The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-06-17 00:00:00

THE WEALTH OF ENGLAND

(From a New York paper.)
It is a common error in this country (America) to imagine
that the riches of England are derived from and dependent
upon her commerce; and the influence of this great mistake
is shown in the many wild suppositions that have been ha-
zarded, touching the effects of our commercial and financial
difficulties upon the financial and political condition of the
wonderful little island. The truth is, that the merchants of
England, with all their great capital and vast extent of ope-
rations, hold but a very small portion of the riches existing
in that country ; and this can be made apparent by a few
simple considerations. Look at the squirearchy, for instance ;
the thousands and thousands of country gentlemen, with
their comfortable incomes of three, or five, or ten thousand
pounds per annum, derived exclusively from the soil, and
the enormous fortunes of the nobility.
Estimate, if it can be estimated, the immense amount of
treasure in the country, existing in the form of plate and
jewels. Why, at a single dinner given in London, on the
18th June, gold and silver plate to the amount of a million
and a half of dollars was exhibited at once : all the property
of one individual—the Duke of Wellington. This celebrated
personage could have relieved from all their difficulties all
three of the great American houses, which have been com-
pelled to stop, simply by turning over to them his dishes
and tureens, vases, and candelabra, without diminishing his
income one farthing; and there are fifty ladies in London,
any one of whom could have put Messrs. Brown and Co. in
ample funds for all emergencies, merely by making them a
present of her diamonds.
Without taking the crown jewels into account, it is no
doubt susceptible of proof that in London alone there are
gold and silver plate and jewels to the amount of two hun-
dred millions of dollars, and it must be remembered that
mighty as London is, the wealth of the kingdom in wrought
gold and silver, is very far from being centred there. An im-
mense quantity of it is scattered among the castles and coun-
try seats of the nobility, such as Alnwick Castle, Blenheim,
Chatsworth, Belvoir, Woburn Abbey, Bowood, and a hun-
dred others which we could name, and among the lovely
mansions of the country gentlemen, with which the whole
surface is dotted by thousands. Think of the libraries and
galleries, the immense and almost priceless collections of pic-
tures and statues, and costly works of art, in which no coun-
try in the world is richer. Why, the whole mercantile wealth
of England is but an item of comparatively trifling magni-
tude. The non-payment of debt, if it were not paid, which,
thank heaven, it soon will be, so far from inflicting a mortal
blow upon the prosper,
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It is a cu-ious fact, that many of the smaller shopkeepers
in London are establishing a kind of rivalry among each
other, by offering to take light sovereigns at the least loss to
their customers. Thus, while one will take them at 19s. 70.,
another will take them, at 195. 9d. The profits made thus
may be a sort of counterbalance with a few shopkeepers to
the inconveniences they are obliged to sustain, but it must
not be for a moment considered as any mitigation of the real
evil.