Commons Sitting of 8 May 1811

PETITION OF THE PROPRIETORS OR NEWSPAPERS IN IRELAND.
A Petition of several Proprietors of Newspapers in Ireland, was presented and read; setting forth,
"That from time to time it had been thought expedient by the legislature of Ireland, to lay duties upon advertisements, and down to the last session of parliament, the duty stood at one British shilling for every ten lines of the length of twenty em's of the letter called Long Primer, used in printing; and that notwithstanding this duty, when charged upon long advertisements, increased to a degree considerably exceeding the duty upon advertisements in England, yet the tax in Ireland had been for years progressively increasing, and its operation had been more favourable to the public revenue in the last year than at any preceding; and that an improved spirit in the diurnal press of Ireland, had turned the public attention to the Irish newspapers; and a proportionate desire for advertising, accompanied their extension and popularity; that this growing desire in the public being at the same; time aided by corresponding efforts in the respective proprietors of newspapers to invite advertisements, there was every rational ground to hope that the public revenue would have received progressive accessions of increase, especially as the duty was not so heavy upon advertisements of a moderate length as to discourage the proprietors from inserting many at some risk of ever deriving any advantage from the insertion of them; and that in the last session an act was passed, doubling the tax upon advertisements, which measure had an immediate effect in diminishing the profits of the petitioners; without producing the effect of a proportionate-increase of the public revenue; and that the petitioners have made inquiry into the amount of the duty paid before the tax upon advertisements had been doubled,

1013
and also since, and that from the best information they have been able to obtain, the produce of the duty upon advertisements in the Dublin newspapers alone, from the 5th of January 1810 to the 31st of March next ensuing was 2,137 l. 7s. 6d.; and that from the 31st of March to the 30th of June following it amounted to 2,022 l. 7s. 6d. making a gross sum in that period of 4,159 l. 15 s.; and that the new duty commenced on the 16th of July, and including sixteen days of the old duty, the gross amount of the produce of advertisements from the 30th of June to the 30th of September 1810 was 2,175 l. 6s. 8d.; from the 30th of September to the 5th of January 1819 the gross duty was 2,755 l. 11 s. 2d. making a gross sum from the 30th of June 1810 to the 5th of January 1811, of 4,930 l. 17 s. 10 d.; and that although there appears to be an increase in the produce of the double tax of 771 l. 2s. 10 d. yet this is to be accounted for by the institution of two daily newspapers, and a third published weekly, the duty upon the advertisements contained in which gave a gross sum of 1,000 l. 16 s. 4d. towards the sum before mentioned of 4,930 l. 17 s. 10 d; and that from the above premises it is conclusive, that if those new newspapers had not been set up subsequent to the 16th of July, the duty upon advertisements, though doubly taxed, would have been less productive than with the old tax; and that a part of this produce is in fact charged upon government proclamations, and therefore does not in reality add any thing to the revenue of the state; and that the petitioners were led to understand that the principle of the tax was to establish a ratio whereby advertisements in Ireland should be subject to two thirds of the duty payable thereon in England, but they find that the scale was to extend no farther than to advertisements under twenty lines; and that, from twenty lines up to any indefinite number, the duty payable in Ire land exceeds that payable in England by a progressive increase; which makes an advertisement, in any of the petitioners papers, of three hundred lines, liable to a duty of 3l., whilst in England it would be subject to but 3s.; and that; from the doubling the tax upon; advertisements, even those persons whose necessities compel them to advertise at any price, limit their insertions to less than half the number of times they would otherwise do, by which practice the revenue is not only
1014
reduced, but the petitioners suffer a material loss; and that the revenue arising from newspapers is also otherwise deeply affected by the decrease of advertisements, in as much as those persons who incur the expence of advertising are always interested, and therefore peculiarly anxious to promote the circulation of such papers as contain their advertisements; that also a very numerous class of readers were accustomed to purchase newspapers chiefly for the information to be derived from the advertising columns, to which class, by reason of the decrease in the advertisements in consequence of the additional tax, newspapers have lost a principal recommendation; the joint effect of which is a diminution of the circulation of newspapers, and a serious reduction of that part of the revenue which arises from the duty upon newspaper stamps, amounting to considerably more than the additional tax upon advertising was ever estimated to produce; and that so considerably has the public desire to advertise their general and particular wants through the medium of the newspapers abated, that, even if the duty were reduced to its former rate, it would require some time and inducement to bring back the fugitive business to its former standard; and for this purpose, they conceive that the revenue would be rendered more productive by a moderate rate of duty than the present, which bears no proportion to the means of the general class of advertisers: and that the periodical press of Ireland labours under hardships and obstructions peculiar to itself, not only in consequence of the duty on' advertisements in Ireland being commonly four, six, and frequently ten times greater than that imposed upon advertisements of the same length in England, but also because the proprietors are deprived of various advantages enjoyed by the English proprietors of newspapers; and that they particularly refer to the discount allowed On the payment of their stamp duties respectively; the Irish proprietor being allowed only one and a half per cent. discount, to Which it was reduced the last session of parliament, while the allowance in England is upwards of seventeen and a half percent.; and praying the House to reestablish the former rate of taxation upon advertisements, viz. one shilling British for every ten line, and further to limit that duty, so that in on case it shall exceed the sum an advertisement of the same number of lines

1015
would be liable to England and also that such regulations may be made with respect to the discount allowed on newspaper stamps in Ireland as may place the petitioners upon an equal footing with the proprietors of newspapers in England."
Ordered to lie upon the table.

PETITON FROM THE CITY OF LONDON RESPECTING BETHLEM HOSPITAL.
A Petition of tae mayor and commonalty and citizens of the City of London, masters guardians and governors of the house and hospital called Bethlem, situate without and near to Bishopsgate, of the said city of London, Was brought up and read; setting forth, "That the hospital for lunatics or insane persons, called the house or hospital of Bethlem, situate in Moor-fields, in the city of London, is a very antient brick building, and is become so ruinous as not to be capable of being in any way Well and sufficiently repaired, in consequence where of a considerable part hath been lately taken down; and that it has been thought expedient that a building of proper extent and accommodation; should be erected for the reception and support of curable and incurable lunatics; and that the said hospital of Bethlem, independently of the great advantage arising the from to the public at Varge, has always received and harboured great numbers of the soldiers and Sailors of his Majesty's army and navy, where by a very great saving hath annually, for a long period of time, accrued to his Majesty's government, which would have been other wise under the necessity of maintaining those unfortunate objects at the private houses established for the reception of such as are afflicted with derangement; and that it is the object and intention of the petitions in such new hospital intended to be erected (if the petitioners shall be put in a condition to erect the same), to appropriated considerable portion of such establishment to the use of his Majesty's soldiers and sailors; and that the funds of the said hospital, being altogether inadequate to the erection of a new building for the reception of lunatics, without the assistance of parliament in furtherance of so useful and benevolent a perpose the House was pleased, in the year 1806 to grant to the petitioners, on their application, the sum of 10,000 l. the petitioners having it at that time in to the new building on land Islington belonging to the Drapers'
1016
Company, which intention the petitioners were however unable to carry into execution, in consequence of the Bill for effectuating such purchase not having met with the approbation of parliament, the said company appearing to be trustees of such land for a specific charitable purpose, and the same being therefore considered to be inalienable without the undertaking of the master and wardens of the said company that the money to be received for the said land should be laid out in the purchase of other land to be settled to the same uses which the said master and wardens did not feel themselves at liberty to give; and that, since the unfavourable termination of such treaty, the petitioners have come to an agreement with the city of London for an exchange of the site of the present hospital, containing about two acres and aft half, for certain land belonging to the city; situate in Saint George's fields, containing about eleven acres and three quarters, on which spot the patients will possess such superior advantages of air and exercise, as they have never yet enjoyed, and which agreement has been ratified by an act of the 50th year of his present Majesty; and that the whole of the funds actually belonging to the petitioners, applicable to the purpose of erecting a new hospital, including the said sum of 10,000 l, amounts to the sum of 28,000 l., or thereabouts, to which are to be added the savings which may accrue from such-part of the income of the hospital as can be appropriated to that purpose, and from the benevolent subscriptions of individuals; and that a plan hath been lately submitted to the petitioners by their surveyor, comprising within itself a building for 200 patients and for 400 patients, either of which designs can be executed as shall be judged most advisable, and as the petitioners shall be thereto aided and assisted by the liberality of parliament; and that the estimate for the building to contain 200 lunatics amounts to the sum of 85,000 l., and that the petitioners were prevented applying to the House before the time limited for receiving private petitions was expired, by reason that his Majesty's sanction of such an application could not be obtained sooner; and praying, that leave may be given to present a petition for the purpose above mentioned."
Ordered, That the said Petition be referred to a Committee, with power to send for persons, papers, and records.

PETITIONS FROM PAISLEY AND LANARK RESPECTING THE COTTON MANUFACTURE, &c.
Lord Archibald Hamiltonpresented a Petition of several persons residing in the town of Paisley and Suburbs thereof; setting forth, setting forth,
"That the petitioners, in consequence of the depressed condition of trade, have of late been subjected to difficulties unknown at any former period; and that at present such is the low state of the Cotton Manufactures, that great numbers have been thrown out of employment, and the wages of those that are employed have in general, within the last ten months, been reduced two thirds so that it requires great exertions for an individual to procure the necessaries of life; and such is the general distress, that of a population of about 30,000, upwards of 1,200 families, who formerly supported themselves by their own industry, are reduced to the necessity of receiving precarious and temporary assistance from their humane and more wealthy neighbours; and that the present calamity, though first felt by the manufacturers and operatives, has not been confined to them alone, but has extended to almost every rank and profession, involving in ruin many respectable individuals of large capital; bankruptcy has succeeded bankruptcy such an alarming extent as nearly to destroy all confidence betwixt the manufacturer and merchant; and that the present depressed state of our manufactures is chiefly owing to the exclusion of our commerce from the continent of Europe, and the stoppage of our trade with America, in consequence of the orders in council and the blockading system; and that the present mode of returning members to the House by such a small part of the population is the primary cause of the evils which this country labours under, as it destroys that connection which ought to exist between the people and their representatives; and that a full fair and free representation of the people in parliament, is absolutely necessary, not only to give energy to the state but confidence to the people, who, being restored to that place and those privileges in the constitution to which they are well entitled, would cheerfully submit to the sacrifices which they might be called upon to make, in order to preserve the independence, and promote the welfare of their country; and praying the House to take into consideration the present alarming state of the country, and to adopt such
1018
measures as may appear to them best calculated to afford relief."
Mr. Curwendid, not see how any relief could be afforded, but though a friend to reform, he was convinced that their distresses had been as fully attended to as they could under any plan of representation.
The Petition was ordered to lie on the Table.
Mr. Houstounpresented a Petition of several heritors, manufacturers, merchants, mechanics, and labourers of all denominations, residing in Lanark, Ayr, and Renfrew shires, and the manufacturing places adjacent, which was read; setting forth,
"That, in consequence of a rapid decline of trade, and a general stagnation of business, the labouring classes of the Petitioners have been of late subjected to sufferings exceeding in extent and severity any thing of the kind ever known in that part of the kingdom; and that at present, such is the reduced and ruined state of the Cotton Manufacture, with which the evil originated, and with which every other profession uniformly suffers, that, of 30,000 looms, which were all employed in June last, about 15,00 are, at present unoccupied, and the weavers, wandering in all directions in search of work of any kind, which can rarely be found, while an equal number of women and children, or others, who depended on these chiefly, if not wholly, for employment, are also laid idle; and that even those weavers who are at present employed, owing to an unprecedented reduction of prices, cannot average more than five shillings per week, after deducting unavoidable expences, a sum not sufficient for an individual, and bearing no proportion to the maintenance of a family; and that a common, rate pf prices for weaving was drawn up and agreed to by the manufacturers there in 1792, which both, parties considered fair and reasonable, and though temporary fluctuations in trade sometimes occasioned trifling deviations, yet so long as the said regulations were considered the common standard, so long the Cotton Manufacture flourished; but these were unfortunately broke through, and an irregular mode of payment substituted in their place.; disorder of Course overran the trade, and an ill-directed parsimony on the part of the several manufacturing individuals accelerated, the mischief, and has at last completed the ruin irregularity had unhappily begun; one manufacturer broke

1019
his price, and another followed his example, till contending with one another for the cheapest made goods, the conscientious employer, willing to let his workmen live by their industry, was at last forced also to reduce his prices, to secure himself a chance in the market; and that to such an alarming extent has this erroneous scheme of reducing the weaver's wages been carried, that the prices paid at present do not amount, in many instances, to more than one fourth, and on a fair average are not equal to one third of that paid for the same fabrics twenty-eight years ago; so that, taking the advance on provisions, house and shop rent, and on the implements used by the weaver into the account, the price at present paid for weaving twenty-four yards of some fabrics will not procure more of these necessary articles than the price of three yards of the same fabrics would have procured at the above period, nor what four and a half yards would have paid for in 1792: in this way have the operatives been reduced to poverty, and in place of their employers being benefited by their loss, unless in a few fortunate instances, it has contributed, perhaps more than any other circumstance, to the general bankruptcy, and the present low state of commercial credit; nor was it possible it could do otherwise, every reduction of wages having a direct tendency to reduce the market, not merely for goods made at reduced prices, but also the value of the whole manufactured stock undisposed of, obliging the speculator who had overreached his capital to sell below prime cost to save his credit; and that the present sweeping calamity, so rapid and destructive in its progress, and which the petitioners are convinced has been brought about, in no small degree, by this system of reduction though first felt by the Cotton Manufacturers and Weavers, has by no means been confined to their deportment of trade, the petitioners of every other profession depending in one way or other on the above branch, have all in their turn been involved, and are at present suffering a share of the general distress; a very considerable number of the journey men house carpenters, cabinet makers, and tailors, are out of employment, while those engaged are generally limited in their working hours; the blacksmiths, masons, and, others connected with buildings are also but partially employed even at reduced wages; and the peti-
1020
tioners in general are one third of the whole, entirely destitute of work; and that the petitioners are aware that some of the facts above stated may appear exaggerated, but, conscious that the most incredible circumstance can be attested by any number of witnesses, they are ready to substantiate them before a Committee of the House; and praying the House to take the urgent case of the labouring: classes of that part of the kingdom into consideration, and devise such means for their relief as may appear best calculated to afford them employment, and wages."
Ordered to lie on the Table.

