The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-05-27 00:00:00

TIE LIVERPOOL STANBAXIL

WRRESI'ONDENTS.

several letters and other communications are unavoidably
postponed until a future publication.

Ehr Riberpool

TUESDAY MORNING, AY 27, 1851.

1r is scarcely necessary to draw the readtr's
attention to the important proceedings which took
place yesterday at the quarterly meeting of the
Liverpool Chamber of Commerce. The Council of
the Association deserve the warm thanks of the
commercial community and of the public generally
for their efficient and persevering exertions to bene-
fit the trade and commerce of this important town.

The Chamber appears likely to become one of
the most valuable societies in the town for the
redress of local commercial 9:,rievances, and for the
promotion of the interests of the whole mercantile
body.

IF there is a man in this sad world of ours who
is more inconsistent than another, it is Sir James
Graham —the hope of the small section of politi-
cians, who ape to walk in the footsteps of Sir It.
Peel. To no party ; to no principle; to no opinion
has the Knight of Netherby ever remained con-
stant. When he wrote his celebrated pamphlet on
"Corn and Currency"—celebrated, by the bye,
only because it has rendered his after life a false-
hood—he was somewhat near the truth as to the
questions which he treated. He was once regarded
as a sound Protestant. He is now prepared to
abet the impudent encroachments of Popery upon
the prerogative of his Sovereign, and the liberties
of her people. He was the most offensive Home
Secretary which this country was ever compelled
to tolerate for a season. But worst of all the
faults, of which Sir James Graham has been
guilty. is his new reading of the teaching of the
Holy Scriptures themselves. We shall explain as
to what we refer. In the year 1841, Sir James
made a speech at Dorchester, in which he main-
tained that "the best safeguard of nations was to
be found in that independence which arose from
those nations, in the average course of years, being
enabled to supply their inhabitants with their daily
bread." On this ground, he said, he had been the
advocate for protection to British agriculture.
And he went on as follows :
" He would allude to a topic which had been handled
with vast skill by an eminent and dignified divine, and he
knew not that he could offer a better illustration of the
subject than had been given in an analogy brought by that
writer, and brought, too, from that sacred fountain which
contained lessons of pure knowledge. They would re-
member that the most ancient commercial city was the
city of Tyre, described in Holy Writ as sitting like a
queen upon the waters, as ' the crowning city whose mer-
chants are princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of
the earth,' who was the mistress of the world, enriched
by the ships of Ophir, and dealing in the dyed garments
of Bozrah ; yet a little but striking incident is related with
respect to this city. She was in the neighbourhood of a
poor and apparently powerless 'kingdom, that of Judea.
A quarrel arose between them, and the inhabitants of
Tyre were obliged to send an ambassador and sue for
peace at the hands of the King of Judea, and the reason
assigned is that ' their country was nourished by the
king's country.' THEY DID NOT GROW THEIR OWN CORN.
Now he believed this to be written for our learning and
Instruction. It went to the essence of the whole case.
They might depend on it that the ROOT OF NATIONAL IN-
DEPENDENCE WAS, AFTER ALL. SUCCESSFUL NATIONAL
AGRICULTURE. Hewas proud of British ships; he was proud
of British commerce ; he was proud of British manufac-
tures ; he was proud of British colonies ; but, after all,
THE SOURCE OF OUR NATIONAL PROSPERITY AND OF OUR
FUTURE NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE WAS HOME-GROWN
CORN—NATIVE BRITISH HOME-GROWN WHEAT."

vv
The majority of our local readers will remember
that "the eminent and dignified divine" referred
to was the Rev. Dr. M'Neile. Now Sir James
Graham was of opinion, in 1841, that the instance
of the condition of Tyre was " written for our
learning and instruction." It was no cobweb of
the brain of a political economist. The lesson
which it teaches, he says, was " brought from that
sacred fountain which contains lessons of pure
knowledge." Tyre was obliged to humble itself at
the feet of Judah, because its people " was nourished
by the king's country" ! Has Sir James Graham,
since 1841, lost his belief in the truth of the in-
spired writings of God ? Does he now think that
they were not " written for our learning and in-
struction" ? Is the inspiration of a Manches'er
cotton factory moretruthful than the Sermon on the
Mount ? Is the code of Mr. Cobden more to be
obeyed than that delivered by God himself to
Moses in Horeb ? For shame Sir James Graham !
Shame upon every man who dares to set up man's
wisdom against those lessons which have been be-
queathed to us by inspired writers " for our learn-
ing and instruction."
But let us proceed a little further with this in-
consistent gentleman. He said, on the occasion
referred to :
"If, indeed, it was expected by human lays to provide
for providential calamities, much more was expected than
human legislation could accomplish. They were told
that, like pestilence, famine was one of the Divine punish-
ments for national offences ; and to baffle human skill,
to subvert all human efforts, how slight were the means
that would suffice ! What was blight ? The breath of
Divine displeasure passed forth, and the husbandman's
hopes were blighted, the staff of life was broken, and
there was the cry of distress, and suffering, and sorrow
throughout the land. By such means, apparently so in-
significant, but oh, bow powerful ! were we taught on the
one hand to look with humility on all the efforts of the
legislative wisdom of man, and, on the other, to look up
for reliance on Him who is the giver of all good. There-
fore, he said, that to pretend to make a country altogether
independent of the evils arising from a deficient supply,
was the pretence of quacks and empirics, and was not the
profession of the real political philosopher."
Oh that a man who could, ten years ago, thus
humbly throw himself into trusting dependence upon
the supreme "giver of all good" things, should be
found mow setting up the shallow conceits of his
own brain—" the legislative wisdom of man" !
the " pretences of quacks and empirics,"—against
God's own lessons to his dependent and guilty
creatures!

