The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-06-06 00:00:00

A REMEDY FOR OUR NATIONAL GRIEVANCES,

(From Blackwood's Magazine.)

The first thing which is indispensably necessary towards
the restoration of confidence and enterprise in the moneyed
classes, and consequent employment and happiness in the
poor, is to repeal the Bank Charter Acts of 1844 and 1845 ;
and in lieu thereof to establish such a system as may pro-
vide a safe, sufficient, and equable circulation for the em-
pire. Above all, it is necessary to establish a circulation
which shall be capable of expanding instead of contract-
ing, as specie is drawn out of the country. This is the
one thing needful. Till this is done every attempt to
alleviate the existing misery, in a durable way. will prove
abortive. Nobody wants to have French assignats issued
amongst us, or to have every insolvent who chooses to call
himself a banker authorised to issue currency ad libitum,
and substantially usurp the Queen's prerogative by coin-
ing worthless paper into doubtful money. But as little can
the nation go on longer with circulation based exclusively
on gold coin, and liable to be contracted as that coin is
drawn out of the country; thereby doubling the evil, by
first inducing speculation when specie is plentiful, and
then withdrawing the currency when it becomes scarce.
Still less can this be borne, when a system of free trade
has been established amongst us which has enormously
increased our importations, especially in articles of food
and rude produce, for which experience proves nothing
but cash will be taken 1 y the holders ; and which, in con-
sequence, has induced a consequent tendency outward in
the precious metals, from which, if no corresponding in-
crease in domestic circulation is permitted, nothing but
contraction to credit, stoppage to speculation, and ruin to
industry is to be anticipated. Least of all can such a sys-
tem of -drawing in paper as the gold goes out be endured,
when political circumstances have so much increased the
demand for the precious metals in the neighbouring states ;
when the revolutions in France and Germany have at once
rendered hoarding general in those countries, and deluged
us with their bankrupt stocks; for which nothing but
specie will be taken in exchange ; and when the com-
mencement of hostilities, both in Italy and Germany, has
occasioned the usual demand for gold, as the most port-
able of the precious metals, to meet the necessities of war.
The way in which the dreadful evils consequent upon
commercial credit, and consequently universal employ-
ment, being kept dependent on such an unstable equili-
brium as that which gold must ever, and most of all in
such circumstances, afford, is perfectly evident. 'What is
wanted is something to equalise the supply of currency ;
to contract paper when the precious metals are abundant,
and, consequently, credit is becoming dangerously ex-
pansive, and to expand it when they are withdrawn, and,
consequently, credit is in danger of being ruinously con-
tracted. Sir R. Peel's system does just the reverse of
this ; it pours paper in profusion through the country, and
consequently fosters absurd and improvident speculation,
when specie is abundant, and draws it in suddenly, and
with frightful rapidity, the moment that the precious
metals begin to be withdrawn, either from the effect of
extended importations or foreign warfare. To go right,
and obviate the dreadful evils which their system has in-
troduced, we have nothing to do but to establish a mone-
tary policy precisely the reverse. What is wanted is a
sliding scale for paper money—a system which shall tend
to contract paper issues when paper is abundant, and
pour them forth with restorative and beneficial vigour the
moment it begins to disappear.
The next measure which appears indispensable to se-
cure internal tranquility in the empire is, to make a very
considerable government grant, to enable the railway
companies to complete the principal lines now on foot,
but still in an unfinished state. Every consideration of
justice, expediency, and necessity, calls for such a grant.
A third step which is indispensable to disarm the Char-
tist agitation and restore internal confidence and peace to
the country, is- to provide on a great scale, and by Go-
vernment machinery, for the relief of the lab our market.
Various causes have now conspired to render this a matter
of paramount necessity. In Ireland, the long continued
agitation for Repeal, coinciding with the indolent and
improvident habits of the people, the desolating effects of
the potato famine in 1816, and the enervating conse-
quences of the noble Government grant of 10,000,000 to
meet its necessities, joined to the seditious and treasona-
ble efforts of the insane Young Ireland party, have so
completely paralysed industry, that the Emerald Isle may
now be regarded as little more than a huge workshop of
pauperism, a sort of officina pauperiei, from whence starv-
ing multitudes are incessantly issuing to deluge the ad-
joining states. The number of emigrants who left it for
distant colonies in 1848 was above one hundred thousand,
but that is but a small part of the dreadful stream of pau-
perism which incessantly pours forth from its still crowded
shores. In the first nine months of 1847, the number of
Irish who came to Glasgow was 49,981 ; and that number
has since been on the increase, for, from the last report of
the parochial board of Glasgow, it appears, that in five
months and ten days preceding 25th April, 1848, the
number of Irish who landed in Glasgow was 42,2.88 !
This is at the rate of nearly 100,000 a-year ; and these
squalid immigrants, let it be recollected, come to a coun-
try where labour has already, from the effects of free-
trade and a fettered currency, and time disastrous stoppage
to orders produced by the French and German revolu-
tions, become a perfect drug in the market ; and when in
and arouni the single city of Glasgow, above 100,000
human beings, including dependants, are already out of
work ! Individual charity, local efforts, are nugatory
against such prodigious masses of pauperism ; you might
as well have expected the staff of the Russian parishes
who have resisted the invasion of 1812.

Perhaps there is nothing which has occurred, in our
time, so much to be regretted, as that the noble grant of
ten millions from Great Britain, to relieve the distress of
Ireland during the famine, was not, in part at least, de-
voted to the purposes of emigration. We all know how
it was spent. No inconsiderable portion was absorbed by
the never-failing frauds of the local Irish agents employed
in its distribution, and the remainder in making good
roads bad ones. No part was employed in a form which
could re-produce itself. There was one thing, and but
one, already good in Ireland, and that was the roads. On
• that one good thing the whole magnificent grant was
wasted. Now, half the grant, £5,000,000 sterling, would
. not only have provided 700,000 or 800,000 Irish with the
means of crossing the Atlantic, but it would have trans-
. ported Clem from the coast up the country to the frontier
of the forest. That is the great point which is never at-
tended to by those who contend for free-trade in emigra-
tion; in other words, for liberty to transport the emigrants
in crowded and crazy ships, half manned and ill pro-
visioned, to the shores of America, and then to leave them
in sheds at the first harbour, to starve or die of fever."