REPORT OF THE BULLION COMMITTEE.
The House having resolved itself into a Committee of the whole House to consider further of the Report of the Bullion Committee, Mr. Lushington in the Chair,
Mr. Parnellrose and spoke nearly as follows:
Mr. Lushington; Before I proceed to enter upon the subject, immediately before the Committee, I wish to deny the accuracy of the assertion of the noble lord (Castlereagh), "That the Committee whose Report is now under consideration had retroceded from their original opinion." Having been a member of that Committee, and well acquainted with the sentiments of those members who sanctioned the Report, I distinctly declare that there has not been among them any retrocession of opinion.—I wish also to make some observations upon a charge brought forward against the Committee by the noble lord, a charge, which has been repeatedly urged out of doors, "That the Committee were guilty of a great breach of duty in having framed: a Report containing doctrines and com elusions diametrically opposite to the evidence of all the witnesses, except two, that they called before them "It does not seem to me to be necessary, in order to defend the Committee, to question the accuracy of this assertion, for though it would he easy to shew, that the facts admitted by many of the witnesses, formed a complete refutation of their own doctrines, I prefer to allow the assertion to stand uncontradicted, and to endeavour to prove that the Committee acted wisely in not suffering themselyes to be entirely guided by the opinions given in the evidence.
The Committee had a duty imposed on them by the House of this description; to

1021
decide upon a great and difficult question, in respect to which, on one side, the principles of a very abstruse science were to be attended to, and on the other the details of the most complicated facts, and the most intricate practices of trade, were to be unravelled. The science of the case they were able to learn from books of established authority; the facts and the practices they could only discover by the examination of those, who by profession were the most conversant with them. They therefore did not call before them men of great learning in the science of political economy, or those who were most competent to give opinions, but those men in business, who in the public estimation, were considered to be the best qualified to give that information on matters of fact which was wanting to regulate the extent, to which the principles of science were applicable, to enable them to form a correct judgment on the case to be decided upon. They did not select witnesses whose opinions were known to lean to the conclusions that the principles of political economy offered; but they selected those who peculiarly claim the character of being, in the strictest sense, the decided advocates of those inferences which mere practice suggests. In doing so, it seems to me, that the Committee acted in the most correct and impartial manner; that they could not have adopted any course so well calculated to enable them to form a just and safe decision. They almost seemed to declare by so doing, that they were sensible of being liable to be led astray by a leaning in favour of the abstract maxims of science; and that they wished to expose any pre-existing opinions, they might have formed, to the test of the severest trial which they could discover. I there fore think that the conduct of the Committee in examining those only who were mere practical men, which is the cause of the evidence being all one way, so far from being censurable, should secure to them the praise and confidence of the House; If it were an object to have avoided this charge of censure, it would have been easily attained; it was only necessary for the Committee to have followed the example of the Secret Committee of 1797, and to have examined one of their own members, the member for Southwark (Mr. H. Thornton), and in this way, they might have given in evidence those sentiments so ably delivered by him in the first night's debate in favour of the Report.
1022
If the committee had examined witnesses, all of whom concurred in opinion with that hon. member, then indeed they might have been exposed to blame in having adopted a course exactly opposite to this, they certainly evinced the greatest Candour, and the best proof of their inclination to discharge most faithfully and most impartially the great duty imposed upon them.
I now beg permission to say a few Words upon he value of the evidence given by that description of persons, whom it is the fashion to extol as so very superior to men of science, I mean those who are called "practical men," or "men in business;" I feel that I tread on very safe grounds, an have the sanction of the highest authorities, when I say that the evidence of persons of this description ought to be received with caution; for if there is one doctrine more firmly established than another by those who have most studied their character, it s this, that men in business are commonly most ignorant of the science of the particular business which constitutes their profession.
It is certainly true, that among men in business there are to be found those who are eminently distinguished for their scientific acquirements concerning the principles of trade. This fact could not be more fully illustrated than by the great number of practical men, who have so ably treated this subject, but those form an exception to the general rule, for experience shows that the science of the practice of trade, and the science of its principles, are not often found together. There is another reason why the evidence of practical men on this particular subject, should not be held to be infallible. All men in business are interested in preserving the paper system, and preventing a recurrence to the practice of those barbarous times, as they were called by a noble lord (Castlereagh) when the circulating medium consisted of coin. While this was the case all person in trade Were under the necessity of keeping by them considerable sums, at a great, loss, to meet the daily demands to which they were subject, and thus the profits of their capital were so far diminished, But in proportion as the paper system has been introduced into general use, and has been extended beyond its natural limits, the accommodation derived from it has enabled them to dispense with keeping those large sums of money idle, and to convert the whole of their capital into direct

1023
profit. It is in this way that all men in business actually have a beneficial interest in opposing the principles which the science of political economy has established; and it is for this reason, and this only, that so much censure has been heaped on the Bullion Committee for adopting these principles. I do not say that all men in business are misled in their opinions by this consideration, but it may easily be conceived, that the majority of them, educated in details and not accustomed to extended views, might, without attributing to them any improper motive, be led to make their opinions agree with their interest. So far, then, as the evidence given before the Committee was the evidence of men in business, or practical men, the Committee would have failed in their duty to the House, and proved themselves most ignorant and incapable of their trust, had they given implicit credit to it. Though the witnesses might be men of great knowledge, as they were interested witnesses, they were as little entitled to credit before the Committee, as they would have been before a court of law. In taking, however, so much evidence of this kind, the Committee has proved their impartiality, and desire of collecting every possible information. If the Committee had consisted wholly of men of science or theory, as it is now the fashion to call it, and had only examined persons of the same character, there might be some colour of reason to distrust them; but when men not more distinguished for their science than their practical knowledge are to be found among them, and a great number of men in business support the doctrines of the Report, their deliberate opinion is surely entitled to the confidence of the House and the public.
Several gentlemen who have spoken in this debate have blamed the Committee for not having adverted more fully in their Report to the late rise of prices. The reason, I apprehend, why they did not do so was, that they conceived they had not the requisite information in evidence before them. Had the information appeared to me to have been as complete as I have since ascertained it to be, I should have felt it my duty to have proposed in the Committee such an addition to the Report as would have removed this ground of censure.
As it is of the greatest importance that the cause of the rise of prices should be
1024
well understood, I shall now trouble the Committee with some observations on that head. Almost the only point, on which the utmost unanimity has prevailed, in the course of the discussion, was this, that prices had lately risen excessively. It has also been generally allowed that the rise has been equally great in the prices of all things. It is material that this should be stated to be the case, for then no cause of this rise can be considered as a good one, if it only accounts for a rise in the prices of some particular things, and not of goods in general. The author of a work entitled "Practical Observations," has said, that the Committee should have inquired into the effects of taxes and scarcity upon prices, before they alledged the advance of prices as a proof of a depreciation of paper. The answer to be given to this author is a very short one. Taxes and scarcity may account for the rise of the prices of some particular things, but neither of them can account for a rise of the prices of goods in general; for instance, taxes on the necessaries of life operate as direct taxes on labour; if the labourer who pays the tax be employed by a manufacturer he will charge upon the price of his goods this rise of taxes, and these goods only will be raised in price. If the labourer who pays the tax be employed by a farmer, the final payment Will fall upon the rent of the landlord, and would not even raise the price of the produce of land. It was plain, therefore, that taxation could not be esteemed an adequate cause of the rise of prices in general. So in respect to scarcity; as the high price of corn operates in the way of a direct tax upon wages, it will no more than a tax on wages prove a sufficient cause. So again the improvement of a country will advance the prices of the produce of grazing land, but not of all things, and therefore this cannot be held as a good cause; the conclusion then to be come to is this, which is the conclusion laid down by the ablest writers, that a great and equal rise in the prices of goods in general, can only be occasioned by an alteration in the value of money.
In looking at the state of prices of corn, from the year 1636, when the effect of the discovery of the mines of America, appears to have been completed, to the year 1794, it would be found, that taking a general average of successive periods they had varied very little. From 1657 to 1700, both inclusive, the average price of the quarter of wheat was 2l. 11 s. ½,

1025
from 1701 to 1764, both inclusive, 2l. 6d., and from 1764 to 1793, both inclusive, 2l. 5s. 10 d. But from 1794 to 1808 both inclusive, the price has been 3l. 15 s. 6d. This great rise since 1794 is a circumstance, the explanation of which is of the greatest importance to the present discussion. But so great a variation in price is not without a precedent; a still greater took place after the discovery of the American mines, and as the cause of it has been fully explained by Dr. Adam Smith, it seems to be a safe way of proceeding in looking for the cause of the late rise, to follow the course of reasoning which he has adopted. Though objections have been made to his doctrine, that the prices of corn formed the best standard for calculating the value of money, and though it may be liable to be considered as inconsistent with his reasonings about labour as a standard of value, still it has been allowed by every one to be sufficiently accurate for the purpose of ascertaining the value of the precious metals; and that part therefore of his work which relates to them, has been generally: received as of established authority. The facts which he states as to the rise of the price of corn are these: "In 1350, and for some time before, the average price of the quarter of wheat in England seems not to have been estimated lower than four ounces of silver, equal to about 20 s. of our money. From this price it seems to have fallen gradually to two ounces of silver, equal to about 10 s. of our present money, the price at which it was estimated, in the beginning of the 16th century, and at which it seems to have continued to be estimated till about 1570 From 1595 to 1621, both inclusive, the average price of the quarter of middle wheat was 1l. 12 s. 8d.8/5 or about 6⅓ ounces of silver. From 1621 to 1636, both inclusive, the average price of the quarter of middle wheat was 1l. 19 s. 6d. or about 7⅔ ounces of silver"
"The discovery of the abundant mines of America" (he says) "seems to have been the sole cause of this, diminution, in the value of silver in proportion to that of corn; it is accounted, for accordingly, in the same manner by every body, and there, never has been any dispute either about the fact, or about the cause of it."
Again he says, "when after the discovery of the abundant mines of America, corn rose to three and four times its former price, this change was universally ascribed,
1026
not to any rise in the real value of corn but to a fall in the real value of silver."
The conclusion then to be drawn from this precedent, and from the writings of Dr. A. Smith, is this, that a great nominal rise in the price of corn, is a proof of a great fall in the real value of the precious metals, in which the price is estimated. Let us then apply this case and this conclusion to the recent advance of prices, with a view of ascertaining whether the value of gold has risen or fallen. The price of the quarter of wheat from 1764, the period to which he brought down his tables of prices, to 1794, both inclusive, was 2l. 5s. 10 d., and, may be estimated at 280 grains of gold. The price of the quarter of wheat from 1795 to 1808 both inclusive, was 3l. 15 s. 6d., but the market price of gold, having, been greater than the mint price, for the last nine years, a proportional deduction from the; prices of three years should be made, which will reduce the average to 3l. 14 s. 2d.¼ and may be estimated at 457 grains of gold.* The real value of
* The Price of the Quarter of Wheat statute measure.

£.

s.

d.

1765

2

2

8

1766

1

18

3

1767

2

11

11

1768

2

7

10

1769

1

16

1

1770

1

18

8

1771

2

7

2

1772

2

10

8

1773

2

11

0

1774

2

12

8

1775

2

3

4

1776

1

18

2

1777

2

5

6

1778

2

2

0

1779

1

13

8

1780

1

15

8

1781

2

4

8

1782

2

7

10

1783

2

12

8

1784

2

8

10

1785

2

11

10

1786

1

18

10

1787

2

1

2

1788

2

5

0

1789

2

11

2

1790

2

13

2

1791

2

7

0

1792

2

2

11

1793

2

8

11

1027
gold, therefore, seems to have fallen 63 per cent. It may be said that the scarcity of 1800 and 1801, was the cause of the high price of corn during the last four years, and not a fall in the real value of gold. But in answer to such a reason I would say, though these were unquestionably very scarce years, some of the following years were very abundant; and besides, it must be remembered, that the ports have been open to the importation of grain as completely as if there existed no law to prevent it. But there is one circumstance which I think will fully settle every doubt upon the question, which is this; in the year 1740, which was a year of extraordinary scarcity, the quarter of the best wheat did not ever rise higher than 2l. 10 s. 8d.; in 1807, when the market was overstocked with grain, and the prices fell very low, 2l. 7s. was the lowest price of the quarter of wheat in London. This fact alone is sufficient to shew that the late advance in prices is not owing to scarce seasons.—If we examine the state of prices in other

1794

2

11

8

29)66

9

10

Average

£2

5

10

1795

3

14

2

1796

3

17

1

1797

2

13

1

1798

2

10

3

1799

3

7

6

1800

5

13

7

1801

5

18

3

1802

3

7

5

1803

2

16

6

1804

3

0

1

1805

4

7

10

1806

3

19

0

1807

3

13

3

1808

3

19

0

52

17

0

Deducting 2½ per cent. on the prices of the last 9 years, in consequence of gold being at 4l. per ounce

0

18

4½

14)51

18

8

Average

3

14

2¼

The prices from 1764 to 1770 both inclusive are taken from Smith's Corn Tracts, p. 128. The prices from 1770, from the App. Bul. Rep.
1028
countries it will appear that a corresponding alteration has taken place. The accounts, in the Appendix to the Report of the Bullion Committee, of the prices of the corn in Spain, establish these facts; that from 1765 to 1794 both inclusive, the average price of the fanega of wheat was 35 reals vellon, and from 1795 to 1804, both inclusive, 55 reals vellon. A variation proving that the real value of silver has fallen in the proportion of 11 to 7 or 57 per cent. The right hon. gent., the Treasurer of the Navy, has told us that prices have advanced in France in as great a degree as here, and the right hon. member (Mr. Vansittart) bears testimony of a similar advance in Prussia. Though these prices in Spain, France and Prussia, were calculated in silver, and though the value of silver in proportion to gold has been gradually decreasing, still the just inference to be drawn from, them is, that the real value of gold has fallen very considerably; because the decrease in the value of silver as compared with gold throughout Europe, does not appear to be greater than in the proportion which 1–15 bears to 1–16. There is some difficulty in accounting for this fall in the value of gold, because there is no evidence of the produce of the mines having of late been greater than usual. The only ostensible circumstance that has happened to account for it is the universal substitution throughout Europe of paper money for coin. This, probably, has produced a considerable effect in diminishing the demand for gold, and in sending, an unusual great quantity of it into the bullion market, because gold coin is that whose place is first supplied by paper The right hon. gent., the Treasurer of the Navy, has computed the stock of gold coin of this country before the restriction of cash payments in 1797, at 35 millions; of these he says, there are not three remaining. Now as the whole annual supply of the gold, mines of all the world is only 2,215,283 l.*, the addition of 32 millions of gold bullion from these countries only, to the ordinary and regular stock brought to market, must have produced a very considerable effect in lowering its value. It has appeared in the course of the debate; that the Bank paper, in Austria amounts to eight millions sterling, and that of Paris to 4 millions: we have also been told, that the quantity of paper, circulating in Sweden, Denmark, Russia and Portugal
* See Appx to Bullion Report.

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is so great, that it is at a discount of from 20 to 80 per cent; from all which facts it is evident, that a new mine has been opened, a paper mine; which, by so extensively supplying the place of gold, must have produced a considerable effect in lowering its real value.
If, Sir, the facts and reasonings which I have advanced warrant this conclusion, I conceive I have established one of the greatest importance towards a correct decision of the question before us; because the position on which pearly all the arguments that have been urged against the report of the Committee, both in pamphlets out of doors and speeches here, is an assumption that the price of gold has risen, and not merely risen but risen very excessively.
I see the right hon. gent. the Chancellor of the Exchequer, does not allow the accuracy of my conclusion, that he seems to hold it very cheap; he cannot, however, overturn it by a mere expression of his disapprobation of it, because the argument is not a fanciful one of my own invention, but one drawn from the very highest authority upon the subject immediately under our consideration. When the right hon. gent shall favour the Committee with his sentiments on the motion before us, if the shall think proper to attempt to overturn the conclusion that I have come to, that gold has fallen in value, he certainly may be able to do so, but he will only be able so to do, by shewing that the facts which I have stated concerning the prices of corn are not correct; because, in order to controvert the reasonings I have made use of upon them, he will have no less a task to perform than that of confuting the greater part of the ablest and most approved doctrines to be found in the works of Dr. Smith. I have adhered strictly to those doctrines; I have taken the prices of corn as a standard of value, as he has done; I have examined the possible effects of scarce seasons on the price of corn, as he has done; and I have shewn a corresponding advance of prices abroad, as he did also, in order to make a complete parallel course of reasoning with his on the same subject If I have done so correctly, I hope to have effected a point of great moment with regard to the present debate; no less than to have taken away the whole basis of the doctrines contended for on the other side.
In the last pamphlet which has been published with a view of exposing the
1030
doctrines of the Bullion Committee, and which may be considered as a sort of summary of all that has been written before on that side of the question, I mean the pamphlet of Lord Rosse, I find this general inference, "from these causes" (the war and its consequences) "the price of gold has risen, is rising, and we must expect that it will rise more and more." This is the language also of the noble lord (Castlereagh) whose speech, by the way; is a complete counterpart of this pamphlet; and it has also been the language of the right hon. gentleman, the Treasurer of the Navy. The Treasurer of the Navy founds upon this supposed rise of the value of gold, his whole argument against the expediency of making the Bank resume cash payments. He says the value of gold is become excessively high, therefore it is excessively scarce, and therefore it would be absolutely impracticable for the Bank to procure the quantity of it, that would be wanting to enable it to pay in cash. But according to a more accurate way of speaking of the value of gold, if to judge and speak of it according to the principles of Dr. A. Smith is a more accurate way, the whole of the reasonings of the noble lords and the right hon. gentleman, and also of about twenty or thirty pamphlets, are wholly void of foundation.
Having examined in what degree the advance of prices depend upon an alteration in the value of gold; I will now proceed to shew what part of it is owing to an alteration in the value of Bank paper. But in so doing, I have nothing more to say, than what has been said so often before, that this alteration is exactly in the proportion which the market price bears to the Mint price of gold. This is a doctrine that no one can deny without at the same time denying the existence of a legal standard of money in this country. If a speech could produce conviction in this House, that of an hon. member on the opposite bench (Mr. Huskisson) would have settled all dispute about this question of the standard. As, however, it seems to have failed to do so, and as the establishing of the fact, that coin possesses value, only in proportion to the bullion it contains, is of great moment, I shall endeavour to give strength even to his arguments, not by using any of my own, but, by reference to the work of a person that has been quoted by the Treasurer of the Navy; a person who was stiled by him "a very sensible man and an author of established authority." To such an

