The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-05-07 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

manded in a tone which could not be misunderstood, and
with a unanimity which it would be dangerous to dis-
obey. They, nevertheless, in the teeth of this demand,
voted for ministers and against their constituents, thereby
not only bringing contempt on the past decisions of the
house, but also shutting the door against the hopes and
anxious prayers of the middle classes of the population.
There can be no doubt that the malt tax, and the house
and window duties are most obnoxious, and in many re-
spects unfair imposts. Talk of soap, tiles and cotton, in-
deed! They were mere jobs, not a whit less disgrace-
ful than that of Hume which we exposed in our last. The
soap was a sop for one Hawes, the member for Lambeth ;
the tile affair was a boon to some joint-stock brick-makers

in the vicinity of London; while the five-sixteenths of a
penny on cotton wool was a small bribe offered by Mr.

Poulett Thomson to some of our excellent friends in
Manchester.

But what is to be done now ? The u nions insist upon
rediess, and declare that they will compel Lord Althorp
to obey their mandates, and eat his words once more. It
is true that the Globe and one or two other ministerial
papers call for coercive measures, and threaten them with
something akin to the curfew bill for Ireland. This
would, indeed, be the unkindest cut of all. What !
coerce their friends !—ride down their faithful allies !
wage war against the real authors of the reform bill, and
the very same patriots who have kept Lord .Grey and

his family in office and clover for more than two years !
This would be ingratitude of a very deep dye. In short,
Lord Althorp must repeal the assessed taxes, and that he
will learn before he is many months older, provided he.
occupy for so long a period his present situation. For
him and his colleagues this must be a very pleasant state
of things, and it is delightfully refreshing, as Leigh
Hunt would say, to witness a squabble between the pot
and the kettle. The odds are decidedly in favour of
Brumagem.

WE have upon the principle of audi alteram partenz
admitted a letter, (it appeared in the last number of the
STANDARD) from our esteemed correspondent Mercator,
on the subject of the currency and Peel's bill. It has
perhaps, been observed that our correspondent takes a
very different view of this important question, from that
which we have adopted, not without dispassionate con-
sideration, and to which we have constantly adhered
with an unvarying conviction of its soundness, ever
since the bill of 1819 became the law of the land. Our
opinions, therefore, cannot be swayed by. the arguments
of Mercator, able and ingenious as his letters have
proved him to be. On the .other hand, we are always
gratified in listening to an intelligent opponent, and
particularly so when his facts or his inductions have a
tendency to confirm our own principles, which happens
to be the case in this instance.

Mercator states, " that the Bank restriction act of
1797, whilst it protected that body (the Bank of Eng-
land) from being called on to pay their notes in cash,
also fixed a limit far the duration of that system, and a
period when payments in cash of standard value were.
to be resumed in all cases." This we must take leave
to deny. There was no period or limit fixed for the
resumption' of cash payments. If this had been the
case there would have' been no ground for cavil, on the
score of equity, whatever there might have been on the
score of expediency. If there had been a period fixed,
there would have been no necessity for the Bullion
committee—no necessity for the currency committee—
no necessity for Peel's bill, Lord Londonderry's post-
ponement of its operation, or Lord Goderich's amend-
ment bill, in 1826. The period of returning to cash
payments was left to the wisdom of parliament; and
the act of resumption was never treated in the House
in any other light than as a question of expediency.
Parliament, therefore, had the power, as every fund-
holder knew, to resume the old standard, or continue
the depreciated one, at its sovereign will and pleasure;
and if it had continued the latter to the present hour,
no charge of hardship, or grievance, or injustice could
have been substantiated against it. This was so well
understood, that when Lord Liverpool and Mr. Peel
proposed to legislate upon the subject in 1818 and 1819
they never contended that the period had arrived when
Parliament were bound to resume cash payments. All
that they asserted was, that the nation was in a condi-
tion to do that, which it was desirable to do, when it
could be done with safety. There was no existing law—
no act of Parliament—no penalty in the bond—urging the
house to convert paper into gold. Mr. Peel, founding
his argument upon Mr. Ricardo's fallacious calculations,
contended that as the whole amount of depreciation did
not exceed 4 per cent., the difference between the paper
and the gold was so trifling that no injury could be in-
flicted upon obligants, and no difficulty experienced in
returning to the ancient standard. Had Mr.'Ricardo's
calculations been accurate, Mr. Peel would have been
right in principle, however wrong on the ground of ex-
pediency. But both were decidedly mistaken. Mr. Ri-
cardo, who was looked up to as an authority, was no au-
thority at all. His criterion was false, his calculations
erroneous. The measure was, consequently, based upon
error, and was, in point of fact, one of the greatest poli-
tical blunders ever committed.

Mercator, it would appear, considers the bill of 1819
as the healing measure, and act of indemnity for the
wrong inflicted upon the nation by the suspension of
cash payments in 1797. Speaking of that suspension he
says, "the mass of irresponsible paper circulation to
which it gave rise, and with which the country was in-
undated—the wild and unbounded speculations for which
it supplied the means—the ultimate destruction of con-
fidence which ensued—the panics and convulsions in the
mercantile and monied communities which it produced,
and the ruin it entailed on thousands of its credulous vic-
tims," &c. &c.