Tua remarks of the Manchester Guardian, on
Wednesday last, upon the fact of Mr. Jonathan
Duncan's having addressed a most influential body
of merchants upon the currency question, as bearing
upon the commercial policy of the country, betray
a little soreness, in addition to the writer's usual
self-sufficiency and pertness. Something must be
very wrong, he conceives, when such men can be
induced to assemble, during the business hours of
the day, to listen to the " trash" of that gentleman.
A sneer was obviously intended both at the mer-
chants of Liverpool and the lecturer. In behalf of
the latter we do not presume to take up the
cudgels. He is well able to defend himself against
both the clumsy wit and the arguments (?) of our
contemporary ; and it will be seen, and perhaps be
felt by the Sir Oracle of the Manchester interest,
that he yesterday availed himself of a tolerably in-
fluential audience before whom to make that
defence. We care not a straw about the sneer of
such a writer against the merchants of Liverpool,
who only laugh at its impertinence. What we have
to notice is the soreness displayed by the writer;
and that soreness we suspect arises from the decisive
proof exhibited by the meeting on Monday week,
and confirmed by subsequent meetings, before
which Mr. Duncan has laid his views, that the mer-
cantile community of Liverpool, of all shades of
political opinion, are determined to investigate the
pernicious operation of our present monetary system
upon the commerce of the country, whether under
Free Trade or Protection ; and to use their influence
upon the legislature and the country to secure in
its stead a sound, a just, and an honest system.
Something must be very wrong in Liverpool is
the substance of the sneer of the Guardian. Some-
thing is very wrong, we tell him, not only in
Liverpool, but in Manchester, and in every seat of
commerce and industry throughout the country.
Can things be right with our contemporary's
friends when, week after week, we find him writing
long leading articles to prove a prosperity existing,
whilst his own columns, under the head of
market intelligence, chew that dulness pervades
every market ? Can things be right when
we find Railway Shares, securities of all kinds,
foreign produce, minerals and manufactures,
sinking ruinously in price, day after day, for no
obvious or explainable reason. Is it a satisfactory
state of things when, on every Thursday for the
past two months, the holders of commodities have
been in trepidation—yes, had the fear of almost
ruin before their eyes—up to the close of the sit- ,
tings of the bank directors, a resolution of whom
to raise the rate of interest, even by one-half per
cent., would paralyze the entire trade of the empire ?
The Guardian would have some difficulty in an-
swering
any of these questions in the affirmative.
But we tell him why the merchants of Liverpool
must insist upon a revisal of the whole system.
They are required to hold the imported produce, and
raw materials, for the manufacturing districts, and
a large portion of the united kingdom. They must
.advance upon them to the foreigner, or pay him

for them. The Manchester school of politicians,
however, have limited the home demand for these
commodities. They have failed to maintain their
own consumption of raw materials, or to keep up
to its promised extent even their boasted foreign
demand. Both the home consumer and the
foreigner buy from hand to mouth, and Liverpool
has to be the great depot from which their peddling
demands are supplied. tinder such circumstances,
our merchants and capitalists require to be pro-
tected against the arbitrary working of the bullion-
ist system. If they have to keep double stocks in
their warehouses, they have a fair right' to ask for
a currency, which is not restricted by the limited
supply of the precious metal—gold. It may be
fun for Manchester millowners to see, every two or
three years, the mercantile body crushed by this
system, and millions of their accumulated capital
swept away. They get their cheapness by such
means. Sugar, corn, coffee, and other articles drop
30 per cent, in price during these crises ; and Man-
chester rejeices over the calamity of her Leighb-ours.
But will her political theorists never learn the lesson
that imports must be remunerative if we are to
have a profitable export trade in manufactured
goods, or in any other articles-?
Our contemporary assumes that all the intelli-
gence of the country is located on the banks of the
Irwell ; and that Liverpool merchants are little
children in leading strings. We can assure him
that the world thinks very differently : and that
this community will organize, and are organizing
their strength to wrest Great Britain from the
domination of a set of shallow quacks, who, in
their selfishness, have well nigh succeeded in mak-
ing shipwreck of the empire.