1031
author, so spoken of by the right hon. gentleman, the Committee I am sure will be disposed to pay great attention. But, besides the testimony of the right hon. gentleman, I am able to refer the Committee to the work of lord Liverpool for evidence of the authority of this author, who says, when comparing his opinion with that of Mr. Locke, respecting the standard of money, that the practice of all governments in every age has coincided with the opinion of Mr. Harris.—This author says, "In all countries, there is established a certain standard, both as to fineness and weight, of the several species of their coins. In England, the silver monies are to contain 111 parts of fine silver, and 9 parts alloy; and 62 of those coins called shillings, are to weigh a pound troy: That is, the pound troy with us, contains 11 ounces, 2 penny weights of fine silver, and 18 penny weights of alloy; and of a pound troy, of this standard silver; our money pound called the pound sterling, contains 20/62 parts, or the pound sterling is 20/62 of 111/12 of a pound troy of fine silver. And this standard hath continued with us invariably, ever since the 43d year of the reign of queen Elizabeth. The standard of our present gold coins, is 11 parts of fine gold, and I part of alloy; and 44½ guineas are cut out of a poundtroy; so that a guinea is =1/44½ of 11 ounces of fine gold."*
Under the head of "The standard of money farther explained," he says;
"It is carefully to be observed, that by the standard of money, is always meant the quantity of pure or fine metal contained in a given sum, and not merely the degree of purity or fineness of that metal, but the fineness and gross weight are both included. Thus, the standard of a pound sterling is 3 oz. 11 dwts. 14 22/31 grains troy of fine silver, which is equal to 3 oz. 17 dwts. 10⅔ grains of silver 11 oz. 2 dwts. fine, which is our standard of fineness. The standard of a shilling is 73 29/31 grains troy of fine silver, or 80 28/31 grains of silver 111/12 fine. The standard of our money, strictly speaking, remains the same so long as there is the same quantity of pure silver in the respective coins having the old or given denominations, though the coins may be varied by making them either of finer silver and lighter, or of coarser silver and heavier. But such de-
* part 1. p.53.
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viations from the old method of coining would be imprudent, as it might create suspicion of some unfair dealings, and would answer no good purpose. On the other hand, the standard may be debased or lowered either by coining the several species lighter but of the old fineness, or by retaining the old weights and making them of coarser silver, or without altering the respective coins by making a smaller number of them go to the pound sterling, which is our unit or money standard. And by debasing the standard, I everywhere mean the lessening of the quantity of pure silver in the pound sterling, or in the respective specie which by law is ordained to make up that sum, without regarding the particular manner in or by which they may be done.*"
He gives the following definition of the pound sterling:
"In England, accounts are kept or reckoned by the pound sterling; which, as hath been before observed, is a certain quantity of fine silver, appointed by law for a standard. It is according to this standard that the public revenues are established, lands are let, salaries, stipends and wages settled, and universally all sorts of contracts both public and private are made and governed by this standard."†
Under the head of Established standards should be inviolably kept, and more especially that of money, "he makes the following valuable observations.
"The standard measures of a country being once established and known, any deviation from, these afterwards Could answer no good purpose; but, on the contrary, they must needs be attended with mischievous consequences; they would disturb the arithmetic of the country, confound settled ideas, create perplexities in dealings, and subject the igaorant and unwary to frauds and abuses.
"But of all standard measures in any country, that of money, is: the most important, and what should be most sacredly kept from any violation or alteration whatsoever. The yard, the bushel, the pound, &c. are applied only to particular commodities; and should they be altered the people would soon 'learn to accommodate themselves in their bargains to the new measures; and it is but rare, that these have any retrospect to preceding contracts. But money is not only an universal measure of the values of all things;
* Part 1, p. 55. †Part 1, p. 59.

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but is also at the same time, the equivalent as well as the measure in all contracts, foreign as well as domestic. The laws have ordained, that coins having certain denominations well known to every body, should contain certain assigned quantities of pure or fine silver. This makes our standard of money, and the public faith is guaranty, that the mint shall faithfully and strictly adhere to this standard; it is according to this standard, and under this solemn guaranty, that all our establishments are fixed, all our contracts public and private, foreign and domestic, are made and regulated. Is it not self-evident then, that no alteration can be made in the standard of money, without an opprobrious breach of the public faith with all the world, without infringement of private property, without falsifying of all precedent contracts, without the risk at least of producing infinite disorders, distrusts, and panics among ourselves, as all men would become thereby dubious and insecure as to what might farther be done hereafter, without creating suspicions abroad, that there is some canker in the state, without giving such a shock to our credit as might not afterwards be easily repaired? These wild and unjustifiable measures have ever been and ever will be considered, as a kind of public declaration of some inward debility and decay, and the discredit occasioned thereby, has ever proved injurious to those who used them. All payments abroad are regulated by the course of exchange, and that is founded upon the intrinsic values, and not on the mere names of coins. But having once broke the public faith and: curtailed the settled and long established measure of property, foreigners will make ample allowance for what we may do of this kind hereafter, and however we may cheat and rob one another, they will not only secure themselves, but make an advantage of our discredit by bringing the exchange against us beyond the par. If we think to avert this evil by transporting our coin, our having debased it will avail us nothing."*
Under the following head, "By debasing the standard of money, the greatest loss will fall upon those who live on their own established properties," he points out the evil consequences of depreciated currency.
It hath been already shewn, that, should the standard of money be altered,
* Part 2, p. 30.
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tradesmen of all sorts would help themselves, and they would probably ward off some of the inconveniences they would otherwise be subject unto by continuing to reckon in the old money, which it is likely they would call old sterling; the deficiency to the government must be made good by a nominal increase of taxes, otherwise some of the wheels must stand still. But all men who live upon their own estates or upon established stipends, that is, all men who are not somehow concerned in trade, would have no way of helping themselves, but would be obliged to submit to the whole loss which the law in this case would throw upon them at the same time that taxes, wages and commodities of all sorts were raised, at least in proportion to the debasement of the coins. Rents, interest of money, &c. would be paid short of the original contracts; that is, they would be paid and legally discharged in the new money. The landlord could not help himself till the leases were expired, and the monied man would be a loser for ever, as he would be defrauded in both his principal and interest."*
These, Sir, are the sentiments of Mr. Harris of the subject of the standard value of our money—of Mr. Harris who has been brought forward by the right hon. gent. as a witness against the Report of the Bullion Committee,—of Mr. Harris "a most sensible man, and au author of indisputable authority!!!" The right hon. gent., the Treasurer of the Navy, while I was reading these passages, has thought proper to cheer them very loudly; what am I to understand his meaning to be? Am I to conclude that he who has disputed these doctrines when so ably stated by those who have preceded roe by a counter tone of cheering, and also in his speech, wishes now to pass himself upon the Committee as approving of them Does he mean to deny that he ever entertatacd the opinion I now attribute to him, or to acknowledge that these quotations have convinced him that those opinions are erroneous? I wish also to know what the right hon. gent. on the other bench.(Mr. Vansittart) can mean by joining in the cheers of the right hon. gent.; surely he cannot imagine that he will thus be able to induce the House to believe, that he does not set up his authority against that of Mr. Harris. He who has; denied repeatedly in the course of his
* Part 2, p. 43.

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speech, that legal money had any connection in value with bullion; he who has proposed resolutions contradictory to the resolutions of the hon. gent. (Mr. Horner) which resolutions contain Mr. Harris's doctrine of the standard of money, and to which the right hon. gent. intends, when the Committee divides, to give a negative.
If then, Sir, it be true, according to the opinion of this writer of so great authority, that the pound sterling is a certain quantity of bullion appointed by law as a standard, the solution of the question at issue, whether or not Bank paper be depreciated, is really so plain and palpable as to require no further illustration than the bare statement of the fact, that the Bank-note of one pound will not purchase this certain quantity of bullion; for the proposition is simply this, The value of a pound sterling in coin consists in its containing a certain quantity of bullion. The value of a pound sterling in paper consists in its being convertible into pound sterling in coin. Therefore the value of a pound sterling in paper consists in its being able to purchase a certain quantity of Bullion. I observe an hon. baronet (sir Thomas Turton) denies the accuracy of this reasoning. I will, therefore, endeavour to make it clearer to him by the assistance of figures. Let 4 equal the certain quantity of Bullion, 2 and 2 the l. of coin, and 3 and 1, the 1l. of paper. Two and two are equal to four; but three and one, are equal to two and two, and therefore three and one are equal to four, Will he now admit the accuracy of the conclusion that £. 1 of Bank paper to be of its proper value ought to be able to purchase as much bullion as 1l. sterling in coin? An apology I feel is due to the Committee for occupying its time with such silly calculations, but unless we have recourse, to them, it is not easy to comprehend in what manner it will be possible to expose completely those silly errors which so many, have adopted concerning this most simple question.
I will now, Sir, advert to the doctrine of the right hon. gent. (Mr. Vansittart) that Bank paper is not depreciated, because "in all pecuniary transactions, it is held in public estimation to be equivalent to the legal coin of the realm." In the first place, I maintain be has no means of proving the affirmative of the fact, because the legal gold coin does not continue to, form a part of the circulating medium Though some few guineas may
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still be given in payment in common with Bank notes, they are so very few, that, comparing the number of them with the number that were in circulation, they cannot be said to form a component part of the general currency. The facts stated by the Treasurer of the Navy, shewing how few guineas were received in payment of the taxes in Hampshire and Lancashire, are decisive on this point. In one of these counties 118 guineas only were received in the payments of 400,000 l. It was easy to understand, why even those few were paid though each of them was worth 25 s.; they were, no doubt, taken from the little savings of some poor persons who were unable to satisfy the pressing demands of the tax-gatherer from any other funds in these times of universal distress. In the next place, I maintain that the legal coin is worth more, sum for sum, than the promisary notes of the Bank of England" Before, however, I proceed to support this assertion by arguments, I wish to call the attention of the Committee to an admission of the rt. hon. gent., (Mr. Vansittart) which appears to me to be one of great importance. He has said, that he was a member of the Committee appointed to enquire into the state of the currency of Ireland in 1804, and that he was convinced then, and continues to be so, that Bank paper in Ireland was depreciated, because guineas were openly sold at a premium of 10 per cent. This admission places the question of the value of Bank paper in this country in a very narrow compass indeed; because the doctrine being granted, that a premium on guineas is decisive evidence of a depreciation, it remains only to be ascertained whether or cot such a premium does exist. The question is no longer one of doctrine, but one of fact and depending on one fact only, and this very easily to be determined.
Now, Sir, it seems to me that, if ever there was a mere matter of fact about which every one might readily form a just and unanimous opinion, it is this concerning the comparative value of Bank paper and gold coin. In one sense it might be true that coin and Bank paper circulated for an equal value; for if I had one or two guineas in my pocket I should certainly pay them away with Bank notes without asking a premium for them, because it would not be worth my while either to keep so few by me, or to require to be allowed their, real bullion value. The case would be otherwise with any

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one possessed of a large quantity of them In point of fact there was nothing but the terror of a penal law which prevented an actual premium from being established on guineas. The right hon. gent. (Mr. Perceval) seems to deny it. Does he mean to say that this penal law has the property of maintaining Bank paper at a value corresponding with that of coin? That it has the property of equalizing a currency of paper with a currency of coin? That in addition to the causes of value laid down by all great writers on political economy, he means to add the properties of a penal law? This he must be ready to do, if he denies my position, for was it not for this penal law, gold coin could never be found exchangeable with Bank paper in the face of the present price of bullion. But it so happens that this law has not been altogether efficient, that some persons have not regarded it. There are at this moment three cases under prosecution, where the crime alleged and proved has been that of giving a considerable premium for guineas. It is a matter also of general notoriety that this practice of giving a premium is universal; that it is become a regular traffic, and that it would be an open one, were it not for the supposed legal restraint upon it.
But there are several ways of shewing that guineas bear a premium by transactions which would not fall under this law.; I hold in my hand a news-paper that I received this morning from Ireland. It states that on Monday at Belfast, guineas bore a premium of 15½ per cent, when bought in the bank of Ireland paper; the exchange of bank of Ireland paper for bank of England paper between London and Belfast on that day was nearly at par. Whence it is plain that guineas in comparison with Bank of England paper at Belfast, bear a premium of 15½ per cent.
Again suppose two bills of unquestionable credit drawn in Liverpool on London for 105 l. each, one made payable in guineas, the other in Bank-notes; what would be the respective value of them on the' Change at Liverpool? computed: in pounds sterling, one would; bring 105 l.; the Other, taking that market price of gold to be 20 per cent, above the mint price, 126 l; With such evidence, I then, that guineas do really bear a premium, with what colour of accuracy can the right hon. gent;, having admitted that a premium would prove a depreciation, maintain that no depreciation of Bank paper has taken place?
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With respect, Sir, to the question what the true cause is of the unfavourable state of the foreign exchanges, it appears to me, that in examining into it sufficient attention has not been paid to the definition of the meaning of the par of exchange. About this definition no difference of opinion exists; every one agrees that the par of exchange between two countries, is a given sum of the currency of one country, which contains the same quantity of bullion as a certain given sum of the other; this is the definition which every one of the witnesses examined before the Committee has given. Hence it is plain that foreign exchange, in its true sense, is nothing more than a comparison of currencies; and that every dealing in exchange, is nothing more than a mere barter of money for money. When, therefore, a very unusual state of exchange occurs, the natural way of accounting for it, is to refer to the definition of the par;and to infer from it, that such a state of exchange must be owing to some alteration in the value of the currency of one of the two countries whose exchange is in question. An unusual state of exchange is, in point of fact, according to the established definition of the par of exchange, prima facie evidence of an alteration of currency. If we look into the works of the best authority on this subject, we shall find that no one doctrine is more completely established than that which accounts for an alteration in exchange by a previous alteration in currency. Sir John Stewart, an author who has been referred to by several who oppose the report of the Committee, says "If the pound sterling, which is the English unit, shall be found any how changed, and if the variation it has met with be difficult to ascertain, because of a complication of circumstances, the best way to discover it will be, to compare the former and the present value of it with the money of other nations. This the course of exchange will perform with the greatest exactness."
Lord Liverpool says, "In exchanges with foreign countries, and in payments made to them, the intrinsic value of the metal of winch the coin is made, is the only measure of property and commerce" Now substituting the word paper for metal; and money for coin, it is, according to his opinion, the value of our paper that regulates our present exchange. He also quotes in his work the case mentioned by Dr. A. Smith, concerning the ex-

