The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-02-29 00:00:00

Feb. 29, 1848.

A CURE FOR CURRENCY DERANGEMENTS.

IrmaPrm a Pamphlet by W. Pickering, Esq.)
If correct, the amount which the Government
owes to the Bank of England is eleven millions. To this
amount the Bank is now entitled to issue notes. This
amounts, in fact, as does the national debt, to a mort-
gage on all property, as each one has to bear his part.
Now I would recommend that these eleven millions shall
be converted into a Four per Cent. Stock, and be called
Gold Stock, because the interest of it as stock shall be
payable alone in gold sovereigns of full weight. With
the above eleven millions, and nineteen other millions
added thereto, the Four per Cent. Gold Stock should be
in amount thirty millions of pounds. This should be
.ta, ken by the Bank of England, and by other bankers,
buying and paying for the same, who should be at liberty
to issue notes of various amounts, as bank notes, similar
-to the notes of the Bank of England and other banks of
issue. Each note should have an additional stamp affixed
on its face or back, by the Government office created to
manage the loan accounts of the Four per Cent. Gold
Stock.
The gold stock note should be made a legal tender, but
the holders of it, on presentation, to have power to de-
mand that the issuers pay it in gold ; and in default, and
oh presentation of a protest to the effect that at least one
hundred pounds of it had not been paid on demand, then
the holder of any amount of one hundred pounds or up-
wardl Will be entitled, by virtue of the said protest, to
deposit notes to the amoant so protested in the loan-
Office, and receive a scrip certificate of having such an
bearing of the loan standing to his credit in the books,
2earing interest at four per cent. per annum. The de-
!piling issuer of any such stock notes should be disqua-
lified from again becoming a contractor for any part of
the loan.
The thirty millions of gold stock, or rather so much of
y.ltt's
i the requirements of commerce might keep in circu-
ion, would be by its contracting owners issuable as
bank stock notes ; by this means, all which may be cir-
ting or contracted for by banks with the Government
office
►will not receive interest, when out by contract;
:""erehy the nation will reap the whole benefit of the
!aterest at four per cent., the contracting holders obtain-
lienitlyhtteehirnisdienrterest from the notes they will issue as cash,
so:llyonags arrangement,tuthe},obtain bankers would obtain the notes
gold, by giving value for them ; and
they can circulate them with advantage, they
will do so. In the event of their not being required as
reorntyeytoto use, any contractor or holder should be at li-
pay in his notes. and demand for them an equi-
valent amount in stock, bearing interest to him, from the
day he paid in his notes and became a stockholder.
Thus then, in time of need, there are thirty millions of
negotiable notes—a sum amply sufficient for any con-
ceivable expansion ; while in dull dead times, the con-
tractors or owners of it might reduce their notes to such
an amount as they can profitably use, by converting them
into a stock bearing interest at four per sent. Thus, by
expansion at one time, or contraction at another, it would,
fluid like, always find its own level !