A RATHER interesting and instructive conversa-
tion took place in the House of Lords on Friday
evening last. The Duke of Richmond, after re-
marking upon the conduct of the Peruvian
government, in making a monopoly of the article of
guano, informed their lordships that a large store
of that very valuable manure had been discovered
in Western Australia ; but that the local govern-
ment there had imposed an export duty upon it of
£2 10s. per ton. This his Grace considered to be
unfair, "as the country was receiving the corn of
Western Australia without duty." The reply of the
Colonial Secretary was to the effect, that he had
desired the governor of Western Australia to reduce
the duty to 20s. per ton.
New, of course, for the benefit of the farmers of
England, we should wish to see such reduction
made. But we cannot, for the life of us, see what
right we have to demand such a concession. As
the Duke of Richmond says, we do receive the corn
of Western Australia without duty. So we re-
ceive the corn of the foreigner. Not one advantage
has the Australian producer in the markets of this
country, which we have not freely given up to the
producers of other countries. How, then, have we
any right to ask for any special favour from the
Australian government. There might, indeed, have
been a policy shaped out, which would have bound
this and all our colonial possessions to the mother
country by the ties of gratitude and interest,added
to those of a common origin and a common lan-
guage. We might have free-traded with our
colonies upon eauitable terms, instead of stimula-
twig only the industry of foreign and rival coun-
tries. We might have built up a Zollverein, which
would have rendered Great Britain independent
of tin world for a supply of every product of every
clime. We could have conducted such an expanded
trade with money based solely upon British property
and British honour, without asking of California
or Russia for an ounce of the precious metal which
their miners and adventurers are degrading and
brutalising themselves to procure. We might have
striken down the atrocious system of slavery
throughout the world, by giving fair play to our
own West India growers of sugar and cotton.
And, as the crowning benefit of all, we might have
carried the produce of this great confederation of
British subjects in every region of the world—this
British empire upon which the sun never sets—in
British ships, manned by British sailors, and at the
same time fostered a powerful commercial marine,
and a navy which would have rendered us impreg-
nable against the assaults of the world. Senti-
mental enthusiasts talk of an era of universal
peace to be brought about by England reducing
her armaments, destroying her buttresses of
defence, turning her swords into iron shuttles, and
becoming the huckster and drudge of universal
mankind. Here alone, we tell them—in the fusion
of England's colonial empire with England, which
we have described—is the true instrumentality by
which can be brought about an age of peace and
security, of prosperity, happiness, and greatness
for every creature subject to the sceptre of
Victoria, who is willing to earn his bread with the
industry which his Almighty Maker has prescribed
as its price.
EXPRESS NEWS.

BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

LONDON, MONDAY NIGHT.
THE GREAT EXHIBITION.

It was generally expected that in consequence of the
reduction of the charge for admission to ls. that the
building would be inconveniently crowded to-day, and
extra precautions were taken to prevent confusion. At 10
a.m., when the doors opened, only about 1,000 persons
presented themselves for admission. and the barriers
erected at the different entrances were moved as unne-
cessary. At 11 o'clock 7.900 had been admitted ; between
11 and half-past 3, 900 ; in the next half hour, 1,400 ;
and at 2 o'clock about 15,000 persons were present. The
impression that enormous crowds would be assembled was
no doubt the cause of such comparatively small atten-
dance.

PARIS, SUNDAY EVENING.—The Globe's correspon-
dent says that the stormy proceedings in the French
Chamber have not caused the slightest alarm. It is
thought the Mountain are angry because they feel that
they cannot prevent the revision of the Constitution. The
Delegates of the Electoral Union have commenced the
petion movement. The Fives were done at 90.
BERLIN, 23d.—The Prussian Government expects to
conclude with Sardinia a commercial treaty which shall
extend to the Zollverein all the advantages lately conceded
to England, France, and Belgium.
THE PAPAL STATES.—Letters from Rome of the 16th
instant state that the Papal Government bas published a
decree announcing that summary punishment shall be in-
flicted on a person endeavouring to hinder another from
smoking or using tobacco.

MR. DUNCA' S'S LECTURE AT THE COTTON
SAL ES' ROOM-YESTERDAY.

Yesterday, .t two o'clock:Mr. Duncan delivered another
lecture on the subject of the monetary system, as con-
nected with +the industrial and commercial interests of
the country, at the Cotton Sales' Room. The lecturer
had underta'ken to reply, in the course of his observations,
to the notices which he: Manchester Guardian and the
Liverpool Times had bestowed upon his last lecture.
Francis Sliand Esq. was in the chair. Amongst the gen-
tlemen present we observed Lawrence Peel, John Torr,
John Campbell, Isaac Buchanan, John Wilkinson, Aaron
Lees, W. R. Coalburn, James Logan, Wynne, J.
Priestley, W. Smallpage, James Harvey, F. Shand, jun.,
Thomas Urquhart, R. Rowlinson, J. M. Braga, N.
Reyner, G. Holmes, L. -Follett. Lee, J. H. Hamp.
shire, James Cunningham, T. H. Holderness, Crook,
Gordon, Moore, Thomas Wylie,l Robert Procter,
-- Sutton, Shallcross, Brown, Brereton, Esqrs.,
&c.