1039
change with the Low Countries in 1695, by which it appears, "That in consequence of the defective state of the coin at that time, it had fallen so very low that the public lost four shillings in the pound on monies remitted there." But it is unnecessary to make any further reference to the works of learned authors, the right hon. gent. (Mr. Rose) has himself supplied a fact which is quite decisive. He tells us that in consequence of the French army having retired into Spain, the discount on Portuguese paper is 1804 per cent, instead of 31 per cent, and that the course of exchange has consequently become more favourable to Portugal, having risen from 67 to 40. Nothing can be more completely illustrative of the doctrine contained in the Report of the Committee on the subject of exchange than these two facts, which the right hon. gent. has mentioned; because they shew an improvement in the course of exchange of Portugal in time and degree corresponding with the improvement of the Portuguese currency. But it so happens that there is another feature belonging to this case highly demonstrative of the accuracy of the doctrine; exchanges between London and every other country having in the course of the last fortnight improved in favour of London, excepting the exchange on Portugal.
The right hon. gent. (Mr. Rose) has been at considerable pains, to expose another doctrine of the Report, "that the course of exchange can never vary on account of trade in a greater degree, than will repay the merchant the expences of transporting Bullion." In support of this doctrine, I will again refer to the work of Mr. Harris. "Bullion, he says, "is not exported till the exchange is at a certain limit from par;" and also that "Merchants always prefer bills of exchange, whilst they are to be had at moderate rates, before bullion or cash, which with them is the same thing; and bullion is never transported from one place to another, till the exchange is at a certain distance from par; and this distance is again limited by the expence of transporting bullion, wherein is included, besides the freight, commission and insurance."*
But the right hon. gent. has produced a fact to substantiate his reasoning. It
* Part 1, p. 126.
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seems, that he has had a private examination of several of the witnesses, who came before the Bullion Committee; and that one of them shewed him a calculation, by which it appeared, that the course of exchange was now at such a rate, that a profit of no less than 16 per cent, was to be made by the mere transport of gold to Paris. If this ever was for one moment the case, it is plain from the very nature of trade, that it could not last many days. A sufficient number of persons would soon avail themselves of this mode of making so large a profit, and so extra ordinary a state of things would soon cease to exist. The right hon. gent. in his zeal has proved too much, so much that no one can believe the statement he has made.
There was no circumstance, that could more completely clear up all doubt as to the doctrine of the Committee in regard to exchange, both as to the cause of a permanent unfavourable exchange and the limit to fluctuation, which the transport' of bullion established, than the state of things, as to exchange, between two places, both having the same circulating medium. For instance, Liverpool and London. Though a very great trade is carried on between these places, there is no such thing as a fluctuation of exchange between, them; there is an exchange, but of a fixed kind, amounting to a charge for commission and interest on each bill that is negotiated, but this never varies. The reason is obvious; in case of a scarcity of bills, a remittance may be made, by sending a bank-note by the post, at no other expence, but that of postage. So between London and Hamburgh, if there was a common currency there could be no fluctuation, and even without one, it can never exceed that limit, which the expence of remitting gold imposes; for when Bills are scarce, bullion being a commodity al ways in demand at both places, a remittance may be made of it, as well as of a bank-note, for the expence only of trans porting it. Those who argue, that the present state of unfavourable exchanges may be accounted for by a balance of trade and payments, forget that the doc trine they adopt consists of two parts'. For the balance will not only make exchange favourable or unfavourable, bat it will also in its operation make art' ex change, that is unfavourable, favourable, and vice versa. The tendency of trade is always to bring back exchange to par; if: it raises it very much above' or below par,

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it makes it a matter of so much profit to restore it to its true level, that it is sure to come to it. But, those who now argue, that the present unfavourable exchange is owing to the balance of trade and payments, forget this counteracting quality of it; and omit to observe that the permanency of an exchange at a rate much above par, is a state of things quite inconsistent with their own doctrine. This permanency, is, in fact, the test of the cause that is now operating on exchange. It is this state of the exchange, remaining steadily below par, without fluctuation, that proves that some thing besides the beside of trade and payments is at work upon it, and which something is the depreciation of our currency
But it appears that the unfavourable course of the exchange, is to be explained by the greatness; of our foreign expenditure. We are told, that eleven millions were remitted last year to our armies, and seven millions for grain. If this is a good cause for the present unfavourable exchange, an unfavourable exchange ought always to be the effect of a simlar foreign expenditure.
But in look back to 1796. I find, by the report of the Lords Committee of 1797, that in year 10,649,916 l. were remitted to, our armies in Germany, and 3,926,484 l. for grain, but so far from the exchanges having become twenty five percent, against, this country as they now are, the exchanges with Hamburgh in 1797, which is the year to be taken to make the case parallel with present case (as it is the foreign expenditure of 1810 to which we are referred) were in favour of London. Wherefore, I feel, that I have a right to argue, that the great foreign expenditure of the last year cannot; be the true cause of the present state of the exchanges. At all events, it is not an infallible cause, whereas no instance can be produced of a depreciation, of currency, which has not been followed by a depreciation of exchange.
It has surprized me, Sir, very much to hear gentlemen still contending for the effect of the decrees of Berlin and Milan upon our exchanges. I did conceive the speech of the hon. gent (Mr. Horner) had completely settled that point. For if ever a statement was made in this House more conclusive and more triumphant than another, it was this statement in reply to the arguments of those who attributed the unfavourable state of the exchanges to
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these decrees. For what can produce conviction, if the facts which he has mentioned concerning the exchanges between Hamburgh and the rest of the continent, cannot? Hamburgh is a place of trade upon which these decrees have had a more mischievous operation than they have had even on our own commerce; and yet Hamburgh, having a currency of a fixed standard value in bullion, has the course of exchange in its favour with every country in Europe, in which there is a paper currency. But with France, she has an exchange of a few per cent, against her, France haying a currency composed almost entirely of coin. Or what can produce conviction, on this point, if what that hon. member has said cannot, respecting the exchanges between this country and those countries against which these decrees haw no operation? No one can maintain that these decrees have produced the great alteration which has taken place the, exchanges with the East Indies and West Indies, Portugal, Ireland &c,
So much, Sir, as has been so ably said to illustrate the had effects of this depreciation of the value of our money; and so accurate an explanation is given of them in the quotations that I have read from Mr. Harris, that I shall make but a few observations on this part of the subject. But it does so happen that I am able to produce the right hon. gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as a witness of its very injurious effect upon our public expenditure. When the army extraordinaries were before the House, it appeared there was a deficiency of the vote of last year, of 700,000 l. He said, that the whole of this deficiency was owing to the unfavourably exchange with Portugal. There could be no stronger proof than this, of the injury which the public sustained by this depreciation. For if so large a sum was lost upon one head only of our expenditure, how great must the loss he upon the whole of it? This depreciation was peculiarly hard upon the officers of the army and the navy, as it in effect curtailed their scanty pay, full 20 per cent. All landlords, also, who derived rents under leases made more than a few years back, sustained a similar injury. They are in fact made to pay in this, way out of their incomes, more than twice the amount of the property tax.
Concerning the cause of the depreciation, I wish to go somewhat further in attempting to develope it, than has yet been done by any gentleman, who-has preceded me. I

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consider this to be the most material part of the whole subject. For if we fail in forming a correct notion of the cause or causes which have produced this depreciation, we shall never be able to provide a proper remedy. If a depreciation of Bank paper does exist, there can be no question that the proximate cause of it is, an over-issue of it; and that the cause of this over-issue, is the misconduct of the Directors of the Bank of England. I by no means intend to charge them with criminal misconduct. Their first duty is to advance the interests of those who have placed them in the direction of their, affairs. This duty they have fulfilled with great success. The price of their stock, their bonusses and dividends, afford the best proof of the zeal and talent with which they have discharged it. If in so doing they have done great injury to the public, it must be recollected that they are able to plead this duty in justification, and that they may also say, how could you expect from us any other behaviour; we who are by profession men in business, and from our earliest days instructed that the whole skill and success of trade consists in turning every fair opportunity to a good account? For my own part it is matter of great surprise, that they have not done a great deal more injury than we have yet experienced. The cause of their misconduct does not rest with them; it is that impolitic measure of the legislature which gave to them a power which was quite inconsistent with their profession, a power which they could not exercise with full advantage to the public, with out exposing themselves to the censure of those who had confided to them the management of their affairs. But before I examine the nature of this act of the legislature, the act for restraining cash payments by the Bank in 1797, I wish to call the attention of the Committee to an act passed subsequent to this act, in 1802. A right hon. gent.; (Mr. Vansittart) has called the remedy proposed by the Committee, "the boldest experiment in finance," he ever heard of I think that the right hon. gentleman: should have been the last person to make such a charge against the Committee. That right hon. gentleman was the principal financial adviser of all Mr. Addihgton's financial measures, among which is to be found an act for altering the system of restriction, as first adopted by Mr. Pitt, from being one of a temporary nature, to be one of a permanent system of restric-
1044
tion, during the continuance of the war. Now, Sir, it seems to me that this was a measure more justly entitled to the appellation of a bold experiment than the measure proposed by the Committee. I will not call it the boldest experiment that I ever heard of in finance, because that character is much more appropriate to the original restriction of 1797; which I shall ever consider as a measure quite unlit to remedy the evil of the times, and as that measures of Mr. Pitt'spolitical life, which reflects the greatest degree of blame upon him.
In respect to this measure as bearing on the present depreciation of paper, I feel myself obliged to differ from the hon. member (Mr. Horner) in his opening speech. He has stated that the cause of it was a panic that spread through the country in consequence of an expected invasion; I do not conceive this to be the true cause, and I am anxious to persuade the Committee to agree in opinion with me, because if this were to be held to be the cause, the proper remedy, in my opinion, could never be adopted, I think, Sir, that the paper money was in an unsound-state for some time previous to the restrictions of 1797. That there had been more issued into circulation than there ought to have been; and, therefore, that more is necessary now to be done to remedy the evil we complain of than merely placing things in the same condition as they were just prior to the restriction. I allow that the panic spoken of by the hon. gent. had a great effect in bringing matters to a crisis; that it was the immediate cause of the run on the Bank. But it was not the original cause, it served only to bring into light the disease which had long been established. I do not submit this opinion to the Committee on any slight-consideration of the subject, or without having the best authority. Lord Liverpool, who has given his judgment on the cause of the restriction, formed some years after the events of that day had passed by, and with the fuiladvantage of having been able to take a comprehensive and dispassionate view of the whole subject, says, "When the situation of the Bank of England was under the consideration of the two Houses of Parliament in the year 1797, it was my opinion, and that of many others, that the extent to which paper currency had been carried, was the first and principal, though not the sole cause of the many difficulties to which that corporate: body was then, and had of late years from time to time

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been exposed, in supplying the cash necessary for the commerce of the country."
It appears to me that this opinion of lord Liverpool is one deserving of the greatest attention, if we sincerely desire to apply an effectual remedy to the evil; because, if it be correct, it fully shews that we must do something more than merely enact that cash payments shall again be made by the Bank at the expiration of two years. In the view that I lake of the state of the paper currency in 1797, I am disposed to think there was an excess of it in this sense of the word excess, that is, in comparison with the quantity to coin then circulating in the kingdom; that the proportion which the paper bore to coin in order that it might be a paper money truly convertible into coin was much too great; and, therefore, that it was not what it professed to be, of the value of coin itself. The cause of this 'excess I attribute to that act of the legislature, which enabled the Bank to issue notes for sums under 10 l. So long as the Bank were restrained from issuing notes of a smaller value, the whole retail trade of the country and all payments for sums under 10 l. were of necessity made in coin, there was always therefore a prodigious stock of coin in circulation. Business could not be carried on without it, and the truth of the doctrine was fully illustrated, that a country will always have as much coin as it wants, provided no impolitic act of legislation interferes to force it out of circulation. While there was this large stock of coin in the country, it was always at hand, for the purpose of being collected by the Bank whenever circumstances occasioned runs upon them. In 1782, and 1793, the drains upon the Bank of England are stated in the Reports of the Secret Committees of 1797 to have exceeded the drain of 1797. Yet the Bank was able in those years to encounter and get over their difficulties. The reason was, that there was an abundance of coin in circulation, and they had only to pay for it, and were able to obtain it to any amount. After the law enabling the Bank to issue 5 pound notes had been in operation a few years the state of the case became quite different. The 5 pound notes issued by the Bank of England and country Banks displaced as much coin as was equal in amount to the issue of them. The stock of coin was thus materially diminished, and the proportion between paper and coin was no longer that proportion under which
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the paper system had before flourished; but was one that placed it on a new foundation, by taking away the facility with which the Bank had been able to obtain coin to meet all demands made upon them to give it in payment for their paper. When, therefore, the panic of invasion in 1797 led to a run on the Bank of England, it was unable to find the coin it wanted, and got into that state of difficulty, which induced Mr. Pitt to advise the restriction of their paying in coin. Whenever, therefore, we are to apply a remedy to the present state of things, I conceive it will be necessary to re-establish the limitation of Bank-notes to an amount not less than 1l.; because, without doing so, I am sure we shall be liable to be again called on for new restrictions of cash payments. I cannot agree in opinion with an hon. member (Mr. Huskisson) who in his very able pamphlet on this subject has thrown out, that we are to expect a recurrence of similar circumstances, such as existed in 1797, and which may again compel government, to afford, to the Bank a temporary protection against the demands that may be made upon it for gold. For I conceive that it is a most, extraordinary position to lay down, that, in a country so opulent as this is, and among whose inhabitants there is so much industry, talent and capital, it cannot so manage its circulating medium, as to be able to provide against the necessity of having recourse to the dangerous expedient of taking from it the only attribute that gives it a proper value. I can not for my own part discover any eason for such a doctrine, and I am, quite sure that if the legislature does its duty, and imposes an effectual limitation, in the manner I have described, on the issue of Bank paper, it will completely relieve us from all future similar embarrassments.
There is another doctrine which has been advanced by the hon. member (Mr. Horner) and the hon. gent. (Mr. Huskisson), to which I cannot subscribe. I mean the doctrine of the institution of the Bank of England having been a measure of the soundest policy and greatest wisdom. I acknowledge that the Bank of England has occasionally conferred great advantages on commerce and on the finances of the country; that a great deal of good has been done to the public by the institution. But when I consider the evils which have arisen from it, that the evil of which we now complain could never have existed if no such institution had existed, when I

1047
compare the evil with the good, I have no hesitation in saying, that on the whole, the establishment of this Bank has been a great national misfortune. All the good that has been done by it might have been fully as well afforded to the public by the establishing of several Banks. If instead of one Bank having been established with so immense a capital, and such great exclusive powers, the trade of Banking had been left free, and several Banks had been allowed to grow up with the improving wealth of the country, the public would have derived equal accommodation, without any of the risk or any of the evils to which it has been exposed by the enormous power that has been given to this one establishment.
The whole of our commerce could not be, as it is now allowed to be by a noble lord (Casllereagh), under the management of 24 merchants. Such a monstrous state of things could never have existed in this great country, as that of all its best interests being subservient to the caprice, the ignorance or the misconduct of 24 merchants. The noble lord has said a great deal concerning the Banking system of Scotland, in order to prove to us how far paper money may be safely carried. Bat he has looked at the subject in a very superficial manner. He has made no distinction between a system of Banking which is managed by many large companies of equal powers, and a system entirely under the control of one privileged company. This distinction fully accounts for the superiority of the banking system of Scot land, where there are several great Banks, end no controuling Bank, over the banking system of England and Ireland, in both which countries there are national Banks. In Scotland, the management being in the hands of a great number of persons, much talent is brought into action, and the public derives the full benefits of a most active competition. But in England and Ireland, the numbers who direct the affairs of these national Banks are but few, and those neither fear or experience the controul of competition, which is the only corrector in all matters of trade, of the tendency of trade to, interfere with the rights and interests of the public.——Some gentlemen have declared their approbation of the policy of the laws for preventing the exportation of guineas; with them I cannot agree; but on the contrary I am clearly of opinion, that we ought to repeal these laws, whenever coin shall again be paid by the Bank.
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If they were to be repealed no evil consequence would follow from it. Guineas would, no doubt, be sent abroad whenever it was a profitable traffic to export them; but as they would keep their shape and character of coin, according as it became a traffic of gain to import them, they would be brought back in a state fit for immediate circulation. The effect of the laws, as they now exist, is not to prevent their export, but to induce people to melt them prior to their being exported, and thus to diminish the general stock of coin.——The laws against usury are also, in my opinion, frequently productive of great injury to the public credit. By limiting the rate of interest, whenever circumstances make money worth more than that rate, they operate directly to put a stop to alt discounts. For those who usually employ their capital in discounting the bills of men in business, will not continue to employ it in that way when public securities and other resources will give them a much greater profit. The usury laws, therefore, occaionally produce that effect which it is erroneously said, the remedy proposed by the Committee would produce; that is, they deprive all men in business of the usual means of carrying on their affairs, and thus at times give rise to bankruptcies and universal distress. This effect they certainly did produce, immediately previous to the restriction of 1797; they, as well as the laws against exporting guineas, ought therefore to be repealed whenever we come to apply an effectual and complete remedy to the present disordered state of our credit and currency.
As some persons have of late insisted that the arguments and opinions of those, who in 1804 attributed the high exchange against Dublin to a depreciated currency, prove to be unfounded, because the exchange has become favourable to Dublin, without any diminution having taken place in the amount of the Bank of Ireland paper in circulation; I beg to trouble the Committee with a few observations on this subject. The state of the case in respect to the currency and exchange of Ireland in 1804, was this—The quantity of Bank of Ireland paper in 1797, the time when the Bank of Ireland was restricted from making cash payments, amounted to. 600,000 l. Up to that period the exchange with London had never been much against Dublin, it was usually somewhat in favour of Dublin in 1804 the exchange had become established at 10 per cent,