This is strong language, and these are serious charges
brought against Mr. Pitt and one of the boldest and
most successful measures which he ever adopted. Here,
however, we must again differ from our respected cor-
respondent. In the name of that departed spirit, the

greatest man that England ever produced, who saved his
country and Europe from the infidelity and the demoral-
ization of the French revolution, we deny the charge.
The period of the suspension of cash payments was that
in which this country made the most rapid strides in com-
mercial and manufacturing enterprise which is known in
the history of the world. Compare the prosperity that
shone upori. us from 1797 to 1816, with the poverty, the
insolvency, the turbulence, the discontent, and the misery
which have prevailed from 1819 to 1833, and we shall at
once see how the balance turns and where the truth lies.
Since 1819 there have been more bankrupts and insolvents,
more compoundings on the part of debtors—more panics
and convulsions—more distress among the people—more
embarrassment in all the leading branches of industry—
more vice and more criminals in England, than during
the whole of the war. We do not mean to say that we
owe the former entirely to the suspension bill, and the
latter to Peel's bill ; but this we do say, that we owe al-
most entirely the manufacturing, commercial, and agri-
cultural prosperity of the former period to the paper
currency. But for that paper Manchester would not have
been half its present size—Cheltenham would not have
been the residence of so many rich and retired trades-
men—Paisley would have been a little dirty unknown
town—Liverpool would not at this hour contain 200,000
inhabitants, nor a moiety of its churches and public
buildings; nor a line of docks the most splendid in Eu-
rope. It was the paper money that made our manufac •
turers lords, and our merchants princes—that has studded
our island with costly mansions, and noble halls, and
magnificent vistas terminating in some turreted retreat,
the owner of which perhaps, or the owner's father, was
an humble weaver.

In illustration of this let us take the instance of the
first Sir Robert Peel, and let us hear his own words. He
has repeatedly declared, in speech and pamphlet, that he
owed his success in the world, and his splendid fortune,
partly it is true to his own industry and enterprise, but
chiefly to the facilities which the paper currency gave to
these exertions. He assured the meeting at the London
Coffee House, over which he presided, and which was
held, we think, in 1819, that it was his interest as an in-
dividual to support his son's bill—that if it became a law
it would "double his fortune" —but interested as he was,
he would oppose it for the sake of his country. It was a
noble and inimitable burst of patriotism ! He had the
prescience to see all that has since happened—he saw the
'calamities that were coming upon his country—he was
willing to make every sacrifice to avert these calamities
—he warned us of our danger, but he warned in vain !
We agree with Mercator that faith must be kept with
the public creditor; but it would have been no breach
of faith to have paid him in the same kind of currency
in which he lent us his money. He did not lend us gold
—he did not lend us silver—he lent us paper—notes of
the Bank of England, or a certain measure of labour,
measured by the current value of these notes. Why
then pay him in gold ? But supposing that there had
been a specific contract to pay the public creditor in gold,
which there was not, why compel every other obligant,
who contracted in paper, to pay in gold ?. Our corres-
pondent, if we understand him correctly, will not admit
that the obligant was robbed in 1819. We.most respect-
fully submit that he was robbed, and we call . Sir Robert
Peel himself to prove our case. Sir Robert admitted
that the currency was depreciated four per cent. in 1819.
Forty per cent., in our opinion, would have been nearer
the truth ; but be it four or be it forty, it was robbery.
If one of Lord John Russell's three-and-tenpenny
householders were to pick Mercator's pocket of a shilling
or a sovereign he would be equally a thief. If the debtor
therefore—the tenant under a lease—the administrator
under a will—the obligant under a mortgage for instance
—be compelled to pay, four per cent. more than he was
otherwise bound to pay we Insist that he was defrauded,
and the moral wrong is not less a wrong on the ground
that it was committed by parliament. This is our strong-
est argument in defence of the planters and proprietors
of the West Indies. If parliament do wrong, it is bound
in justice to makes restitution, and if this justice be not
done, then justice is a mockery in England

IN the evidence of Mr. Raynes before the Committee
on the Liverpool Election, and which appeared in the last
number of the STANDARD, a mistake has crept in which
we hasten to correct. Mr. Raynes is asked, "Do you
know Allan Bland at all ? The printed answer is "yes,"
but it should be "no ;" the witness did not know the man
at all.

By the way we have now printed nearly the whole of
the evidence, and our next number probably will close it.
In thus submitting to our readers the first glance at the
extraordinary trash produced by • Mr. Win. Rathbone,
and facetiously termed evidence, we have unwittingly
spoiled a nice small job which was in preparation by some
of our ingenious contemporaries. They have for the
last few days been busy in making up a book—printing
off the minutes which we have already published—in or-
der to turn a shilling, and make an honest penny by their
sale. We are sore afraid, however, that we have spoiled
both their fun and their profits. We have forestalled
them, by quicker sailing, and raked the market, at which
of course they are exceeding wroth.
But why don't they publish the evidence, if evidence
we must call it, in their several newspapers ? Are they
interdicted ? Or, are they ashamed ? We have given
it almost verbatim. They might take it from us, for they
are welcome. Their readers, if they have any who do not
see the STANDARD, would be greatly obliged and very
much diverted. But the secret, we suspect, is, that they
dare not. They are under bond in this matter. The
stuff is too contemptible to bear further exposure, and
those who produced it, we are confident now wish that
it and all their witnesses were at the bottom of the sea.
But we. have not done with the business, although it is
now admitted that the committee have.

BONDING CoTroN.—Nearly 70,000 bags of cotton having been im-
ported since our last, and all that now arrives being bonded until the
period.for the reduction of the duty on cotton shall arrive, the bonded
warehouses are tilled to overflowing. The King's warehouses and
even the Custom-house yard are filled with the staple ; but so heavy
have been the imports that Sunday' as it was, the east side of Canning-
place, opposite the Custom-house, was crowded with carts loaded
with cotton, the King's otlicers nut having room to warehouse many
thousand bags.