Mr. SHAD, on taking the chair, said he was happy to
introduce Mr. Duncan once more amongst them, and only
regretted that the arrangements had not been such as to
have enabled him to have delivered his two lectures con-
secutively. He dared say, however, he would connect
himself in such a way as to connect the first lecture with
this. As for himself, he must be permitted to say that he
had had a number of communications on the subject last
week, as if he were a professor in the same school him-
self. (A laugh.) That he must disclaim : he was there
as a learner and inquirer, and had been an instrument
merely in conveying Mr. Duncan's information to them-
selves. Applause.)
Mr. DUNCAN said he had endeavoured on last Monday
simply to sketch out a system of money, which in the
judgment of the association with which he was connected
in London, was considered most conducive to aid produc-
tion and prevent panic. He would just recapitulate the
two forms of money, in case there should be any
gentleman in the audience who was not present at his
first lecture. He proposed that the money of the state,
the national :money, should be issued under the control
and by the advice of parliament, and that it should be
limited to the annual amount of taxation ; whether that
tax was 40, 50, or 60 millions sterling, such should be the
quantity of national state money,—based not only upon
the narrow margin of gold that was in this country, but
based upon the six thousand millions of real property
which statisticians tell us is the aggregate wealth of this
country. Therefore the 60 millions of taxation would
have no insufficiency of security, nor could the money
ever depreciate, since it was an express condition that it
should always be limited to the amount of taxes voted by
parliament ; nor could it ever depreciate from any other
circumstance, inasmuch as the crown would be obliged to
take it back at the same price at which it had been issued.
—(Heer, hear.) Then as to the money of commerce, lie
proposed the security of banks which should be incorpo-
rated, the proprietors having given to government a tan-
gible and convertible security in case the bank should
fail. Now he perceived that one of the local papers, the
Journal, accused him of copying the plan from the
New York banking system without acknowledgment.
Supposing that he had copied it, if he showed his judg-
ment in copying that which was a good thing, he thought
that he was much wiser than if he had put forth some-
thing of his own, which was not a wise thing. (Laughter
and applause.) But the editor confessed that it was a
wise plan, saying only that lie had copied it, that he was
a plagiarist. Now he stated in his last lecture that the
idea of security banks was contained in a letter of the first
Sir Robert Peel in 1826, before the New York banking
system was established, and he might state that
the idea of security banks was conveyed to Mr.
Biddle by Mr. John Taylor, of London, in his book enti-
tled " The Monetary Systems of England and America,"
and any one wLo was curious might see that the system
originated and belongs to England and not to America.
(Hear.) Now, the first curious circumstance which at-
tached to our present system was this :—He had endea-
voured to prove that the price of gold in the country was
fixed, that whether there were a million ounces of gold in
the bank cellars, or one hundred millions, an ounce of
gold was still 775. and iths of a shilling in value. If
large quantities were exported, the price was not permitted
to rise ; gold was kept permanently cheap. Now, a note
was considered the representative of gold, but curious
enough. while we prevented gold rising in value, we al-
lowed the thing signifying it, the note, to rise in price, and
that was expressed by a rise in the rate of interest. (Hear,
hear.) They were perfectly aware that in 1847, when the
panic occurred, money rose in value to nine per cent.
interest, and twelve, or even twenty per cent. commission.
Now, it was surely a contradiction of terms to say that the
symbol should rise while the reality should not. (Hear,
and applause.) So if a merchant had goods in his ware-
house worth £lOO,OOO sterling, and if the gold was ab-
stracted from the country, perhaps he was obliged to sell
them for £50,000. There was no depreciation in his
goods, their value was the same ; but simply because he
wanted an instrument of exchange, made scarce by Act of
Parliament, the whole of his property diminished fifty per
cent. in value. (Hear, hear.) Sir Robert Peel, in one
of his latest speeches, alluding to the subject, said, " Why
should not money fetch what money is worth ? Does not
a man get the highest price he can for cotton, for iron, or
for coal, and, upon the same principle, why should not
a man get as high an interest as he can for money." Now
the reason was this, because commodities and money were
not the same things in the market. There was no act of
Parliament limiting the production of cotton, coal, iron,
or any other commodity, but there was an act of Parlia-
ment which prohibits the increase of money, and there-
fore the comparison was false. (Hear, and applause.)
We paid interest on money, a usurious interest, not for
the legitimate use of money, but for the artificial scarcity
of it caused by act of Parliament. Now it bad been fre-
quently asked, what would you do for a standard of value
if you had this national paper money. The popular belief
was that we had got a standard of value, but he would
undertake to prove that this was:a perfect fiction. In the
first place it was important to separate in the mind
the idea of standard from the idea of measure, for
these two terms were constantly confounded by writers