1049
above, the par of 8⅓. per cent, against Dublin, though the balance of trade and payments, as proved by a Committee of this; House, was in favour of Dublin. The notes of the Bank of Ireland in circulation were encreased fivefold, being 3 millions; every village in Ireland had its Bank, and every large town at least half a dozen. Guineas, were publicly advertised for sale, and bore a premium of 10 per cent. But while the exchange between Dublin and London was so circumstanced, the exchange between Belfast and London was in favour of Belfast. The north of Ireland, having kept its currency of coin, while that of Dublin, and of the South of Ireland, was wholly; composed of Bank paper. The inference drawn from these facts, by many of those who gave an opinion on the subject in 1804, was that the cause of the unfavorable exchange with Dublin was owing to the depreciated value of Bank paper. An inference of which the accuracy is now disputed, because the exchange between Dublin and London is at par, though the Bank of Ireland still have three millions of paper in circulation. To do so, is to take a very shallow view of the subject. The true question is, what Was the value of the Bank paper of England, compared with that of Ireland in 1804, and what is now the respective values of them. In 1804, according to the course of exchange, Bank of Ireland paper was of less value than Bank of England by 10 per cent, more than the legal difference of 8⅓ per cent., for if this was not the case, and Bank of Ireland paper was not depreciated, Bank of England paper must have then bore a premium. According to the present course of exchange at par with Dublin, Bank of England paper is of equal value with Bank of Ireland paper. But the Bank of England paper has become of less value than it was in 1804, as appears by the price of gold, and the course of foreign exchanges. It is therefore owing to this fall in its value, that the value of Bank of Ireland paper seems to have encreased, whereas according to the present value of Bank of England paper it has diminished; and thus it is that nothing has occurred contradictory to the inference, that the Bank of Ireland paper was depreciated in 1804. This reasoning will-appear more clear and conclusive, by calculating the value of Bank of Ireland paper in 1804, and in 1819, according to the; rates of exchange between Dublin and Hamburgh; In 1804 the exchange
1050
with Hamburgh was 10 percent, against Dublin That is, the exchange with London, was 10 per cent, against Dublin, and the exchange between Hamburgh and London was at par: now the exchange between Hamburgh and London is 20 per cent. against London; therefore the exchange between Hamburgh and Dublin is 20 per cent, against Dublin; so far, therefore as the exchange between Dublin, and a place of which the currency has not akered in value, proves any thing, it proves that the value of the paper of the Bank of Ireland is now more depreciated than it was in 1804, a conclusion which is warranted by the present price of guineas in Ireland, which bear a premium of from 15 to 20 per cent. But they not only bear this premium with respect to Bank of Ireland paper, but with respect to Bank of England paper, in consequence of the exchange being at par.—The present state of the exchange with Ireland, instead therefore of establishing the case of those who dispute the opinions held respecting the unfavourable exchange of 1801, corroborates most strongly the doctrine that the unfavourable state of foreign exchange with England is owing to the depreciation of Bank of England paper.
But, among other things, if is discovered that to alter our present paper system is incompatible with the public safety; that it will annihilate our manufacturers, destroy our commerce, and disable us from carrying on the war in Portugal. This is the picture of national calamity, which is presented to us by those who look at but one side of the question. Do they, when they make these extravagant and fanciful assertions, mean to say, that no danger will attend the continuance of the present system? That it is one beneficial to our manufacturers, salutary to our commerce, and safe for our finances? If they do, I will ask, Does not the actual state of our manufactures and our commerce afford a most decisive proof to the contrary? Has not the system of over trading, which has been the result of this excessive issue of paper, already been productive of great evil? Without then entering into a detailed refutation of the absurd and on founded assumptions of those who think that a reformation of the paper system would be nothing less than national ruin, I maintain that this evil, great as it is, must become one of a still greater and more destructive kind, the longer the system prevails; and therefore, by suffering it to exist. But, among other things, if is discovered that to alter our present paper system is incompatible we ren-

1051
der it more and more difficult to meet it with an effectual remedy. For my own part, I confess, that I cannot look at the continuance of this system, without anticipating the certain destruction of our public credit. No one can deny that a great scale of over trading, founded on an excessive issue of paper, will materially injure our manufactures and commerce. It must also be allowed, that our finances depend upon the prosperity of our manufactures and commerce. Our finances, therefore, and with them our public credit, and our means of carrying on the war, so often mentioned in this debate, are placed in the greatest danger by this system of paper money. A system which the right hon. gentleman, the prime minister of this country, does not controul; which parliament does not controul, but which is entirely under the exclusive power and management of 24 merchants. A body most honourable and upright, as merchants, but not designed for such a trust. I will ask the Committee, whether it is wise or safe to leave the entire conduct of our currency in such hands? whether, while it is so, we are not subject to a degree of danger, which cannot be equalled by any possible evil which might follow from taking it from them? whether in this great and powerful country, on whose prosperity and independence as a nation the happiness of so many millions is at stake, it is sound policy to shut our eyes against our misfortunes, and fear to embark in an attempt to conquer them?
Sir Thomas Turtonsaid, that after the able speeches which had been already delivered on the subject, and the copious details into which gentlemen had entered, he should confine himself to a more general statement of the points upon which the question appeared to him to rest, He complimented the motives and the talents of the Committee whose Report was under consideration, and did not agree with those who thought the publication of it calculated to do evil. On the contrary, he thought it would tend to set the question at rest by calling forth the united wisdom of the House upon a matter of such importance. He agreed with his honourable colleague (Mr. H. Thornton), that the question lay in a much narrower compass than was generally believed. The first point for consideration was, whether there was an over issue of Bank-paper; the second, whether that "ftp-issue had an effect upon the rate of
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exchange; and the third, whether the remedy proposed was a proper one. He took a comparative view of the state of the country now, and when no complaint was made; and said, that though the coin was depreciated in some degree, it was not depreciated to those who wished to go to market, but to those who wished to do an illegal act. No man refused to take a Bank-note and a shilling for a guinea. From the situation of trade at present, it was impossible to pay for the commodities of other countries by our own; so that money must be sent abroad, and that must have a tendency to produce scarcity of specie, especially when connected with the rate of exchange. When he added to this our situation with respect to America, with whom alone trade was now open to us, he confessed his wonder was that a guinea should even shew itself. He quoted the authority of Locke, to shew that whenever the home consumption exceeded the export of commodities, guineas must go out of the country to pay its debts, whether they were melted down or not.—With regard to the third point, namely, the remedy proposed, he confessed he was more astonished by the Resolution containing it than by all the others. They were called on not to restrict the Bank; but to let the river flow into its old channel; but if that were done, could any man say that it would be possible to give any accommodation to the mercantile world? Were this agreed to, the Bank could never purchase money to meet the return of notes in present circulation; and they must therefore (as given in evidence by Mr. Pearce) call in their notes, and diminish the circulating medium. This would ruin commerce, and reduce our exports and imports materially. It would hermetically seal the continent against us, which was now only, opened by the speculations which the discounts of the Bank enabled merchants to carry into effect, though at their own risk, yet greatly to the benefit of the country. It was thus that the Bank had upheld the country when it wanted help, and to open it now would only be to forward the views of Buonaparté, and enforce his Milan and Berlin decrees. As for legislating for two years lo come, he protested against it, as making ordinances for a period, the state of which no one could foresee. This was a matter of vital consequence, and he could not give a silent vote upon it. He was against all the propositions made, ex-

1053
cept such truisms as were undeniable, Chough of no value but as leading to the result, and would give his direct negative to the last. In this way he thought they ought to have been firmly met by the House, to set the question at rest, rather than by proposing other Resolutions.
Mr. Manningbegan by vindicating the late governor of the Bank from the insinuations thrown out against him by the hon. and learned gentleman who opened the debate. He said, that with respect to any observations which he might offer in the course of his speech, he wished to be clearly understood as merely stating his own individual opinion, and not as one authorised or commissioned by the Bank-to speak their sentiments. A charge had been made against the Bank, that they had been guilty of a wanton issue of bank notes in the course of the last summer, to the amount of three millions; it was, however, not a little remarkable that this very issue which had been so censured, had been recommended by the Report of the Bullion Committee. In the two first weeks of July, 1809, the issue of bank post bills amounted to 7,390 l.; in the corresponding weeks for July, 1810, at the time of the failures at Salisbury and Exeter, the issue of bank post bills amounted to 14,300 l. so that there was but an excess of 7,000 l. over the issue at the same period in the former year. And notwithstanding the great and material difference in the circumstances of those two periods, there had been, in addition to this, an issue of small notes between the preceding June and the October following to the amount of a million and half. An hon. friend of his (Mr. Huskisson) had in the course of his speech last night, contended that bank notes could represent nothing but so much in gold bullion. He was not aware of any royal proclamation, or of any act of parliament, which made Banknotes the representation of so much in bullion; but to shew that this was not altogether a new case, or one that could be traced to causes which never existed till now, he begged leave to refer them to the authority of their own Journals, where, so far back as the year 1620, they would find that the scarcity of gold and silver currency was then attributed to seven different causes, many of which existed at present. Sir Edward Coke was reported, in the first volume of the Journals, p; 527, to have traced the scarcity of money at that time to the following causes: "1. The goldsmiths melting the
1054
King's Coin into plate; 2. gilding; 3. Great loss by exchange; 4. The East India Company; 5. The Goods imported more than exported; 6. French wines, which were brought in in great quantities; and 7. The patent of making gold and silver lace of our bullion; and prohibiting the bringing in any." And sir Edward Sands, in the course of the same debate, ascribed it to the great importation of foreign grain, adding, "That it was the policy of all other stales, not to suffer any importation of commodities, when they had of their own, till theirs were sold." When a similar effect could thus be traced to other causes, long before there was any Bank paper, he thought it was not right hastily to attribute the high price of Bullion to the issue of Bank notes. From the view he took of the original measure of restriction, and the circumstances under which it was extended to the continuance of the war, he conceived it would be extremely unsafe to name a definite and particular period at which the Bank should return to cash payments. In his view of the causes which led to the Bank restriction in 1797, they appeared to him to be chiefly reducible to the then very great and prevalent alarm of invasion. Even the order then made by government, obliging the farmers on the maritime coasts to remove their stock and provender far into the interior of the country, had the effect of extending this alarm so much amongst that description of persons, that they were every where selling off their lauds and farms, and converting their substance into gold: so that had it not been for the well-timed and seasonable restriction which then took place, he doubted if there would have been left a single guinea in the Bank of England. In the month of October following, however, when the alarm had somewhat subsided, the Bank of England declared to that House their readiness to resume their cash payments; but the House, notwithstanding such a document was on their table, passed an act continuing the restriction during the war. This he could state, both for himself and the other gentlemen connected with the Bank Direction, that from the year 1797 to the present time, the greatest anxiety had prevailed so to shape their conduct, as to return, at the earliest period, to cash payments. It was always their wish to recur to the use of specie, as soon as the circumstances the, country would admit of it. This he

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was well convinced, was not the period at which it could be done with advantage. Some gentlemen appeared to believe that the Directors of the Bank derived a great benefit from the issue of notes. This he denied. And he would boldly affirm, that not only they, but the Proprietors of Bank Stock, had a greater desire for the public good than for any individual advantage. He would state shortly what appeared to him to be the cause of the present state of Exchange; and this he should premise by declaring himself one of those old fashioned practical men, who thought the balance of payments an article of great importance in the regulation of exchanges If the importation did not balance the exportation, the silver must go out of the country. The high price of Bullion had been occasioned, in a great degree, by the enormous sums seat to the continent. Mr. Locke had observed, "that money could not be kept in a country, unless the balance of trade was steadily in her favour. Thus, an over-balance of trade with Spain brought silver into the mint; but if the balance is against us in another part, away went the coin." This was sound reasoning, and the circumstances of last year fully verified it. A right hon. friend of his (Mr. Rose) had staled on a former night, that the payment of the troops on the Peninsula amounted to eleven or twelve millions, seven millions had been sent abroad for grain, the foreign freights amount to four millions and a half, the dividends on stock owned by foreigners in the public funds amounted to 600,000 l. and, with a variety of other items, made the sum sent out of the country not less than 20,000,000 l. When there was such a drainas that, it was very natural that the price of bullion should have had a very considerable rise. The hon. gentleman thon entered into a comparative statement between the revenue of the country and the issue of Bank notes, in the years 1797 and 1810, and inferred that, if the issue of Bank paper had kept pace with the revenue, and the imports and exports, on the principle of the rule of three, there should he now 1,000,000 l. more in circulation than there actually was; and if he confined himself to the revenue alone, then, proceeding on the same principle, the notes in circulation ought to he three times as great as in 1797. An hon. gentleman (Mr. Marvratt) who had written a pamphlet on the subject, stated it as his opinion, that a new chattered
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Bank ought to be established. The consequences of such a measure would be, that instead of the number of notes being diminished, the circulation of Bank paper would be doubled. Sir William Pulteney had made a similar poposition in the year 1797, which, however, was rejected. The act of the year 1797 permitted certain of the banking-houses to discount, and of 70 in the metropolis, 36 were allowed that privilege; of that number, only 20 availed themselves of the privilege, and that to a very limited amount. As to the probable cause of the high price of gold, upon which so many opinions had gone forth, among them was the idea that great quantities had been sent abroad. It was true that South American remittances had been made in metallic currency, because in that country there were no dealings by bills of exchange. When he stated among other causes, that within the last year the coin had been melted down into place the same as in the reign of James 2, the Committee would not be surprised that there should be found so great a scarcity. Within the last year, at Goldsmiths-hall, not less than 148,000lbs. of silver had been stamped, and also 2,300lbs. of gold, exceeding in amount, the average of former years. These were sufficient causes to account for the scarcity. When gentlemen talked of the depreciation of paper, and produced quotations from pamphlets in aid of thoir own arguments, he trusted it would not be deemed irrelevant if he read an extract from the letter of a friend addressed to himself; who says, upon the subject of the supposed depreciation of paper, that there existed a mistake in the signification of the word "depreciation." When, therefore, an hon. member had said, that a one pound note and a shilling would most certainly purchase the same quantity of any article as a guinea, and that a guinea was worth more than 21 s., it certainly proved that a guinea was worth more than its nominal value; but it did not prove that a one pound note was worth Jess than 20 shillings. Much had been said of the necessity of repealing the Bank Restriction act; whatever might be the opinions of gentlemen on the expediency of repealing that measure was a question which, perhaps, did not exactly ground itself upon the Report of that Committee, or, at least, as appeared to him, it was not necessary for the Committee to make that recommendation. All that was desired

