The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-12-03 00:00:00

ad of ac

lie Irish

anted U

,sen tativ

against

at all, that

taste of

'' good time cozy

are not only to ha

)rs, re

lash into fury the
unrellecting of

brutal y

unbounded it
Catholic uriel

may call

of Irish labourers, and

" All T

Romanist

;ea to preserve

death o
and fair

zation of

the first speci-

ich Rome

Nieves I

triumphs, wl
mand, we mi

sical force at her coin

ask the question

far is th

orne with their

We have

entrai

to our

ping the faith of our children, and c

the bludgeons of ruffi

eresy,

to root

it out, or to el
some the du'

mut' It

now 1

every

and rel
al to ht

throne

3, who

inviolate the purl

bo maintain
f his home

and his c

in the first instance by the City Correspondent of
the London Times that silver has appreciated re-
cently about three per cent.; or, in other words,
that our golden pound will exchange for less silver
by three per cent. than previously. Thz.. Manchester
Guardian also admits the fact; and that it has
taken place "concurrent with shipments from
California on a much larger scale than heretofore,

and more in accordance with the expectations which
the public were led to entertain from the highly-
coloured accounts which have from time to time
appeared in the Californian newspapers, and in
letters from that country which have been !Jib-
lished in the journals of the United States." True
to his character, however, our contemporary tries
to weaken the force of biz admission by suggesting
special reasons why silver may have appreciated,
and the recent rise be only temporary. Amongst
these are the substitution of a silver for a gold cur-

rency in Holland, and the large demand for silver
caused by the warlike movements in Germany.
We may remind him, however, of the extensive
substitution of gold for silver in the United States,
where thirty millions dollars worth of Californian
gold have already passed through the Mint, and
now form the chief metallic circulation of the
country.

A greater authority than the Guardian, however,
—the editor of the London Times,—in a leading
article on Wednesday last, has treated the depreci-
ation of the pound not only as a proved fact, but
as an operation likely to progress until it seriously
changes the monetary obligations of individuals
towards each other. Earl Fitzwilliam, it appears,
following the example of the Duke of Portland, to
which we referred in our last, has announced to
his tenantry that. conceiving that the price of
wheat will for the future "rule low—lower proba-
bly than the present price," he is prepared to enter
into fresh arrangements with them and to accept
reduced rents. The admission of his Lordship is
rather damaging to the free trade party. It con-
cedes the fact that their great experiment is oper-
ating as an act of confiscation of property invested
in the soil of the country; and the Times accord-
ingly strives hard to spew that his Lordship has
determined upon the step announced by him with-
out properly weighing facts, or taking sufficient
time to test the permanent effect of free trade upon
agricultural prices. Amongst the grounds which
he urges for delay in reducing rents is the follow-
ing striking one :
" The effect of Californian gold on the value of our
metallic currency is no longer purely conjectural, when,
within a single twelyemon:h, the value of gold, as com-
pared with silver, has declined as much as 3 per cent. In
the face of arrivals of gold across the Isthmus. as reported
by every American mail, it is impossible but that the inte-
, changeable value of the pound should suffer a considerable
,fall before the expiration of a 14 years' or a 7 years' lease.
There are other important considerations bearing on this
question, but the above are sufficient, in our humble
opinion, to prove that Earl FITZWILLIAM ought to have
very strong, clear, and satisfactory reasons for surrender-
ing his hold of his land at a greatly reduced rent for a long
term of years."

This is plain speaking enough at all events. The
Times would have the landowners of this country
not to submit to " surrender their hold of their
land at a greatly reduced rent for a long term of
years." because the pound is likely to decrease in
its purchasing power; and what he recommends, as
" the only alternative," to save the landowner from
making an improvident bargain, by giving leases
with a stipulated money rent, is " an arrangement
from year to year, reducing the tenant farmer to the
pay and condition of a common farm bail!"
We suspect that, in his anxiety to whitewash in
the eyes of the landowners of England his pet sys-
tem of Free Trade, the Times has struck a most
damaging blow against the bullionist system. The
permanent fixity of value claimed for the commo-
dity, gold, is admitted to exist no longer. A pound
is to be worth nineteen shillings, eighteen shillings,
and to decrease year by year, whilst the farmers of
Great Britain are to remain as " common farm
bailiffs," because no contract for rent can he made
with safety. But did it never occur to our con-
temporary, whilst penning this unhappy production,
that all monetary contracts between man and man
must be similarly affected by the progressive depre-
ciation of the standard of value ? That the creditor,
both national and private, is about to he robbed by
our persisting in recognising as money a commodity
which may shortly become as little worth as iron
and gold ? That we are about, with the sanction
of the bullionists themselves, to pay our debts in
" little shillings ?" If these considerations did not
strike him, we suspect they will lead to an impor-
tant movement some of these days on the part of
the public.

THE regularity with which the mail packet ser-
vice between this country and the United States is
performed by the two splendid lines of steamers,
sailing from this port, is acknowledged. In all
weathers the Cunard and Collins steamships have
been ready to proceed to sea at the hour appointed;
and the punctuality of their arrival at the termina-
tion of their voyages can he depended on with
almost positive certainty. We regret, however, to