on political economy, except by those who belonged as he
did to Mr. Taylor's school. He was the first writer who
had accurately distinguished between standard and
measure. (Hear, hear.) All standards were fixed in na-
ture, and were eternal as the God of nature, but all
measures were fixed by men, and they were so arranged as
to bring the virtues of the standard most efficiently into
service. For instance, the diurnal revolution of the earth
around its axis and its annual revolution around the sun,
were true indexes of time ; they were unerring, and as-
tronomers had never perceived the siightest fractional
alteration. A standard must be immutable; if it were
not so it ceased to be a standard ; but he should show in
a subsequent portion of his lecture that our standard of
the value of money was a weathercock which veered
round with every wind. (Hear.) Now, if the revolutions
of the earth were an accurate standard of time, then
weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds were accurate
measures of time. They saw then the difference. This
premised, he assured them that we had no such thing as
a standard of value of money in this country, and that he
undertook to show by answering the question, " What is
a pound ?"—a silly question, which Sir Robert Peel once
put to the House of Commons. The circulation of the
Bank of England in 1841 was sixteen: millions. Had a
person been asked then what was a pound, he would have
said it is one-sixteenth millions of the whole circulation ;
and had he been asked in 1846, when Peel took care to
extend the currency to carry out his own views, to
twenty millions, he would have said a pound was one
twentieth millions of the whole of our circulation.
(Hear, hear.) There was a variation of N per cent. in
that short interval of time : how then could we say that
we had an immutable standard of value ?—(Hear.) The
fact was that every pound added to or taken from the
authorised circulation of the Bank of England, was a
variation of the standard, and we could not say that what
was a pound to-day would be a pound to-morrow. The
way. that people were frequently misled Ras, by merely
looking at the relation between gold and silver, but what
we had to find was, a money which should have its rela-
tion to all commodities. (Applause.) It was only
through an instrument intrinsically valueless, that we
could keep the relative valne of all other commodities in
parallel. Now a question arose here why does the
foreigner take away gold instead of commodities ; why
does he leave our warehouses stocked with goods, and
leave our banking cellars empty of gold ?—(Hear, hear.)
There must be some reason why he should give
a preference; and it was simply and solely the blundering
legislation of those who had passed the bills of 1819 and
1844. (Applause.) If the national value was the expres-
sion of the embodied labour of any article represented by
the figure 4, and the tax of the country was represented
by the figure 2, it was clear that the article should sell in
this country for 6 ; and so it would do if this island were
surrounded by the wall of Friar Bacon, or if we prohibited
foreign commerce; but directly pricesbegan to rise from
the barter level 4 to taxation level 6, and the foreigner
comes into the market to sell his goods, he would sell at
6, he would sell at our high taxation price, because it was
his interest to sell in the dearest market ; but having
done so, he looks round for a cargo to take home with
him ; and he finds that the taxation which had raised
wheat, say from 4 to 6, had also raised. cotton, calico,
and every article from 4 to 6,—the effect of taxation
being to add to the cost of production without adding
to the value of the product. (Hear, bear.) Now, under
these circumstances, what did the foreigner do ; he said—
" I understand that by act of parliament coined gold is
not subjected to taxation ; it is always kept down at barter
level ; it never rises in price. He sells his goods at six,
but he will not buy any of our goods at six, so long as he
can take away our gold at four ; and therefore it is that
when price rises in this country to a remunerating level,
so as to enable the employer to give good wages to his
workmen, and have good profits himself,—the instant
that happens, a premium is given to the foreigner to leave
the goods in our warehouses and take away the gold.
This was the cause of panics, and these panics were
clearly the result of ignorant legislation. (Applause.) He
should suppose, by way of illustration, that all the mea-
sures used in drapers' shops were made of gold, and that
an act of parliament was passed, declaring, under a heavy
penalty, that all goods should be sold with a golden wand,
instead of the present wooden wand,—(a laugh)—and
that the foreigner, by some device, got possessed of all
the yard measures in Liverpool. Now what would be the
consequence ? Not a single draper could sell a single
commodity in his shop, because he would not have the
instrument or measure of length. Now, supposing that
all these wands were on board an American steamer
in the Mersey, and that a deputation of tradesmen
waited upon the foreigners whose property they were,
and laid before them their case. The foreigners
would say we are quite aware of your position, and if you
are willing to submit to such ignorant legislation, that is
no reason why we should not take advantage of circum-
stances : now we will let you have your measures if you
will give us eighteen as twelve inches of cloth. (Hear.),
That was practically what was done with the pound. We
were compelled to bring back the gold from the foreigner;
and how did we get it? ,Simply by reblucing the price of

