The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-11-27 00:00:00

wain, but its value will be gone,
"Duce mo

As the Colonic

more easily sustain
defence. The great
" Lastly

Pursue the d

consequences

States: The West. Indies are ex t ensive and discontented;
throw them into the lump. The East Indies are expensive,
abandon them to the native princes or to Russia. Gibraltar
and Malta are expensive; the French or Russians will gladly
take them off your hands. Australia is expensive; let them
set up for themselves, and shut out your products. Ireland is
very expensive; leave her to the Irish. The Islands, and some
Of the Highlands of Scotland are but little better. And some
counties of England are threateAng to fall into the same con-
dition. Will so much as Denmark be left? Do you get rid of

your debt with your
"But if you are to retain your relative rank with Russia and
the United States, you must not go backward, but forward.
If you even stand still, you are over-shadowed. You have only
to retain your colonies, make them an integral part of the
mother country, and you will be greater than either or both.

"Bind tbetn'tip in One Grt
" No doubt t

British Zolverein,

•e are political

arcs that deserve the

attention of our rulers.
" Before the Reform Act, some at least of the Colonies had a
Voice in the legislature. and were, though not nominally, yet
really, and very effectually represented. Now no colony
is represented ;there directly or indirectly. Laws are made,

deeply affecting the colonies, In
fertly acquainted with their real interest
"If each colony were directly represented, though only by
one or two members, their voices could not indeed. influence a
division, but they would be living sources of accurate informa-
tion accessible to every member of the House. The leaven
would diffuse itself through the mass, and the temper of the
House on Colonial affairs would be changed Is Thetford to
send two members, and ate neither Jamaica nor Canada to be
heard even by one? And can the prerftative select no Colo-
-I:dal subject whose wealth. influence, or information, would be
an accession even to the Upper House?"
Let us see how far this intelligence writer supports the
views which we have often expressed as to what we may
reasonably expect from—

strangers, very imper-

THE UNRESTRICTED OPERATION OF OUR CURRENCY LAWS,
" We see, therefore, how cruel and barbarous must be the
operation of the Act of 1844, on a ..ountry with debts and en•
gagements such as ours.
"That it now, unfortunately. no longer matter of
but of actual experience.
"The Act operated for the first time in the autumn of 1847.
And it is not too much to say that such commercial distress
and ruin was never seen in England before. How far further
it might have proceeded, if government had not been com-
pelled to announce their interference, no man can predict.
"Nor let it b.. pretended that the mischief was in the crisis
itself, and not in the law. The first answer is, that as soon as
it was announced that the Act would be suspended, the mischief
abated, and if government had adopted that course earlier,
many a merchant-prince now ruined, might have been saved.
Next, the most opposite authorities agree in attributing the
mischief to the Act of Parliament, and to that alone. Lord
Ashburton declared that the importations, large as they ne-
cessarily were, were not more than, under a wiser manage-
ment of the currency, the country could have easily borne.
Mr. Mill says, The crisis of 1847 was of that sort, which the
provisions of the Act had not the smallest tendency to avert,
and when the crisis came, the mercantile difficulties were pro-
bably doubled by its existence.'
"And why was the industry of the country subjected to this
horrible torture; That an adverse balance of trade might be
,corrected by the natural flow of the precious metals. That a
theory might be carried out. In vain did men, grown gray in
business, remonstrate against the measure three years before.
It was carried in contemptuous defiance of their warnings.
" Which is the hest, the old method of prevention of an ad-
verse balance, or the new method of cure?
"We shall see what other measure of cure will be tried next.

unfortunately. no longer matter of prophecy

"In the meantime we are preparing for a renewal of the
crisis. The imports now greatly and permanently exceed the
exports. A nation that intends to secure an adverse balance,
to be paid at some time or ~ther, ought to tax its exports, and
let its imports come in free. This is exactly what we now do
by our one-sided free trade, with this disadvantage, that instead
of taking the tax ourselves, we give it to the foreigner. We
take the disadvantage of the adverse balance; he takes the
revenue.
"At present, owing to the troubles that have recently afflicted
Europe, an enormous influx of moveable capital from all parts
of the continent, seeking a secure, but temporary investment
in this country, has at once postponed the day of reckoning

and accumulated the arrears. As before, men of experience
warn, but the warning is not only unheeded, but ridiculed.
'lf you will not hear reason,' says Dr. Franklin, 'she will
surely rap your knuck es.'
Let peace and order be once permanently restored abroad,
let our absentees return to their usual haunts, and property go
back to its usual investments, and the balance, the tribute, will
be demanded. The universal distress accompanying the re-
yet and probably at no distant da tobe witnessed.
Payronrt is
let us flatter ourselves that the value will • necessarily
return again of itself, and that we shall suffer no permanent
impoverishment.
"Few subjects are so intricate as the distribution of the
precious metals among the countries of the world. Many
considerations are overlooked by those who prophecy that
the evil will work its own cure. David Hume says that a
progressive increase in the quantity of the precious metals,
and their declining value in any country, is favourable to a
progressive increase of industry. And no doubt that is so. A
stream therefore, of the precious metals poured into a coun-
try, produces effects exactly the converse of the effects which
its direliction produces in the country which it is leaving.
This fertilizing stream, in the country to which it goes, stimu-
lates industry,, multiplies transactions, creates its own demand,
and contracts its tendency to return. Our industry is cripplee,
our neighbour's is augmented ; we permanently need the bul-
lion less, he permanently needs it more.
" But in the mean time what is already at this moment going
on? _ .

"Money is rising in value. Property of all kinds,. except
money, is declining in money value—in price. Shares in rail-
ways and other undertakings ; corn, manufactured goods, and
colonial produce, have sunk, or are sinking in price. Industry
languishes.