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of them by the House, was, to report on the causes of the high price of gold. If, therefore, gentlemen wished for a repeal, that was a distinct subject, in his opinion, and ought to have been so brought forward.
The hon. gent., in furtherance of his arguments against the repeal of the Act, instanced the authority of a very great man, sir Francis Baring, who, in a pamphlet published in 1797, says, "The situation of the Bank is totally altered in consequence of the drains of gold and silver, and will remain so until the panic has subsided and confidence is restored. Whether the restriction should be suffered to expire, should be renewed, or altered, is a question which cannot at present be decided. Upon mature consideration, however, I think it should continue, and I much doubt whether it would not be prudent under certain restrictions, to make Bank notes a legal tender. My chief reason for thinking so is, that public credit ought never to be subject to convulsions, nor to a change even from good to better, unless there is a certainty of maintaining it in that position; a retrograde movement in public credit is productive of evil consequences, which are incalculable, and, therefore, are averse to the Bank of England resuming their payments during the continuance of the war."—It was his most anxious wish that the Bank should return to the old system; but it was also his firm opinion, that such an experiment should not be risked during the war. On the subject of the difference of exchanges affecting the price of gold, that, in some degree, might be true. The interruption of the intercourse with America no doubt affected the exchange on the continent, as bills could not be readily negociated there. If the removal of the restriction were to be acceded to, he was very apprehensive that it would open the flood-gates, and let all the coin of the country out; and then there would be little chance of seeing it back. Besides, it was to be remembered that the money was detained for useful purposes, which must be obvious without his naming them; but if let loose, it would get into the hands of the enemy, and consequently was much safer where it was. The effect of sending out twenty millions of specie in 1801 and 1802, was to overturn the state of exchanges on the continent. He repeated he was most clearly of opinion, that the restriction ought to be continued during the war, and
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should enter his solemn protest against its being taken off sooner.
Mr. A. Baringthought it perfectly superfluous in him, after the able discussions which the principle and details of the Report had undergone, to enter at length into that part of the subject which had been so fully gone into. He begged, however, to throw out his opinion, and view of a question, which he conceived of the most extreme importance. His opinions as to the exchange, were certainly conformable to those stated in the Report, and detailed in the speech of the hon. and learned gentleman who had brought forward the question. He certainly agreed that there was a depreciation of our paper currency, for no other term except that of depreciation, could he find capable of conveying his meaning; his wish, by the use of the term depreciation, being to convey that it no longer bore that value which attached to the precious metals it purported to represent. He did not agree, however, that this depreciation was to be attributed solely to the excess of the circulation of paper, but to the state of trade, and the balance of exchange being against us. This depreciation, however, could not exist, if it were not for the state in which our paper had been placed. His mind was so firmly made up on this subject, that he did not feel it necessary to trouble himself in reading the numerous publications of those who had argued otherwise. If any person were to tell him that gold bore one price in London and another in Westminster, he should not believe him, convinced as be must be that he laboured under misinformation or misapprehension of the subject. That there must be an excess of paper he did not deny, and he also confessed that this excess of paper had raised the price of every commodity, and of gold with the others. The reason was obvious. Any country having a circulation of precious metals, it naturally corrected itself, but no such limit applied to paper. The grand origin of the rise of gold, however, was the state of trade, and balance of exchange being against us. As this point was disputed, and as it was doubted whether it was the excess of paper or the balance of trade which had turned the exchange against us, he should beg to read the opinion of the editor of Smith's Wealth of Nations on this subject, who says, "Hitherto notes answer our purpose, and so will they as long as there is a balance of trade in our favour; but the moment

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the balance of trade is against us, and there is not a circulation ready to meet it, that moment there will be a depreciation of our notes."—Now, though this was but the opinion of a writer upon this subject, still being expressive of his opinion as to what would happen, he was more inclined to give credit to it than to any of the fifty pamphlets brought forth since the thing had actually taken place. He did not deny that there was an increase of bank paper; but this was occasioned by circumstances which rendered the increase necessary. The evil was not attributable, in a principal degree, to the paper, but to the state of trade, and if a change in trade took place, the exchange would, in a great measure, rescue itself. It had been said, there was no difference in value at present between notes and gold in shops. If the system to which he should shortly allude, however, was suffered to go on, no doubt there would soon be a difference. We should see mutton to be sold for 8d. per 1b. if to be paid for in gold; at yd. if to be paid for in paper. If a remedy of a proper kind was not speedily adopted, the House must be obliged to make this paper a legal tender for debt; else we might see a person sent to prison for debt with his coffers full of bank paper. An hon. gentleman (Mr. Huskisson) in his speech of, last night had talked as if he was proposing what would be a proper circulating medium for a new country which had never yet had any political existence. He seemed as if he had slept during the last and present most calamitous and extraordinary of all wars, and told us what sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Locke said on these subjects. They, however, had argued only on speculation, and could have had no conception of such a country, or of such a state of things as that which we now witnessed. When the hon. gentleman came, however, to the time of Mr. Pitt, he told the House that he never had an idea, nor ever intended for a moment that there should be an alteration in the value of paper compared with gold. He (Mr. Baring) said that was impossible; restriction itself implied a difference; and the only question, that could remain must be merely this, should it he more or less? To what extent should this difference go? This implied a depreciation. Excess always found its own check; but the moment restriction came, all check ceased. No extent of trade could ever require a restriction bill; but when the people came
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to raise a fictitious property, they must give it a circulating medium, and as the circulating medium here selected could not support its value abroad, it must lose the requisite elasticity, and produce a balance of exchange against this country. A right hon. gent. on the bench beneath him (Mr. Vansittart), had, said that the funds had nothing to do with this. He on the contrary, thought they had a great deal to do with it. A comparative view of the money raised during the present war would shew this. To the year 1793, immediately previous to the war, the sum raised was 17 millions and a half. In the year 1794, the sum was 45' millions; and from this sum it continued to increase, amounting in one year to 96 millions; and in the present year, by taxes and the loan, the sum raised would be upwards of 90 millions. He, for one, entertained serious doubts if any circulation could be found, not leading the country to ruin, to supply an increase of from 17 millions and a half in the year 1793" to nearly 100 millions in the year 1811. The right hon. bart. opposite (sir J. Sinclair) might boast of his improvements in agriculture; of his highways and canals—and certainly the country was in a high state of improvement—but what degree of improvement would be necessary to feed such a system? To do so, we must put a fictitious value upon every thing in the country—land let at 20 s. must be supposed to be worth 40 s. and so on in proportion. He recollected the Income tax was calculated to be raised on a capital of 100 mitions; but now we raised 90 millions within the year. The Income tax produced about 12 millions, but we rised 90 millions, nearly to the extent of what was once dreaded as the extent of the whole national debt, and to which when the national debt should amount, it was thought the country must be ruined. To support such a system, we must give a fictitious value to property, and must have a fictitious medium of circulation for carrying it on. The first grand step taken by Mr. Pitt was an artificial system of finance. Suppose this to go on, and that instead of 90 millions, we must raise 180 millions. Then, that it should require to be raised to 360 millions. If it could last till we saw this, would the right hon. gent. say that all was right? But to this it must come, unless a change of system immediately took place; And when a depreciation of our paper was stated to have taken place, what said the

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right hon. gent.? "Oh, it is all through the Bank." He (Mr. Baring) said it all arose from the system of finance. The right hon. gent. himself said last year, that every thing depended on a reform in our finances, and bringing our expenditure and income together. Here, however, he had begun at the wrong end. He should have begun first with finance, and from that have proceeded to paper. In this country every thing was done by funding. The mass of the evil was to be found in the national debt, and not in the circulating medium. No person could look at 24 millions being the amount of Bank paper in circulation with any degree, of apprehension; all we had any right to look to with apprehension was this mass of national debt. Till he saw the attention of parliament called to our finance system, he could not think the country safe; but if we set zealously about it, the object might yet be accomplished with comparatively trifling sacrifices.
Mr. Sharpfelt it incumbent on him, as a member of the Bullion Committee, to rescue himself and the Committee from the general accusation of a retrocession from the opinions contained in the Report. In no single instance did such a retrocession exist. A much more serious charge had also been preferred against them, namely, that of having so disregarded all moral considerations, as to treat with lightness the perjury which, in the fulfilment of their duty, they were compelled to state existed in the transactions connected with the exportation of gold bullion from the kingdom. It was rather extraordinary, that a charge like this, wholly unfounded in its nature, should have proceeded from the Vice-President of that very board (the Board of Trade), under which licences were granted, which could be of no avail to those by whom they were obtained, except, through the aid of simulative papers and perjury. It had been said, that no practical man went to the extent of the opinions expressed in the Bullion Report. He presented himself to the Committee solely in the light of a practical man. Although he was persuaded that the scientific consideration of the question was capable of actual demonstration; yet he would abstain front all theoretical comments, and confine himself to a statement of several facts which it might be important for the House to consider. By some it was contended, that the present system, if not absolutely justifiable, ought to be
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persevered in, because it afforded us the best means of opposing the enemy. What! Were there no means of successfully opposing the enemy but by a currency not founded on true principles? By others the recurrence to what was also allowed by them to be the true principle of circulation was objected to, on the ground that our great foreign expenditure, the extent of our taxation, and the state of our trade, would not permit it. Let the Committee consider the situation of Hamburgh. Was the trade of Hamburgh good? Was she free from taxation? Was she not suffering the most severe and oppressive enactments by which her commerce was nearly annihilated? But, under all these circumstances of distress, Hamburgh had disdained the cowardice of resorting to a fictitious currency; and the consequence was, her exchanges were most favourable. What was the state of Holland? Was not her commerce destroyed? Was she not taxed to the very lips? Was she not exposed to all the severities of a military despotism? Yet Holland had also disdained the cowardice, which' having committed, this country was called upon to continue; she had disdained resorting to a fictitious currency, and consequently the exchanges of Holland were favourable. So with regard to Paris. Were the French finances flourishing? Was the trade of France extensive? Was her taxation light? No; but having preserved a real currency, her exchanges were in a good state. It had been said that the exchanges of Great Britain with Sweden were favourable to this country. This was a fallacious assertion; for on inquiry, he found that the exchanges of Sweden with Hamburgh were 30 per cent, more in favour of Hamburgh, than the exchanges of Sweden with Great Britain were in favour of the latter.—But the depreciation of our currency Had been denied. He would again appeal to facts. It had been usual to send over specie to Guernsey to pay our troops there. Each guinea had recently been paid to the soldiers at the rate of twenty-three shillings. One regiment, however, refused to receive them at that rate, and there the matter rested. Again, a person who inherited from a distant relation the sum of a thousand guineas, was lately paid in specie. He went to invest the money in the funds; and on asking the price of 3 per cents. was told 64½. On inquiring, however, at what rate he could obtain the stock if he paid real money for it; he was

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told, after some consideration, that he might have it for cash at 60; and at that price he actually purchased it. Let parliament be cautious not to allow the proper moment of interference on this most important subject to escape. At present the water was fordable; soon it would be a mighty and impassable sea. A considerable portion of our currency was at present unprotected by law. A great number of dollars had lately been issued, and were still issuing. These would shortly afford the opportunity of extending the practice which had already, in some degree, obtained of making two prices. Parliament would then be compelled to take some measures for the security of the personal liberty of the subject. As had been ably stated by an hon. and learned friend of his last night, although the tender of Bank notes for a debt was a security against a mesne process, it would not prevent an execution. As soon, therefore, as this practice of making two prices should be confirmed and extended, creditors would enforce their legal demand of payment in coin or bullion, and parliament would then be driven to the necessity either of making Bank notes a legal tender, or of adopting the proposition of his hon. and learned friend, under circumstances of encreased embarrassment and difficulty. The House might as well think of slopping the tide at Westminster-bridge, as of stopping the exportation of the coin under the present circumstances.
The hon. gent. concluded by declaring his full assent to the principles laid down in the Report.
The Chancellor of the Exchequerobserved, that he should consider himself as guilty of an inexcusable neglect of duty, if, holding the situation which he had the honour to hold, he refrained from expressing his sentiments at some period of this important discussion; and he did not conceive that he could seize a more advantageous opportunity than that of following the two hon. gentlemen who had last spoken. The Committee were tow in possession of the opinions of two highly respectable individuals, both of extensive knowledge and great practical experience. From the one, they had heard a decided opinion that there was no remedy for, the existing evil, but the adoption of the measure recommended in the Report of the Bullion Committee. From the other, they had heard an opinion as decided, that if the measure recommended in the Report of the
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Bullion Committee were adopted, it would be impossible for the country longer to carry on those foreign exertions, which, until the present discussion, he was not aware that any one wished should be discontinued. The first of the hon. gentlemen to whom he alluded (Mr. Baring), gave it distinctly as his opinion, that the idea of making the Bank capable of paying in specie by new purchases of bullion was impracticable; and that in the present state of the country it was out of the reach of the Bank to substitute gold for paper currency. The other hon. gent. (Mr. Sharp) said, that nothing but such a measure could save the country from the evils which threatened her. On this difference the question rested. For his part, he agreed with both the hon. gentlemen that the subject was of the utmost importance, intimately connected as it was with the honour and interests of the empire. He was satisfied, whether parliament did or did not countenance that which he thought as absurd as the first hon. gent. thought it was impracticable; that if they adopted the Resolutions of the hon. and learned gent opposite, such an adoption would be tantamount to a declaration that they would no longer continue those foreign exertions which they had hitherto considered as indispensable to the security of the country.
He begged to be by no means understood, that he considered the question could be discussed without a distinct reference to the circumstances of the country, and he had, therefore, fell great astonishment at the manner in which an hon. friend of his (Mr. Huskisson) had divested it of all such reference. It was not his wish to go much into detail on the subject; but it was necessary that he should explain his feelings to the Committee, and recall them to the real state of the question before them. He conceived that the proposition of (hose who advocated the Bullion Report was, that the currency of the country was depreciated; that that depreciation was attributable to the excess of paper; and that the evil resulting was so great as to make it incumbent on parliament to take immediate measures for averting it, which measure must be the reduction of the quantity of paper in circulation.—On the other hand, it was contended that the supporters of the Report advanced, no proof of the excess of the general circulation of the country, nor any proof of the depreciation (in the sense in which they under-

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stood the word) of that currency; but that what they substituted for direct and legitimate proofs, was capable of being explained by other circumstances which the Bullion Committee had certainly not kept quite out of sight in their Report, but on which they had nearly touched, and then affected to consider them as unimportant. Such was the state of the question which he would now proceed to consider.
In the first place, he asserted that there had been no proof given of our existing excess of currency. Of this term "excess," as well as of some other terms, it was necessary to know the precise meaning intended to be affixed to it. Excess beyond what? His interpretation was, that there had been no excess beyond what he conceived absolutely necessary for the circulation of the wealth and revenues of the country. No proof had been advanced of an existing excess of circulation beyond the circulation which existed at the period of the suspension of cash payments at the Bank. But even if the advocates of the Report could prove that there was an existing numerical excess of circulation, beyond the circulation which existed at the period of the suspension of cash payments at the Bank; yet if that increase was not beyond what the extended commerce and augmented revenues since that period required, then it was no excess. His hon. friend near him seemed to conceive that there was an existing excess beyond what would have been the state of the currency had that currency been confined to gold, or to paper immediately convertible into gold. Let the Committee consider after the drain of wealth which many years of war must occasion, what would be the state of circulation in a country in which no paper was issued to supply the deficiency. Unquestionably, if things could have gone on in this country without such a supply, the existing circulation would have been much less than it was at the present moment. But if for domestic purposes we had occasion for a circulation as large as the existing circulation, he then could not allow, situated as the country was in other respects, that the circulation ought to be diminished. He was prepared to expect that his hon. friend near him would admit that the circulation could not be excessive, as long as the paper circulated was immediately convertible into gold; and, consequently, that there was no excess in our circulation before the suspension of
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the cash payments at the Bank. But although this was the opinion of his hon. friend, it was not the opinion of all the members of the Bullion Committee.
The hon. gent. who commenced the discussion of that evening (Mr. Parnell,) contended that the circulation in the year 1707, before the suspension of the cash payments at the Bank, was excessive, and that it was indispensable to reduce our present circulation below the circulation of that period. In his (the Chancellor of the Exchequer's) opinion, however, any attempt to reduce the circulation, and still more lo reduce it below what it was in 1797, would be productive of the greatest practical inconveniences. The advantages of a large circulation were the means which it afforded of invigorating agriculture, commerce, and manufactures. Adverting to some of the arguments of his hon. friend near him, he would suppose a case in answer to them. He would suppose a country, possessing a circulation of 60 millions, all in coin, to enter into a war—that this war should continue for four years—and that the expenditure of wealth beyond the balance of foreign trade should be ten millions annually—the circulation would thus be reduced to twenty millions. He would suppose that during the four years an issue of paper was made to the amount of ten millions. The country would therefore possess at the end of the four years war, a circulation (composed of twenty millions of coin and ten millions of paper) of 30 millions instead of 60, as at the commencement. It was evident that but for the issue of paper this country would have possessed but 20 millions of circulation. According to the interpretation of the term "excess," therefore, by his hon. friend, this supposed country would have an excess of ten millions. His hon. friend's notion, therefore, of an excess was not always that it was an increase, but was compatible with the fact of a considerable decrease of circulation, even to a moiety.—This appeared to him to be rather a novel kind of argument. He certainly had not the least doubt, that if paper had not been issued, the currency of the country would not have been so large as it was. In that interpretation of the term, therefore, there was an excess of circulation, though for any thing that had been proved to the contrary, more gold had been taken out of the circulation since the year 1797 than paper had been introduced into it; and this he really believed was