our commodities from the taxation to'the barter level ; we
must lower our prices from six to four. (Loud applause.)
Mr. Duncan proceeded to combat Sir Robert Peel's defi-
nition of a pound as " a definite weight of gold," and
showed from a, work by Mr. Lowndes. a gentleman em-
ployed in the reign of King Wm. and Queen Mary to trace
the origin of coin from the time of Wm. the Conqueror that
there had been the greatest possible variations. Our
(Mr. Duncan said) instead of being a constant weight,
had always been fluxional in its character. The £1
originally was a pound of silver, twelve ounces : what was
it now ? Four ounces ! and so had it been in other coun-
tries as well as this. This was a sufficient answer to those
who attached weight to the silly words, as if there was
any argument in them, "would you have a little shilling ?"
In the time of William the Conqueror a pound weight of
silver was coined into twenty shillings : now it was coined
into sixty-six. After dwelling at some length, and
imparting much information upon this interesting
part of his subject, Mr. Duncan showed that the relation
between gold and silver had also fluctuated, and proved
that Sir Robert Peel could not have been well conversant
with history when he could boast that " he had restored
the standard of Elizabeth." The lecturer then said he
had been asked to allude to the foreign exchanges, be-
cause it was a subject in which the merchants were deeply
interested. It was said how will you manage with your
paper pound in paying the balance of foreign trade. It
was asked would the foreigner take our intrinsically value-
less money. He had answered that on Monday, by say-
ing no, he would not, and that was the great advantage
of the system—(hear, hear)—for trade and commerce were
deranged when we lost our legal tender, and suffered gold
to be cheap, while all other commodities were dear.
(Hear.) lie would not take away our paper, because it
was valueless to him ; it would pay taxes to Queen
Victoria, but not to the President of the United States or
the Emperor of Russia ; but then came the question—how
were we to pay the foreigner ? The foreigner did not deal
with us at all in reference to our money denominations ;
it mattered not to him what money we had for our inter-
nal commerce ; the balance of all foreign trade was paid by
bullion, not by money as money, but as a commodity.
(Applause.) Even if the £1 note fell to 10s., would that
prevent the foreigner dealing with us ? Certainly not.
He sought and would net for his goods an equivalent in
barter. A writer in the Liverpool Times had urged ob-
jections to his views on currency, in which he stated that
national notes would fluctuate more in value than gold or
silver, and then alluded to the fall of consols during the war.
Now, the answer to this was, that the £1 note would always
discharge £1 of taxation, and be £1 in value in transac-
tions between man and man, no matter what gold or silver
it would exchange for; but to understand this point well
it was necessary to understand the distinction between
debasement, deterioration, and depreciation, terms used
by Sir Robert Peel as synonymous, (but the separate
meaning attached to which the lecturer defined.) He con-
tended that paper money should depreciate according to
the amount of taxation raised in the country. He said
all commodities rose in price under the pressure of taxa-
tion, not that paper money caused them to rise in price,
but that paper money permitted the rise in price up to
the level of taxation. (Hear, and applause.) Mr. Dun-
can then treated of the low price to which French
assignats fell, and said this might be considered as
a condemnation of paper money ; but he quoted from
Storch to show the prodigious extent to which these as-
signets had been issued (equal to 44,579,000,000 francs) ;
but what did he (the lecturer) propose ? He did not pro-
pose the issue of an unlimited amount of national paper
money, but limited year by year by the amount of tax-
ation voted by Parliament. There was an argument put
forward in the London Times, at the commencement of
this year—that if gold came in large quantities from Cali-
fornia, it would fall in value; and that 123 grains might
be worth only 19s. or 17s. in silver; that then we might
pay that to the fund-holder, and relieve the
country from a pressure of taxation ; but the question was
if that was an honest plan ? It was a most dishonest one.
It was a gross fraud upon the debtor class wheu we re-
sumed cash payments in 1819, and it would be another
gross fraud upon the creditor class if we took advantage
of California to pay the fundholder 123 grains when its
value might depreciate to 17s. (Applause.) Mr, Dun-
can then replied with some severity to some remarks
which appeared upon his first lecture in the Manchester
Guardian. If he stated such things in parliament as he
had in that room on Monday last, he might as the Guar-
dian had stated, be scouted out of the house ; but it
would not follow that he was wrong. The advantages of
all great questions had met at first with obloquy.
(Hear, hear.) 1111715 (said the lecturer, after quoting,
some other instances), Daniel Defoe proposed
to light the City of London with lamps. This
was objected to by the Lord Mayor, the Al-
dermen and Council, and amongst his most formid-
able opponents, who wished to keep the town in darkness,
was one Jeremiah Garnett (laughter) ; and here was a
Jeremiah Garnett, at Manchester, in this day, denouncing
the lecture which he (Mr. Duncan) had delivered, as " the
veriest trash." The lecturer went on to show the histo-
rical falsity of an assertion in the Guardian's article that
metallic money never was departed from without injury. It
was paper money which enabled the Americansto gain their
independence. Mr. Duncan, after quoting from Hume and
Burke, read the opinions of Dr. Franklin :—" On the
whole, no method has hitherto been formed to establish
a medium of trade in lieu of money equal in all its advan-
tages to bills of credit founded on sufficient taxes for dis-
charging them, or on land security of double the value for
repaying it at the end of the term, and in the meantime
made a general legal tender. The experience of now near
half a century in the middle colonies (New York, New
Jersey, and Pennsylvania,) has convinced them of it
among themselves, by the great increase of their settle-
ments, numbers, buildings, improvements, agriculture,
shipping, and commerce. And the same experience has
satisfied the British merchants, who trade thither, that
it has been greatly useful to them, and not in a single
instance Prejudicial. It is, therefore, hoped that securing
the full discharge of British debts which are payable here,
and in all justice and reason ought to be discharged here
(in England) in sterling money, the restraint on the legal
tender within the colonies will be taken off, at least
for those colonies that desire it, and where the
merchants trading to them make no objection." Was
the paper money issued jointly by Great Britain,
Russia, and Austria which enabled the allies to raise
levies, and give the first great check to Napoleon at
Leipsic. Strange enough if Mr. Garnett did not know
historical facts; he ought to know what the French
Government did in 1848. He recollected perfectly well
that when the French Provisional Government proposed
to issue paper money, there was a series of articles in the
London Times denouncing it as a stupid and mischievous
scheme ; but in a little time, when it was shown that this
paper money had saved the country from anarchy, and
filled the coffers of the Bank of France, the Times de-
clares that it was the best thing in the Revolution.
(Hear, and laughter.) The London Times and the
Manchester Guardian just followed public opinion ; they
would never help on a great cause, but as soon as a cause
became acceptable to the people, then the Times and the
Guardian would mount th 3 winning horse, and say,
" Gentlemen, you are all aware we have ever advocated
this system." (Laughter and applause.) Mr. Duncan
then quoted from a speech of Mr. Huskisson in 1827,
showing how the productive classes benefit by a rise, and
suffer by a fall in prices ; he also quoted the opinions of
Locke and the late Mr. Rothschild in favour of a national
currency ; and then went on to show what a false position
it was for a nation to be dependent for its supply of food
upon foreigners. To this he traced, in a neat and graphic
sketch, the decline of the Roman empire ; and after showing
in other respects the folly and danger of a one-sided free
trade, concluded by recapitulating his views on the cur-
r3ncy, and by stating that money was to be looked at as
the instrument of production. if we limited production,
of course we limited consumption, and we destroyed our
own markets at home, while we were making the most
frantic efforts to extend our markets abroad. He was for
making gold the servant and not the master of industry !
(Mr. Duncan resumed his seat amid loud applause.)

