The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-12-26 00:00:00

" With respect to the unfavourable change which the Stan
dard imagines we should make with th,
giving him £3 17s. 1041

kmerican miner, by

must confess

mm. very ()nylons t o us.
For his ounce of gold we should give him something less than
fonr golden sovereigns, or commodities, the price of which
would be determined by the market value of gold."—Manches-
ter Guardian.

So far as regards the exchange of something less than
four golden sovereigns for an ounbe of gold, the trans-
action is simple enough ; for both are about,equally value-
less in themselves. But the other operation—the fixing
of the price of all other commodities by the market price
of gold—itself a commodity—is not so simple as the
Guardian would have us think. After having been
coined at the Mint, at its present value, it would be re-
ceivable for duties and taxes ; whilst, from the increase in
the price of commodities, the revenue, in gold, or paper
based on gold, would no longer meet the national expen-
diture. Our commerce and industry would be in rather
an anomalous condition whilst the appreciation of com-
modities and the depreciation of the metal were going on.
In such an operation. we should

proa near

""• "+ arm 11111) won't' nave a control over the
supply, would have in general much the best of the bar-
gain. Apart from the demand for it for money purposes.
a state of things might arise in which gold woula have
very little market value at all; and, moreover, it is time
for us to consider whet hr it is wisdom on our part to con-
fer a value, or to enhance it at all events, as we do by
rendering it an indispensible portion of our circulation,
upon any foreign commodity, the use of which we can
dispense with; and thus to enable its producer, or rather
its fortunate discoverer, to appropriate, at scarcely any
trouble or expense, the hard-earned fruits of labour, legi-
timately employed.

" Whether the fundholders and other parties enjoying fixed
incomes would approve of the change of circumstances, is
another matter. We are satisfied, however, that, as a body,
they would much rather run the risk of any deterioration of
the standard which is likely to arise from the exuberant pro-
duce of the Californian mines, than trust to the consequence
of those schemes of inconvertible paper which find favour with
the Live►pool Standard."—Manchester Guardian.
Our contemporary treats this part of the subject rather
too lightly. The fundholder receiving for his £lOO Con-
sols three pounds, in gold which had lost a third or a half
of its purchasing power, would have surely no right to
be very well satisfied with his position. The annuitant,
the landowner, and the whole of the creditor class, would
suffer in the same manner, by receiving only 15s. or 10s.
in the pound on their incomes and claims. The whole
social fabric, in fact, wool,' be thrown into inextricable
confusion by any material " deterioration of the stan-
dard," to arise from a permanent increase in the•supply
of this commodity, gold, so long as we allow it to be
money. Take away its money functions, and it may in-
crease in value indefinitely, without producing the slight-
est effect upon the commerce and industry of the country.
With respect to the " inconvertible paper" which the
Guardian says " finds favour in our eyes," we know of
none such, except perhaps the fourteen millions of notes
in the Bank of England under our present system, based
upon Consols, but not, like the currency which we pro-
pose, convertible into Consols.

We have a question to ask of the Guardian, upon an-
other circumstance connected with any depreciation of our
gold basis. It is probable that nine-tenths of the imports,
the exports, and the produce of the country are represented
by silver and copper7-small change—before reaching the
foreign buyer or the consumer at home. These commo-
dities, of course, can only follow the rule of other commo-
dities ; and will be appreciated by the increased supply
and depreciation of gold. When the purchasing power of
the sovereign, therefore, becomes less by 25 per cent., how
much in commodities will twenty silver shillings buy ?
It will be pleasant, truly, to have three standards of value,
all of them fluctuating commodities ; and to have master
and his man, shopkeeper and his customer, sitting down
every Saturday night to ascertain the exchangeable value
of each in the markets of the world, before the wage ac-
count can be settled, or the groceries paid for !

IMPRACTICABILITY OF THE IRISH PEOPLE

The Dublin Evening Mail, the organ of the landlords
of Ireland, and an opponent of the Irish Poor Law, brings
forward the following instance of the difficulty experienced
in working it. The first is directed against the alleged
undue severity of the collectors :
"At the Castlebar petty sessions on Thursday, Mr. Watson
made an application to the beach for an order for a strong body
of police to accompany him in the collection of poor rates. The
magistrates referred him to the stipendiary magistrate, as lie
could not act without a magistrate.
Mr. Watson said that the cattle he had seized for poor rates
at Derrycouch were rescued.
Mr. Ignatius Kelly : It was really horrible to hear the way
those gentlemen go and drive all before them.
Lord Lucan : Did you serve a six d ys' notice before you
seized those cattle?

Mr. Watson : I do not think it is necessary.
Lord Lucan : How do you make that out ?
Mr. Watson : According to the rate collectors' manual.
Lord Lucan : That is only an opinion.
Mr. William Malley : According to the Act of Parliament, I,
as the county cess and poor rate collector, can seize without a
six days' notice, but no one else.
Mr. Kelly : I will make your lordship aware of a circumstance
which you have not heard before. The collector gets 2s. ed. in
the pound for the collection of the rates, and when collecting
the rate he charges a shilling and sometimes more to the un•
fortunate creatures for driving their cattle and making them
pay the poor rate whether they will or not. Was there ever
such a robbery ? There are several poor creatures here to ap-
ply to the bench for summonses against Mr. Watson for loss
and injury.
The summonses mere granted."

The second describes the doings of the people them-
selves in the Union of Macroom, on the authority of the
chairman of the Board :

" It was very remarkable that last year, so soon as it was un-
derstood that out-door relief was to be administered, in one
night all the men of forty-five years of age became sixty-five.
Old clothes were in immediate requisition, and no fellow at-
tempted to wash or shave, so as to be enabled to present him-
self before the relieving officer as one of the out-door class.
Again, on that wonderful night every boy of eighteen years of
age suddenly dropped down to thirteen or fourteen, for if he
were of the former age, he would be required to break stones,
while if of the latter age, he would get relief with the family.
The Doctor would bear him out in saying, that at that moment
physical debilities came on suddenly to an immense extent.
He never before saw so many sore legs, disabled arms, and bad
eyes. Almost every fellow was a cripple."
Here then we have the spectacle of a measure, mani-
festly just towards both the weli-tovdo and the poor con-