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the fact. The proposition came to this—whether, in the existing state of affairs, having proceeded for four or five years in a course generally considered as essential to the security and independence of the country, namely, the carrying on of the war by a foreign expenditure to a very considerable amount, it was advisable to supply the domestic deficiency in circulation, which that expenditure must occasion, by a-paper currency. This was a plain question of policy. Nothing could be more clear to his understanding than that if the foreign expenditure were deemed necessary, the domestic currency must be considered inseparable from it; for where our foreign commerce was so circumscribed, and we had not the opportunity as in ordinary circumstances, of bringing back the wealth which we expended, the only way to provide the means for a future re-purchase of the coin that now quitted us was by giving a vigour to our agriculture and commerce, to which an increased internal circulation alone was competent.—If this were called an excess, he would say that it was an excess without which we Could not carry on the great contest in which we were engaged, as we had hitherto done. In no former war had the expences of the country been so great, or the means of supplying those expences so limited.
The question, therefore, for the Committee to decide upon was, whether or not the country should continue to make the exertions in which she had hitherto persevered. Were the Committee prepared to say that the evil of not having the balance of exchange nicely adjusted was so tremendous as to make it necessary, and, great God! to make it necessary at the present moment, to withdraw from the contest which the country was so gloriously maintaining? The hon. gent. who had last spoken, had done the Committee the favour of giving them a fine opportunity of contemplating what the situation of Great Britain might have been, compared with what it actually was.—He had charractcrised the conduct, which this country had pursued as absurd and timorous. He had called upon the Committee to look at Hamburgh; to look at Holland. Happy Hamburgh! happy Holland! They, it teemed, had not had the cowardice to imitate the example of Great Britain.—"Sir" exclaimed the Chancellor of the Exchequer, "without any intention of denying that our present situation is one
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which demands the most serious consideration, I have no hesitation in declaring, notwithstanding the imputation of cowardice on the manner in which the finances of the country have been conducted, that I prefer that situation to the situation in which the prowess of Hamburgh and of Holland have placed them."
So much for the question of excess; now for the question of depreciation. And here again he begged leave to say something on the meaning of the word, as it applied to the currency of the country. Some gentlemen, he conceived, by the term "depreciation," meant that the whole currency of the country was depreciated, gold and paper equally. This opinion had the sanction of high authorities. By the advocates of the Bullion Report the term was not so applied. They thought paper depreciated below coin. There was a strange confusion in the Report, in the reasoning upon which this opinion professed to be founded. The different members of their syllogism were unconnected with each other; and beginning in their premises with a reference to coin, they applied their conclusion exclusively to bullion. This was not quite so logical as might have been expected in a performance affecting such minute accuracy. It was perfectly fair for gentlemen on the other side to contend, for the purpose of maintaining their own propositions, that there was no difference between good gold in coin and gold in bullion but it certainly was not fair to commence the proposition by a reference to gold in coin, and then, without any notice, to substitute bullion in the room of it. If gentlemen meant merely to maintain the self-evident truth that, abstractedly speaking, an ounce of gold was worth an ounee of gold, he for one would have no difficulty in agreeing with them; but if they meant to say that gold neither acquired nor lost any thing in value, when it was stamped as coin, in comparison with gold in bullion, that was an assertion to which he could by no means accede. What was the extent of the difference, or under what circumstances it might be increased or diminished, was another question; but that there was a difference between gold in coin and gold in bullion, was a point upon which he could hardly think it possible to entertain a doubt, as long as the present system of our coinage laws remained in force. It might be argued, that that system was a bad one, and that it

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ought to be changed. Some gentlemen had advanced that opinion in effect, if not in terms. They thought that it would be wise and politic to remove all the impediments which the laws at present threw in the way of the exportation of our coin. If the legislature were to adopt that opinion, and to repeal all the laws now existing upon the subject, and if the guinea were to circulate abroad precisely for the same value that it did at home, in that case, and in that case only, would the proposition be true, that there was no difference between gold in coin and gold in bullion.
But the question, as it appeared to him, could only be properly decided by taking the facts as they did really exist, and not as some gentlemen might think they ought to exist. Now, what were the real facts of the case? This country was under the necessity, from the nature of the war in which it was from necessity engaged, to carry on extensive military operations abroad; and those military operations required that a considerable quantity of gold should be sent out of the country. By the law, as it now stood, gold in coin could not be applied to this purpose, because that law prohibited, under severe penalties, the sending it abroad. If, then, gold must be employed, and we could not send it in coin, it followed of course that we must send it in the shape of bullion. This circumstance created an increased demand for bullion, and therefore gave it a higher value than gold in coin. Was it, then, true, that gold in bars and gold in coin was of the same value? His hon. friend (Mr. Huskisson) certainly had advanced that opinion, and seemed to think that gold was natural money, and of the same value in whatever shape; but the fact was, that coin was not of the same value abroad as bullion, because it could not be exported; and bullion was not of the same value at home as coin, because it was not a legal tender.
He therefore contended, that there was no proof before the Committee that the paper of the Bank of England was depreciated in the sense in which he understood and had explained that term; that was to say, that the Bank note bore the same relative value to a guinea, that it always did, for all the purposes for which a guinea was legally applicable. If the paper of the Bank, which was only intended for internal circulation, was equal to the guinea considered only with a view to internal
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circulation, for which it was also exclusively intended, then most assuredly the Bank paper could not be said to be depreciated in value. All, therefore, that his hon. friend (Mr. Huskisson) had said about the superior value of a light guinea to a heavy one, which appeared so very ingenious to an hon. gent. opposite to him (Mr. Parnell), had, in fact, no bearing upon the real question. Because, if a guinea from the deficiency of weight was put completely out of circulation, it lost its character of coin, and thereby became bullion; and then, for the reason he had just stated, it would acquire an additional value.
Much had been said about the word "standard," and some gentlemen on the other side had discovered a strong desire to be facetious upon the subject. Now, if he were asked what he understood by that word? he should say, that he did not consider gold as a standard or silver as a standard; but he understood gold and silver bound down by law to a particular and relative value with each other; not gold alone, but gold tied down to a given relation to silver, which also made part of the general standard.
And here he begged to make an observation or two with regard to the literal accuracy of the first proposition of the hon. gent. If the House were called upon to record a solemn statement of the law of the country, they ought, undoubtedly, to take care that that statement was accurate. Now, the assertion in the Resolution was not strictly true; it asserted, "That the only money which can be legally tendered in Great Britain, for any sum above 12 d. in the whole, is made either of gold or silver; and that the weight, standard, and denomination, at which any such money is authorised to pass current, is fixed, under his Majesty's prerogative, "according to law." This was not, strictly speaking, the law; because silver to the amount of 25 l. was a legal tender, though it was not of standard weight. Now, as 999 out of every 1,000 payments in this country did not exceed that sum, it would be most improper for parliament to record upon its Journals as a truth, a proposition which was erroneous in such an immense majority of cases. Gentlemen had talked about scales which regulated the silver and gold coin. But with regard to silver, there was no law which said that a shilling should not be current when it was under the standard weight; on the contrary, up

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to the extent of 25 l. it might by law be circulated, if not of standard weight. But there was another point to be observed with regard to silver. It was legal to tender, to any amount, shillings at 5s. 2d. an ounce, yet the price of silver in bullion was 5s. 11 d. an ounce. He mentioned these as facts which certainly ought not to be lost sight of in the consideration of the present question.
He knew how much the patience of the House was exhausted, and therefore he would confine himself as much as he could to the most important points of the case. The really important question, then, for parliament to determine was this, What ought they to do, what, under all the circumstances of the case, would it be wise and politic for them to do? This at least was his view of the object to which their deliberations ought to be directed; and he thought he acted with wisdom in referring to the conduct of our ancestors in circumstances which were considered to be similar to the present, as a guide for our conduct under all the difficulties of the country. He did not differ from those gentlemen who maintained, as an abstract proposition, that a diminution of Bank paper would have a tendency to diminish the balance of exchange; it would probably produce that effect; but it would be at the expence of the most dreadful calamities to the country. The case of the French Bank, at a former period, had been referred to. In that case the Bank had involved itself in difficulties from an over issue of paper. The directors diminished the quantity of their paper, and the consequence was, that the credit of the Bank was restored; and it was also said, that the diminution of the paper had an effect upon the exchange. The latter part of the statement might be true, but he very much doubted it. The original capital of that Bank was two millions: it had issued paper to the amount of four millions, which had involved it in embarrassments; to relieve which, it withdrew two millions from circulation; and it was not very probable that such a sum could affect the general exchange of France. But the hon. gent. who had adverted to this Bank admitted, that though the narrowing its circulation removed its difficulties, yet it produced very great embarrassments among the commercial part of the community. The Bank, said he, had the courage to narrow its circulation; or, in other words, it had the courage to take
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care of its own interests, without any regard to those of the community. Was that the principle which he would recommend parliament to adopt in the present instance? But, if the withdrawing of two millions from the circulation in France, had produced such disastrous consequences to her trade, what would be the effect in this country under all the circumstances of the present times, if the Bank of England were to withdraw its paper, paper which it had been said formed the whole circulating medium of the country? Would it not ruin the manufactures? Would it not destroy the agriculture? Would it not dry up all those sources of wealth which enabled this country to make exertions pro portioned to the exigencies of the awful period in which we lived? And for what object was parliament to incur the risk of all these dreadful calamities? Why, for the purpose of making an experiment to bring the rate of exchange nearer to par!
But the gentlemen on the other side, in calling upon Parliament to be guided by the wisdom of our ancestors, had referred particularly to the events in 1696 and 1697. If there was any one passage in the Report which excited his astonishment more than another; if there was any one part of it more unguarded, more inaccurate, more unfounded than another, it was that part which referred to the transactions of the period alluded to. Un less he totally misunderstood the question, the case which had been quoted, if it applied at all to the present question, made directly against the arguments of those by whom it had been adduced.—[The Chancellor of the Exchequer here read an extract from that part of the Bullion Report, which stated, that soon after the establishment of the Bank of England its notes were depreciated, and considerable' embarrassments ensued; and that those embarrassments had been removed by a new coinage, and by reducing the quantity of Banknotes.*] The two operations then; in the opinion of the Committee, which relieved the Bank in 1696 and 1697; were the coinage, and the diminution of the number of Bank notes, and this was recommended to the notice of the House as a case in point. He begged to observe; however, that if it was a case in point, that that case had occurred when there was no restriction upon the cash payment a of the Bank. But it was said there was at that
* See vol. 17, Appendix, P. ccxxxiy.

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time an excess in the issue of Bank notes. He could hardly believe that the Bank would so soon after its establishment issue more notes than were necessary; the real fact was not that the Bank had issued more notes than were necessary, but that they had issued more than their credit would bear. Now, what were' the remedies? First, the coinage. The new coinage certainly did turn the balance of exchange in our favour, because almost the whole of it immediately found its way out of the country. In three years not a shilling of it was left in the kingdom; and he begged to observe, that this new coinage cost no less than between two and three millions. The other remedy applied was the diminution of the Bank notes. Now, what was the fact? The capital of the Bank-originally was 1,200,000 l.; in order to' relieve its embarrassments, the capital was augmented to two millions, and the subscription for the additional 800,000 l. was to be paid four-fifihs in Exchequer tallies, and one fifth in Bank notes: so far, therefore, the gentlemen were right; one fifth of" the value of 800,000 l. in notes was taken out of circulation: but by the very same operation the Bank were authorised to issue 800,000 l. in fresh notes, so that the diminution of paper, which had produced such beneficial effects, consisted in withdrawing about 160,000 l. worth of notes, and issuing fresh ones to the value of 800,000 l.! This was the precedent which the Committee had recommended to be followed in the present instance, for the purpose of diminishing the quantity of paper in circulation! [The right hon. gent. then read an extract from Tindal's continuation of Rapin's History of England, which stated that the great commercial embarrassments in the reign of king William had been relieved by an issue of paper. He then took a view of the case of Ireland in 1804, which had been so often alluded to. The evil then complained of arose, not from excess of paper, but from a want of confidence. That it was not the effect of an excess of paper was proved, by the circumstance of it being cured before any diminution of paper had taken place. Subsequently, there was a small diminution in the paper currency, and then the exchange became unfavourable to Ireland. He did not mean to say that this was caused by the reduction of paper, though afterwards, when the issues of paper increased, the exchange was greatly recovered. From
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the view which he took of the subject, he apprehended that there could be nothing found in the three cases mentioned, those of the Bank of Ireland, the Bank of France, and the Bank of England, that could encourage them to adopt the line of conduct recommended by the Committee.
It was quite impossible for him to go through all the points on which he could wish to speak: he therefore would confine himself merely to those which it might seem improper for him to pass by Adverting to what had been said with respect to the dollars, he wished to know what those who censured the late proceeding were of opinion should have been done on such an occasion? That a something was necessary to be done, he believed no one could deny; and he had no hesitation in saying that the measure adopted was wisely preferred to any other.
On the subject of the exchanges, there was one point which he wished to bring before the Committee. How was it possible the principle of the Bullion Committee could be right, namely, that the excess and depreciation of Bank paper could occasion all the difficulties which had occurred within the few years which had elapsed since the passing of the Bank Restriction Act That Act, as they all knew, was made in 1797. No alteration in the exchange was felt for some time; but in the years 1800 and 1801 the scarcity of, and great demand for corn, occasioned a great sensation in the exchanges, and a great increase in the price of bullion. The scarcity, however, which was felt in 1800 and in 1801, ceased in 1802, and the pressure which it had caused ceased also, or at least was diminished in a very considerable degree.
He would now call the attention of the Committee to the eleventh Resolution of his right hon. friend, "That the average price of wheat per quarter in the year 1798, was 50 s. 3d.; in 1799, 67 s. 5d.; in 1800, 113 s. 7d.; in 1801, 118 s. 3d.; and in 1802, 67 s. 5d. That the exchange with Hamburgh was in January 1798, 38. 2.; January 1739,37. 7.; January 1800, 32.; and January 1801, 29. 3, being in the whole a fall of 22 per cent. In January 1802, 32. 2.; and December 1802, 34., being in the whole a rise, of about 13 per cent." Now, from the history of those five years, and the manner in which the exchanges recovered when the scarcity which had led to the

