; that
such supply must not be liable to constant fluctua-
tions; and that none of these desiderata could be
secured by Mr. Disraeli's plan, or, at all, under our
present metallic system. We are glad to find a
very able writer in the Morning Post, under the
signature of " Observer," rebuking the hon. mem-
ber's implied sanction of that system, and directing
the attention of the community to the fact that, in
a very great measure, the monetary laws of 1819
and 1844 have been the inducing causes of the
distress and suffering, past and present, of the
agricultural interest.

"We ye had," says this writer, " since the passing
of the bill of 1819, periods of prosperity and of adversity.
From 1819 to 1823 we had a contracted currency and dis-
tress. From 1823 to 1525 we had an abundant currency
and prosperity. From 1826 to 1833 we had a contracted
currency and distress. From 1834 to 1837 we had money
plentiful, and the people employed and prosperous. From
1837 to 1843 we had the circulation restricted, and all the
productive classes in a state of suffering. In 1844, 1845,
and 1846, the currency was again abundant, and prospe-
rity again returned ; and we are now once more enduring
the consequences of a contraction of the circulation."

During one of these periods of depression, which
was most severe upon the agriculturists,—in 1830
—the writer shows that petitions and memorials
were presented to the legislature from nearly every
portion of the empire ; and that the universal
opinion expressed was that the sufferings of the
farmer had been mainly caused by the act of 1819,
which increased the hurthens of taxation and the
pressure of all fixed payments, whilst it reduced
enormously wages, profits, and the prices of pro-
duce and commodities. We perfectly coincide
with the Post's correspondent, and these petitioners,
as to the effect of our recent monetary policy upon
their condition ; and we would strenuously urge
upon the friends of the agriculturists, and of every
branch of the native industry, to devote themselves
to an inquiry into this most important subject.
In conclusion, we must, with Mr. Hamer Stans-
field, offer our humble meed of congratulation to
the Liverpool Currency Reform Association, upon
the success which is at length rewarding their me-
ritorious efforts. The straw is at length moving.
The golden idol of the economists, beneath whose
feet the commerce and industry of the nation have
so long been trampled, totters already upon its
pedestal. Its advocates no longer flout us as ma-
niacs or revile us as robbers and revolutionists in
disguise. We have already driven them from re-
doubt to redoubt, and even taken some of their
strongholds. We have wrung from one of themselves
what will serve as an answer to the question of the
great bullionist leader, "what is a pound ?" It is
a measure of value which "is always changing !"
Thirty years since it represented only half as much
as it now does; and its value has since been conti-
nually on the increase !!" We have made engage-
ments to pay a pound, for which we are now paying
in labour and commodities forty shillings; and we
are making further engagements, of which we are
told we shall be asked only to pay about one-half.
Surely sensible men cannot much longer tolerate
a monetary system so obviously dishonest, and so
notoriously accompanied by alternations of mania
wild speculation, social robbery, and commercial
and industrial prostration !

WE are perfectly ready to admit the right of
constituencies, whether parliamentary or municipal,
to remove their representatives whenever their
opinions cease to be those of the majority by whom
they were elected. Without this right, the repre-
sentative system is a mockery. But we cannot
admit of the existence of a body which assumes to
stand between the representatives and the repre-
sented, and to dictate to the latter when, and how,
they shall exercise their constitutional functions.
On this account we have all along been opposed to
the meddling interference, in our municipal elec-
tions, of the body styling itself the National Con-
federation. There is sufficient public spirit, and
patriotism, in Englishmen to prompt them to con-
stitutional action, whenever a sufficent cause arises
to draw it forth; and we object to every dictation
toward the constituencies upon any subject from
any third party whatever.
We have, however, a further, and a special
ground of objection against the interference, which
has assumed the form of dictation, of the National
Confederation in our municipal affairs. We are
not satisfied as to the constitution of that body.
k few of its most prominent members we know to
be respectable men. Some of them, we regret to
observe, are Conservatives. But we do not know
who they are who pull the wires and work the
hidden machinery. Many of the principles pro-
fessed by them, we feel confident, are dangerous
and subversive of order. The recently published
manifesto of -its opinions, on the subject of tax-
ation, has been scouted by every section of the
community, and, if we are not mistaken, by the
whole press of the town ; whilst their crudities and
mischievous character have excited mingled ridicule
and censure wherever they have travelled beyond
our own locality. It is not to be tolerated
that such a body, comprised ,of nobody knows
whom, sitting in secret conclave, in its central
office, should dictate to the local constitu-
encies throughout this great town what public
servants should be rejected, and whom retained ;
should assume to select candidates for the repre•
sentation of our various wards, appoint their own
committees in those wards, responsible only to itself;
delegate its own speechifiers to each, and thus ride
roughshod over public opinion, preventing altoge-
ther the exercise, by the constituencies, of that
calm and dispassionate consideration which ought
to direct constitutional action. We object, more-
over, to a tame submission to the fiat of this body,
on the occasion of the coming November elections,
on this special ground, viz.—that the selection of
its nominees is almost solely determined by their
opinions upon a particular and isolated question—
that of the Rivington scheme. Strongly as we
feel, ourselves, upon this question, we cannot bring
ourselves to regard it as the sole touchstone by
which the fitness of candidates for the important
trust of directing the municipal affairs of this
borough should he determined. There are very
many questions, vitally affecting the interests, social,
commercial, and moral, of this great community—
questions requiring for their solution business expe-
rience, high character, and intelligence—which we
should be sorry to see committed to men whose
greatest capability may be the utterance of the cry,
"No Pike" ! We have a vast corporate estate
to protect from aggression ; the peace and property
of a large community to preserve ; parliamentary
questions of local interest to take part in ; great
financial operations to manage ; and on these
grounds we should greatly regret to see our Council
packed by the nominees of a body, the bulk of
whose members we believe to consist of busy Radi-
cals, or of men, at all events, whose stake in the
town is insignificant, and whose persons even are
unknown beyond the precincts of their own petty
circles.
We know not, and care not, who may be the
gentlemen whom this body may choose to bring
forward as their nominees on this occasion. But
we can assure them that there are very many
amongst the constituencies, who, though opposed
to the. Rivington scheme, are equally opposed to
theirown arbitrary proceedings, and will not con-
. sent to see known and tried members—parties
whose names are associated with the growth and
the greatness of Liverpool—pushed aside on the
ground of their support of that scheme merely.
We might instance Mr. Tyrer, Mr. Aikin, and
others, as amongst those men, whose services and