The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-08-10 00:00:00

TUE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

not positive value, but

to the precious metals which are exempted from taxation,
and because it fixes the price of gold, in utter defiance of
the law of supply and demand. Ido not object to fixing
the weight of the sovereign at 5 dwts. 3 grs., but I protest
against fixing its price. (Hear.) We fix the weight of
the quartern loaf at four pounds ; but we do not fix the
price of the quartern loaf; its price is permitted to rise
or fall, just as wheat is scarce or abundant ' • and on what
principle of free trade, let me ask, can you treat the ounce
of gold differently than you treat the quartern loaf ? This
is the basis of the argument in favour of the formation of
an Anti-Gold-Law League. The proposition recommends
itself by its simplicity, and deserves the support of every
commercial reformer. The fixed price of gold in our legal
tender money permanently reduces the wages of labou-
and the profits of stock, for the foreigner treats our sove-
reign not as money, but as a commodity possessing
intrinsic value. When he has sold his goods in
our market, he will take back in payment that
article which is cheapest. Now, as gold is untaxed,
and kept down permanently by Act of Parliament at
its untaxed level, while all commodities require to be
raised in price in proportion to the amount of customs,
excise, and other fiscal obligations, they are compelled
to sustain, it follows that if that increased price is ob.
tained the foreigner will take away our untaxed gold, and
leave our manufactures in our warehouses. How, then,

are we to tempt him to take our manufactures ? There
is only one way, and that is by lowering the price pf our
goods down to the level of untaxed gold, by which means
alone we can destroy the competitive antagonism between
our manufactures and the precious metals. Hence wages
must be kept permanently low, and the producer, instead
of the consumer, must pay the customs and excise
charged on the food on which he lived while engaged in
the act of production. In this cheapness the rich at
home participate, for as there cannot be two prices in the
same market, in the same kind of money, the producer
is unable, even in the home market, to add taxes to the
cost of production. The taxes, therefore, again fall
upon him, so that labour, crushed under custor,---
.7cise, and the nurel-

, creprecia , __lasing power of the
incomes of the fundholder, sinecurist, pensioner, and of
all those classes who live on fixed annuities, is propor-
tionately enhanced. Hence, whenever revenue is raised
through indirect taxation, a species of money which will
represent taxation is required; that is, what we need for
our internal transactions ; for our foreign trade we should
All agi- continue to use gold as now, for we must always de-
.. ..

with foreigners according to the measure of intrinsic
value, and we ought to deal with each other accordina to
-

price. Let me explain the.sense in which I use these
words. I define value to be condensed labour. Price I
consider to be the offspring of indirect taxation, and of
every other act or government or society which adds to
the cost of production without adding to the value of the
product. (Applause.) Hence, it follows that in a coun-
try wholly untaxed, or in one which raises its revenue by
a tax directly and exclusively riding over realised

capitalised property, the vroducer can sell his goods for
their intrinsic value, that is to say, for the mere labour
they condense (cheers) ; but in countries which raise a
revenue by the indirect machinery of customs and excise,
which again raise to the consumer the necessaries of life,
by placing fiscal burdens on all articles of consumption,
it is.impossible that goods can be sold for their int-:
sic value unless we perpetrate the cr-
compelling the unpropertied clz
dens of the state. Immense cheering

1 injustice of
Isses to sustain all the bur-

)w, untaxed

gold can only represent intrinsic value ; it cannot repress
that additional cost which ought to be represented by
price—price meaning taxation added to intrinsic value.
Therefore, gold money or bits of bullion ought not to
form the legal tender for the home transactions of a coun-
try like Britain, which raises the vast mass of its revenue
by indirect taxes. (Loud applause.) Under such a Mo-
netary system, it may be demonstrated that free trade
with foreigners, less taxed than ourselves, must Drove de-

that it was a war tax ; to which I answer that the war
debt remained, and till its liquidation the war tax ought
to have been levied. This same legislature then imposed
the corn laws, with a view to sustaining rents, and then
returned to cash payments, which permanently lowered
the value of all industry, excepting that of agriculture,
which was protected by monopoly. (Loud cheers.) Under
the bill of 1819. the Bank of England was compelled
to pay its notes in gold, at a fixed price, but it ex-
ercised a discretion in the amount of
,its issues; but

this discretion was taken away by the bill of 1844, in
which Sir Robert Peel most grossly contradicted himself
and falsified his own principles. He laid it down as the
very basis of his system, that the obligation to pay a pound
r meant the obligation to pay at all times on demand 5 dwts

a grains of gold, and theii he deviated from this basis in
five different directions. He allowed the Bank of Eng-
land to issue eleven millions of inconvertible paper, be-
cause that amount is due to the bank by the people;
secondly, he permitted that establishment to issue three
millions of inconvertible paper on the unfunded debt ; to
. .

the country banks he gave the power of put
millions without any metallic basis whatever
he granted three millions, and to Ireland si-
that in the aggregate we have now afloat thirty-one mil-
lions of paper pounds, which, for anything known to the
contrary, may one daybe converted into sawdust or ashes
(Applause.) There is no legal obligation whatever to cor
vert any portion of these thirty-one milli-
grain of bullion. Such is the gross inconsisten,,
man who affirms that the true basis of a monetary systb_
is to insist that every pound of account issued should be
convertible on demand into a given quantity of gold, and
then, in the very same speech in which he proposed the
doctrine, falsifies his faith in his own creed by violating it
in the most flagrant manner. (Cheers.) In opposition to
Sir Robert Peel, I maintain that money ought not to r-

; to Scotland

,millions ; so

signified—

nsic value

as into a sine(

a state

that it is the sign, not the thin

—the representation of value, not value itself. I
the legal tender of

hold that the prerogative of labricatii
the nation appertains niclusively to t

crown, and that

lent should det

6t amount exactly correspon

annual taxation:
would be the

or representa

never depreciate through ex
limited to taxation. It woul
not possessing intrinsic value

i the amount e

e of taxe

S. It could
;ue would be

yes for our °wry purpose

ted, becau

the waters

:om mercial

marine of This national money would render
us completely, independent of the foreign metal for our
internal trade and taxes ; we could always buy as much
of it at the market price as our necessities required ; we
should have far greater tacilities than we now possess for
using it in payment of the balances of our foreign com-
merce. In this national money wages and profits would
and I rise to

their taxation level,
at level

I competition would prevent
Steadiness would be intro-

them exceedin_
duced into all market

we should cease to be mere gem-

blers ; nothing rmore than prudence and perseverance
would be required to enable every industrious man to
acquire a competency. (Loud cheers.) I must say a
few words on private banking.

ued by siich

are not local

n. They do not