Then I would have the usury laws re-enacted, with an
exception as regards this stock ; that is, the loan-office
should have power, in case of need, to exact on such
stock such a rate of discount as the directors of the Bank
•of England and the officers of the loan-office may, by a
notice in the Gazette, announce to be the legal, and
which should continue to be the legal, rate of discount,
until altered by a subsequent notice in the Gazette.
At all times when above five per cent. was legal, the
whole excess of interest above five per cent. should be
paid over by the bankers to the credit of the Consolidated
F,,uridt as also the interest arising on the amount of stock
"stlea. By this means, although above five per cent.
might be charged, in case of need, yet when it was charged
the nation would reap the whole benefit.
• lam aware that this plan would interfere with the pre-
sent arrangement by which the Bank of England manages
the issues and national monetary affairs ; but any matters
of mere details, which the change required, might be
equitably adjusted with them. Thus, then, I repeat it,
discounts could not fall below four per cent., and rarely
if ever would they rise above five. A self-acting, self-
ad.insti?g standard would be maintained ; gold would be
maintained ; and vet expansion and contraction both
•ectuallY just what the provided for; which, as it appears to me, is
country requires.
,TBE LATE
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY AS A Tu-
sor of In
.1809 Dr. Howley was appointed. Regius Profes-
ivinitt . The manner in w ich he dis-
parged his duty esOxford as principal tutor of New College, the
fame of his learning, the purity of his life, and the ac-
knowledged piety of his character, obtained' for him the
Cordial patronage of George In. It will, of course, be
,recollected that the Prince of Orange; now king of Hol-
d, was an Oxford man. It is equally well known that
eta very early age it was proposed to form a matrimonial
fiance between that illustrious personage and the late
Princess Charlotte, so that his Royal Highness was re-
Eatded as likely to occupy in this country the position of
Drince Consort. The care of his education wss given to
ahlowley—a trust of no ordinary importance, and one
epic
evidently ?augured his advancement to the
he bench.' It is scarcely necessary to add
discharged this as he did every other
trusi._,,t most conscientiously, and that he sent his il-
r".l°us Pupil forth as good a scholar as could well be
,a°lll.nepeilytta°llt., of royal materials. But doubtless our learned
his princouyogor sometimes found it necesary to remind
sized nh•ici eve that more than 20 centuries have elapsed
PAM A to ennelnainn that no man
'•11 Pave a royal road to sound erudition ; and that not
even the heir to a throne can reap the reward of know-
gage unless he pays for that privilege by the " sweat of
t:e brain." That the learned Professor of Divinity stood
'ugh in the estimation of his wo.a. .ra, there earl he tux
doubt; it is well known that the last time the king of
Holland was in this country he paid a visit at Lambeth
'a, we, and took especial pains to mark the high esteem
w'th which, after the lapse of many years, he continued to
regard his quondam preceptor. Dr. Howley was also
tutor to the Marquis of Abercorn.
VOLUNTARYISM AND STATE RELIGION.—A correspon-
dent, of the Record says that the following was the very
last composition in any public matter that emanated from
• the pen of the late Rev. Dr. Chalmers :—" I cannot con-
11er41
clude without expressing my despair of any great or ge-
"good bein effected in the way of Christianizing
r PePulation, but through the medium of a Government themselves Christians. I do not look for the general
Christianity of the people but through the medium of
etnistianity of their rulers. This is a lesson taught
-1,--ricallY in Scripture, by what we read of the influence
which tile personal character of the Jewish monarchs had
talintbo Moral and religious state of their subjects,—it is
blitt,experimentally by the impotence, now fully este-
eup of the Voluntary princ'ple,—and last and most
/f:`,Blve„ of all, it is taught prophetically in the Book of
d —'lon, where (we are) told that then will the king-
onis of the earth (Baseleiai), or governing powers, be-
com,
G the kingdoms of our Lord Jesus Christ, or the
meet s• of the earth become Christian Govern-
ayl.'l,s. It had been the constant boast of Infidels,
Robert Hall, that then a plan, more liberal and
1)n-fulls than Christianity, needed out to be tried to
en immense accession to human happiness, and
toirgiisotian nations, careless and supine, retaining little of
• 84 n but the profession, and disgusted with its re-
aluts, lent a favourable ear to these pretensions, God
:Permitted the trial to be made," &c., &c. In Sermon
4 Infidelity, pp. 87-8, " You may as well attempt,"
tYs Romavn, of New York, "to bind up a hungry
hie with a cobweb, as to keep the irreligious magistrate
the bounds of that duty which he owes to God and
poets subjects. He will, unless restrained by more
ev""111 motives, sport with truth, with humanity, and
flizepthing sacred and holy. I would as soon trust to the
"s savage as I would to the sceptical and irreligious ruler ;
.1 he acts under the influence of his irreligion and
scepticismcat without control." As Dr. R. does not advo-
,e, nor even desire, the establishment of any denomi-
nation
of Christians, his testimony is all the more valu-
Irk e when he says on the present question In the
• all?'ef my Master, I say that the magistrate must be a
Subject of the dispensation of mercy, an unreserved be-
bever in Jesus Christ, or he cannot fulfil the duties of his
Poffice aright. A sceptical magistrate is a traitor to the
od of heaven, and therefore must be a curse to his sub-
. Pets. God will never suffer a perversion of any of his
own appointments without manifesting his indignation,
and causing
nese th.' perverters deeply to feel the effects of
their ungodlis
ORIGIN OF THE STORY OF BLUE BEARD.—In the
current number of Bentley's Miscellany there
esting article, under this title, by W. C. Taylor, LL.D.
It is (says Dr. Taylor) a very common, but a very erro-
neous opinion that the legend of Blue Reard was devised
by the Roman Catholics, as a satire on Henry VIII. ; and
that its object was to strengthen the indignation with
Which his cruelty to his wives was viewed throughout
Europe. There is nothing in the legend which can afford
the slightest support to such a theory ; the manners which
the story portrays, describe a state of society long ante-
, Tior to the age of the Tudors ; they belong to a time when
the murder of wives needed not to shelter itself under the
form of law ; the hero is not a king feeling something of
thed control which nascent public opinion imposes upon
esPotissi ; he is a castellan of the darkest period of the
. middle ages, when the only check on the tyranny of the
lords of the castles was the chance of their being called to
Ircedto redress g
?.,ceount by some adventurous knight errant, who under-
therievances by the point of his lance, and
theef his sword. The most telling incident in the
eas,y, look out of sister Anne from the tower of the
evidently fixes the date in the age of knight er-
. Blue Beard is clearly one of those terrible bur-
, dlaons seeing tom Hugo. bas so vividly delineated, or,
kn; Probable, he is
of the shire and represents them all."
are few countries in western Europe which
Blue Iletaltri the equivocal honour of having produced a
concentratedear and we may regard the tale as a kind of
relat essence of several legends and traditions
feebt,ll,_to outrages perpetrated by feudal lords during the
langt;'ne of monarchy, when to use the expressive
aka -ge of the sacred historian, it might be said of
the
"erY was kin
country in western Europe, " at this time
no g Israel ; did that which seemed
irn.ed right in hisin own eyes."every
Inman the recent develop-
and of Provincial literature in France, several strange
. Interesting local legends have been brought to light,
Which throw some gleams of explanation on the tales ,
have become current in European tradition. Several
aun'tlnt se relate to a supposed prototype of Blue Beard,
will not be uninteresting to glance at the real his-
. !o,ry ate • lof
some of these personages as illustrative of the
...L of society that
age of chivalry, the disappearance
t'eifinromances. which is so deeply lamented by certain writers of sen-
ttal After giving an outline of three of
tLie legends alluded to, Dr. Taylor observes—" We think
nl.l.race of these three legends may be found in Per-
outt story of Blue Beard, and that instead of his
ug based his fiction on a single tradition, he endea-
,Ped to make it a kind of resume of the many legends
of prrannical
itbo un hus
ds ,bands with which the popular literature
rance