ILLNESS OF THE EARL OF DERBY.—We are sorry to
have to record the illness of the Earl of Derby. His
lordship returned from town about the middle of last
week, whither he had been to visit the Great Exhibition.
The excitement and fatigue consequent on this visit, pro-
bably, were too much for the strength of one of so advanced
an age as his lordship, and he was attacked with illness
about two o'clock on Sunday morning : as the character
of the attack was apoplectic, it caused considerable alarm
to his lordship's establishment, and such medical aid as
the neighbourhood afforded was at once called in, and as
soon as possible, Mr. Bickersteth waited on his lordship.
During the evening the patient recovered his conscious-
ness. Yesterday, Mr. Bickersteth ggain went to Knows-
ley, and found that his noble patient had made consider-
able progress, and we are exceedingly happy to say that
his lordship is now convalescent.
OPENING CRUISE OF THE ROYAL MERSEY YACHT
CLUB.—The yachts of this club, which were at the station,
joined in fleet on Satuaday morning (the Queen's birth-
day), under the flag of the commodore, on the occasion
of the opening cruise of the season. They started from
Birkenhead Ferry at Ten o'clock. The fleet consisted of
the Queen of the Ocean, 49 tons; the Vision, 45 tons (on
board of which vessel the rear-commodore hoisted his flag),
the Bacchante, 80 tons ; the Coralie, 30 tons, and the
Victoria of 15 tons. Each yacht had its owner and friends
on board. The signal was made by the Commodore for
the vessels to form in line, and proceed to the wesward.
The was a light gaff-topsail breeze on the ebb-tide at
starting, which carried the little fleet into the Formby
Channel ; the wind died away, and a large fleet of vessels,
outward bound, were observed totally becalmed in the
Channel. On account of the lightness of the wind, and
the flood tide meeting the yachts could not
reach further than the entrance of The Victoria
Channel. The owner of the Coralie expressed
wish to try the speed of his craft with the celebrated Vision,
and the Commodore agreed to let them break the order
of sailing in a small contest together. The Coralie showed
considerable sailing powers for light breezes, and, no
doubt, from the resula, her owner will be able to win some
cups on a future occasion. Towardevening the breeze
freshened with the making tide, and the fleet returned
with a flowing sheet up the river, and came to anchor off
Birkenhead and the Sloyne. The weather was remarkably
fine for the dey's proceedings, and the owners of the
respective yachts entertained their friends on board
in a liberal manner, and the remainder of the even-
ing was spent in cordial conviviality. Her Majesty
the patroness of the club was not forgotten. The beauty
of the evening was so inviting as to induce many of the
party to sleep on board the yacht. We may here remark
that the members will again meet and dine together on
Tuesday next, at the club-house, Birkenhead, on the oc-
casion of the general meeting.
ROMISH TOLERATION.--On Wednesday night, three
shots were discharged through the window of a scripture-
reader named Young, at Clonong.hill, near Parsonstown,
Ireland. The sash and five panes of glass were broken,
but the
escaped .unhurt.. He was in bed at the time.
Persemted man, who is a convert from Popery,

,444-; _

A PRACTICAL VIEW OF THE SLAVERY EXCITE-
MENT IN THE UNITED STATES.

On the receipt yesterday morning, by the Niagara, of
the alarming accounts from South Carolina, we applied
to a friend of ours lately returned from a tour of pleasure
in the southern states of America, for his impressions on
the subject, which we now lay before our readers.
It will be observed that the writer would yield to no
man in his abhorrence of slavery, while he is indignant at
the unprincipled, unconstitutional, and utterly anti-
patriotic course of the abolition party in New England, a
course which, he says, will without doubt break up the
American union, if it is not protested against more em-
phatically than has yet been the case by the good sense
and patriotism of the rest of the northern states. Of
course we do not bind ourselves to every detail of his
remedy.
THE POSITION OF THE SLAVERY QUESTION IN AME-
RICA.—The question in America is not as to the thing
itself, but as to the mode of getting rid of slavery. A few
ruffians and heated zealots, or, to say the least of it,
weak-minded men, have taken the lead of the abolitionists
in the New England states, who are akin to the liberals of
England, in so far that they do all they can to introduce
disorder into society by an entire disregard of constitu-
tional means or modes of reform, caring only for the con-
viction in their own mind (I talk of the best of them) that
the thing gone for is a good thing in itself.
They represent to the European public that the late
FUGITIVE BILL is a new law, whereas it is a mere
declaratory act of the constitution" o f the United States.
It was a mere apparent boon given to secure the triumph
of the unionist or moderate party of the slave-holding
states, who were willing to see the union preserved, if the
fugitive law of the constitution is carried out, while the
nullification party in the slavery states demanded, not
only this, but that they should not be debarred from
taking their slaves to California, and the other newly
erected states. The latter decline discussing slavery as
" a matter of localism," and say that till " the princi-
ple" is discarded they ought to be allowed to take their
slaves to the countries alluded to as those in which they
are most wanted. THE ERROR OF THE ABOLITIONISTS
is that having, through their local legislatures, shaken
hands, and made a compact with the slave-states, and
after solemnly agreeing to slavery being a question to be
left altogether to the legislatures of the slavery states,
they break this compact and interfere on the subject in
the northern states, thus throwing firebrands into the
south, and arraying against the abolition of slavery as
proposed by them, all the whites in the south, both union-
ists and disunionists. Instead of such g course, the only
honest one open to the abolitionists in the north, is to
get the legislatures of the northern states to give notice
to the southern states that they consider they have made
a nefarious bargain with the South, in permitting the
slavery stipulation in the general constitution of the
United States, and that unless the slave-holding states
will hold a convention, and immediately abolish slavery,
" as a principle," the northern states will wash their hands
of such a connection. The abolitionists might then, if
they choose, go south and use their influence on the public
opinion there, which must carry the abolition of slavery
through the different legislatures of the south, or through
a convention of these. If they did this, however, they
know they dare not do it by such incendiary means as
they use in Boston, otherwise they would be " tarred
and feathered" in every locality of the south.
WHAT THE ABOLITIONISTS WOULD REQUIRE TO DO,
is, to give the planters due credit for wishing to see
slavery abolished, and temperately to join them in the
discussion of WHAT THE SOUTH, LEFT TO ITSELF, SHOULD
DO IN THE MATTER ; and what the planters must do if the
responsibility were left with the southern states, (by the
north taking an open manly course like that suggested,) is
to declare that at the end of fifty years, or in 1900, every
black man shall be free,—that in the mean time the
slaves born after this date shall be " educated for free.
dom"—each being free at the age of forty, and being then
in a position to take the burden of the aged and infirm,
and of the young at the era or jubilee of freedom. Any
better measure than this cannot be got, nor is it supposed
by practical philanthropists that a more sudden emanci-
pation would serve the best interests of the negro popula-
tion in America.

IF THE FUGITIVE BILL IS NOT CARRIED OUT there
will and ought certainly to be a dissolution of the Ame-
rican Union. Already, the excitement and bad blood in
the southern states against the ruffians in Boston, are
what must be seen and heard to be believed. But the
good sense of the north will be sure to quash the irregular
and unconstitutional movement of the abolitionists in
Massachussetts and the north, and, by honestly carrying
out the Fugitive Bill, will lay the south under obligations
to move in the direction above described, with regard to
emancipation. The southerners must feel that the slaves,
being three or four to one as compared to the white
population, are possessed of their own principle of right,
viz., might. " Slavery (says Locke) is a state of war
continued ; and the bond man has a right, when he can,
to break his chains on the head of his oppressor. In the
changes and chances of the world this opportunity is
seldom long delayed." We would all object to the prin-
ciple of slavery, and so would the great majority of the
planters of the south, as well as of the people in the
northern states, although many do not see it a matter of
such pressing importance at the present moment, or until
some practical amelioration ofwhitelahour in Europe is at-
taine,l, by which white slavery will be made a better thing
in Europe than African slavery is in America, supposing
the American slave only to have a Christian master, and to
be allowed access to the tools of knowledge—reading and
writing. As to these prominent evils, under which the
American slave groans (the not having Christian mas-
ters, &c.) every philanthropist in both countries would
wish to find that they could be exterminated ; and my
humble opinion, of the only effectual way of doing that,
is the same as it was before I visited the southern states
of North America—viz., that in the peculiar circumstances
of these countries, the institution of slavery can only be
safely got quit of by such A PROSPECTIVE MANUMISSION
OF THE SLAVES as I have explained above.