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pressure of them had ceased, he thought with an extraordinary foreign expenditure for the last few years, occasioned by the war in Spain, and expences incurred in the Baltic, the effect produced on the exchanges might reasonably be ascribed to causes similar to those from which the evil was known to arise before. The Committee did condescend to admit that these causes might in some measure contribute to the effect produced; but they could not deny this: they would not allow them their due weight. The resumption of cash payments was impossible. Gold could not be procured, and if it could, the Bank would immediately be drained of it, without any advantage to the public; and that proposed as a remedy would but aggravate the evil, and accelerate that it was their most anxious wish to avoid. Under, these circumstances, However, the rational resolution proposed by the Committee was, to do away the Bank restriction, which, acting singly, had before produced no sensible effect, in order to get out of the difficulty; while those causes which were known to have given birth to it before, were to be disregarded, though they had been felt for three years, and were still increasing in force. If this were rational, he confessed his capacity was not framed to understand it. If such a measure were unhappily adopted, it might restore the balance of trade, but it would destroy the foundation of the country, and render it impossible to continue that contest which all were agreed ought not now to be relinquished.
From what had been heard in the course of the debate, it was clearer than ever that what was recommended by the Committee was not practicable; and if it were practicable, that it would be most ruinous. It had been said, that the proposed line of conduct ought to be pursued, in justice to the public creditors; but if a proposition were adopted which would ruin the country, he thought it was not very likely that it would then find itself in a situation to do justice to its creditors. The state in which we were placed at present, was one which, if it rendered us unable to do them justice, was one which had resulted from unforeseen circumstances growing out of the adoption of a line of conduct which was indispensably necessary to the salvation of the country. Would it now be justice, with their eyes open, for the House to take a step which must eventually be prejudicial
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to the interest of the creditor, and most injurious to the community at large? Were those who had made contracts to be subjected to ruin, by the adoption of a new system?
Having now stated, not all that he could have wished to have said, but that which appeared to him of greatest importance, he now came to this conelusion: that the measure proposed was a measure which, if adopted, would be adopted without proof of its necessity or expediency, against the evidence on which it was founded, and contrary to the example of former times; and that the House, in adopting it, would disgrace themselves for ever, by becoming the voluntary instruments of their country's ruin.
Mr. Canningrose and said:
Mr. Lushington; After the ample discussion which this question has undergone, I rise, Sir, not in the presumption that I am able to add any thing to the information which the Committee has already received from gentlemen the best qualified by their talents and their acquirements, by their professional pursuits and their official situations, to throw light upon the subject in all its principles and details; but simply for the purpose of stating the grounds of my own vote upon the several propositions which are submitted to our consideration.
In discharging this duty—a duty which I feel to be incumbent upon me as a member of parliament—I beg to be considered as speaking in that character only; as delivering freely and honestly a sincere' and unbiassed opinion, upon a question so important, that I did not think myself at liberty to let it pass without forming, to the best of my judgment, some opinion upon it; as neither adopting nor countenancing the prejudices of any set of men whatever; as neither the advocate nor the antagonist of the Bullion Committee; neither the advocate nor the antagonist of the Bank.
With respect to both those bodies, I firmly believe, that they have, each according to their measure, performed conscientiously a very difficult duty.
Of the Bank it is always to be remembered, that the condition in which they have found themselves, has been none of their own seeking; that the original restriction, in 1779, was imposed upon them by parliament; upon their own showing indeed of their difficulties—difficulties,

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however, arising out of circumstances over which the Bank had no controul; and that the restriction was renewed after they had declared their readiness to resume their payments in cash. Of the necessity of the first restriction I have no doubt; of the policy of the terms upon which it was last renewed I certainly entertain great doubts; but the error of that policy, whatever it may have been, is not justly to be visited on the Bank. Placed as the directors of the Bank have been by the effect of that last renewal, and by the events which have since occurred, in a situation perfectly novel; having, from the mere managers of the affairs of a great money corporation, become, by the force of circumstances, the sole issuers and regulators of the whole currency of the country; it is surely not to be wondered at that in such a situation they may have found the maxims of their original and habitual occupation either inapplicable to their new and enlarged sphere of action, or insufficient for it; and may have committed mistakes in the exercise of one of the highest prerogatives of the sovereign, which they would easily have avoided in conducting the concerns of their constituents. If they have fallen into such errors, I am not inclined to blame them. I would correct the errors, but without imputation on the men.
On the other hand, I must as fairly confess that I think the Bullion Committee has been hardly dealt with in the course of these discussions. A stranger who had derived his only knowledge of the case from the debates of the two last nights,-would almost have been led to imagine that the Bullion Committee was some Strange and self-erected power, wholly extrinsic to the constitution, and independent of the controul of this House; who without commission and without provocation had thought fit to intermeddle in the affairs of the Government and of the Bank, and to attempt the subversion of a system not only eminently beneficial, but confessedly without fault, without mischief; and without danger; a system with which all the world was perfectly satisfied in all its parts, until this officious Committee thought tit to disturb the general satisfaction. But what is the true history of this proceeding?—A Committee was appointed last year by the House of Commons, to inquire into the causes of the high price of gold bullion, and into the state of the foreign exchanges arid of the currency
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of the country. They took these subject into their consideration: they brought to that consideration talents, and information, such as have rarely been collected together in any one Committee of this House; and they bestowed upon it (that praise no man denies to the Committee) unremitted, diligence and labour. The result of their investigations they submitted to the House, according to its injunction, and to their duty,—And because that result was to some persons unexpected and is to others unpalatable, are we therefore justified in turning round upon the Committee of our own appointment, and rebuking them for the execution of the task which we had imposed upon them?—What would we have had them do? refuse the task allotted to them by the House?—or decline to render an account of the inquiries which we had ordered them to institute?—Or would we have had them fashion their Report, in spite of their own conviction, to the creed or the convenience of any persons or party, and recommend only whatever might best flatter our prejudices, and justify our inaction?
If such were our Wish, why was the Committee named? Why was not the proposal for its appointment rejected, orat least opposed? I was in the House on the day when it was proposed; and, so far as I recollect, not. a single voice was raised against it. If the subject did not require investigation, it was idle, and not only idle, but mischievous, to set the investigation on foot. If it was apprehended that the possible or probable result might be prejudicial to the interests of the country, then was the time to stop. It would, then have been perfectly easy to do so. A single word, the intimation of a doubt from any quarter of the House might, at that moment, have checked the proceeding. But to institute an inquiry upon a matter of great difficulty, with a predetermination to come to but one conclusion, is neither very creditable to those who appoint, nor very just to those who are appointed, the conductors of it.
Although I do not go with the Committee (as I shall presently have occasion to explain) to the length of their practical conclusion; and although the details of this intricate and perplexing subject are, as little agreeable to my taste, or, habits, as to those of any person in the House;—although I would as gladly as any, body; have turned aside, from the task of examining the reasonings and deductions of

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the Report;—yet I cannot in justice throw upon the members of the Committee the blame of those inconveniences which are inherent in the nature of the subject referred to their inquiry. However much I may dislike the unpleasant truths which are told in the Report, I do not think myself warranted to transfer that dislike to those whose duty it has been to tell them.
The Committee, then, I say, have only "lone their duty. Nor can we avoid the performance of the duty which now devolves upon ourselves. Distasteful as the matter may be, it is before us, and we must dispose of it.
I do not share in the apprehensions of those persons who predict danger and mischief from this discussion. I have seldom known an instance in which mote good than evil has not arisen out of the parliamentary discussion of subjects, however delicate, upon which the public mind had been previously agitated and divided.
As little do I agree with those who think that the discussion must necessarily be barren and useless. Even if it should not terminate (as probably it may not) in the adoption of the practical remedy suggested by the Committee, or in the suggestion of any other in its room, I do not think that the time and the trouble of the House will therefore have been entirely thrown away. The discussion which has already taken place out of doors, renders some decision of this House necessary. In the course of that discussion, the fundamental principles of our whole money system have been disputed and denied;—all that had long been considered as fixed and determinate in them, has been shaken, or at least attempted to be shaken:—a mischief more serious than even that which the Committee has proposed to cure; and one to which a cure may be (and ought to be) administered by the Resolutions of this House, whatever may become of the practical recommendation of the Committee.
Nor is it only out of doors, that these fundamental principles have been questioned. The right hon. gent. opposite to me (Mr. Vanaittart,) a gentleman for whom personally I entertain the sincerest respect as well as regard; and whose just reputation for knowledge upon these subjects, entitles his opinions upon them to very peculiar attention, has countenanced by himself adopting it, a mode of reasoning, which has been much employed in
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the written controversy, but which I had hoped no man in this House, and least of all any man of such extensive information, and such high authority, would have been found to endure, much less to sanction. He has rejected altogether the established doctrine of a fixed standard of the currency of the realm; and, instead of trying the disputed value of our present circulating medium by reference so that which has always hitherto been taken as the settled measure in all such inquiries, he has thought himself at liberty to bend and accommodate the fundamental principles of our money system to the state of our currency, such as he happens to find it.
Others who have supported the right hon. gentleman's Propositions have carried this licence still farther. They have not only considered the principles of all our coinage laws, so far as they relate to the value of our money, as inapplicable to the present state of our currency, but as altogether obsolete. They appear to look upon the law by which Bank paper is made inconvertible into cash, not as an occasional law, growing out of a temporary necessity, and determinable with that necessity, but as a wise and provident contrivance to substitute, absolutely and indefinitely, for the ancient coin of the kingdom, a currency better adapted, in their opinion, to the present state of the world, and to the peculiar exigencies of this country. The suspension of the cash payments of the Bank had hitherto always been treated as a necessary evil; as an expedient, upon which we were forced with reluctance, and of which we had the decency at least to pretend to desire and to anticipate the discontinuance: but, in the view of the subject which has been taken by these supporters of the right hon. gentleman's Propositions, the Bank Restriction is now become the staple resource in our pecuniary system; it is to be avowed as the standing policy of the state, and to be prized as an invention long desired, and now happily found, for supplying boundless exertion with inexhaustible and un-exhausting finance.
The decision of the House, therefore, important as it would undoubtedly be, if it should either confirm the recommendation of the Bullion Committee, or substitute in its stead some other practical measure for the termination of the Bank Restriction, will yet be not less (I had almost said will be more) important, if, even re-

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jecting that recommendation, and Confirming the continuance of the restriction, it shall nevertheless at the same time recognize the general principles which that Committee have laid down; and shall separate and distinguish the measure of the restriction itself, from the false and dangerous arguments by which it has been not only justified as an expedient, but recommended as a system.
To record principles which are true, and which have been called in question, is not of itself an idle nor an un parliamentary practice: and it is no paradox to say, that to record principles is never so much a matter of duty as when some over-ruling necessity obliges us to a practical departure from them. It then becomes incumbent upon us to prove that we are acting indeed from necessity, not from indifference, or change of system; to take care that our deviation shall not be made a precedent to be resorted to hereafter on occasions of less urgency; to provide that the exception shall not be erected into the rule.
This then is the answer which I give to those who represent the concluding Resolution of the honourable and learned chairman (Mr. Horner,) of the Bullion Committee, as the only essential object of our deliberations; and who would persuade us, that, if we are not prepared to decide with him upon the opening of the Bank, we have nothing to do with all his preliminary Resolutions but to get rid of them as quickly as possible. I, for one, am not prepared to vote with him for the opening of the Bank; I shall vote against the honourable gentleman's concluding Resolution: but I think that, according to all sound and practical views, the question, important as it is, whether the Bank shall be opened or shut, sinks into insignificance in comparison with that which has been raised with respect to the principles upon which the whole money system, and consequently the whole credit of the country, essentially depends.
Give me the affirmation by parliament of the first ten Resolutions of the honourable and learned gentleman—those Resolutions which state (and state correctly) the principles of that money system from which we have been compelled to depart, and the effects of our departure from them; and I would not unwillingly consent to a compromise with the right hon. gentleman opposite to me (Mr. Vansittart.) I would on that condition adopt the two
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last of his propositions; adopt them in substance at least,—so far as to agree with him that this is not the moment at which our cash payments can be resumed, or at which the precise period of their resumption can be determined. The right hon. gentleman ought surely to be satisfied with this compromise. His conclusion would, to my mind, even flow more logically from the premises laid down in the Resolutions of the hon. and learned gentleman. I certainly cannot subscribe to it as flowing from his own. I am ready to do as he would have me do, if he will allow me to record the reasons of my concurrence: but it is a concurrence which, I feel, requires explanation and apology; it is a concurrence which, if I do not altogether withhold it, I certainly cannot give, except on the condition, that I shall be at liberty to prove at the same time, that it is given not in consequence of the right hon. gentleman's reasons, but in spite of them.—That our currency is in such a state that the Bank cannot safely open, I agree: but it is hard to insist that I should find every thing right in that slate of things which forces me to come to such an agreement.
My right hon. friend, who spoke last, has with great dexterity as well as eloquence endeavoured to divert our attention from the specific object of this night's deliberation, by directing it to those circumstances in the present situation of affairs, at home and abroad, upon which there is scarcely any difference of feeling or opinion. The inordinate ambition and gigantic power of the enemy—the warfare directed by him against our trade and our manufactures; these are topics upon which my right hon. friend has expatiated with a force of statement, and a warmth of language, which do full justice to his argument; and has appealed to us—whether we will wantonly aggravate difficulties already so complicated and so overwhelming? He has availed himself with equal skill of another argument, which he well knows would operate upon my mind with no less force than upon his own, and which, if I could indeed be convinced that it was legitimately applied to the question in the way in which he applies it, would lead me, I will not say to concur in his conclusions, but at least to hesitate in rejecting them. He refers to the recent triumphs of our arms; he places before our eyes the prospect of successes still more splendid; he describes the safety of

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this country as involved in the war in the Peninsula; and he asks us—how that war is to be maintained? how we are to find the means of keeping on foot that army which has already performed such brilliant achievements, and of seconding the exertions of a commander who has carried the British name to the highest point of military glory? Shall such a contest—a contest for all that is interesting to this country and to Europe—be abandoned? shall lord Wellington be checked in his career? shall Portugal have been liberated only to be again given up to slavery?—shall the hopes of Spain have been revived only to be finally dashed and extinguished? God forbid! My right hon. friend well knows that in calling upon me duly to weigh these considerations, he interposes the surest impediment to any rash decision on my part, by which interests so dear to this country could by possibility be brought into hazard.—He knows that I must put a violence upon myself before I can coolly calculate the real bearing of topics which come home so forcibly to my feelings; before I can dissipate the illusion which they throw round the matter in debate, and examine dispassionately the degree in which they really apply to it.
But I will not pay my right hon. friend so ill a compliment as to suppose that he is not himself perfectly aware, that in thus shaping his argument he has in fact either assumed or omitted the question that is in dispute.—The question is not—whether we shall continue the war in the Peninsula with all our heart, and with all our might? Who doubts, who dissuades that determination? That point might have been assumed, without hazard of contradiction. But my right hon. friend argues that point, as if it were disputed: and assumes without argument that which it was necessary for him to prove: namely, that to the continuance of the war, and of our successes in the peninsula, it is essential that the present system of our currency should remain unchanged. Just as fairly might I assume without argument that a change in our currency is necessary to this same purpose of continuing; the war; and then retort upon my right, hon. friend his own expostulations against fettering the energies, and cramping the exertions of the country. In either case the point which alone is in dispute, remains to be decided.
Why is the continuance of the present
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system of currency essential to the continuance of the war? Is it because that currency is in a sound state? or that, being depreciated, a depreciated currency is the best instrument of foreign exertion? Which of these two propositions is it that my right hon. friend intends to maintain? I ask this question with the more earnestness, because throughout the whole of his speech, long, able, and eloquent as it was, I watched in vain for any sentence which distinctly expressed an opinion upon either of them. I did not hear him affirm that the currency was sound; I did not hear him admit that it was depreciated; he always stopped short of this affirmation and of this, admission; and if any distinct proposition could be collected and embodied out of those topics with which he endeavoured to cover these simple questions, it seemed at most to amount to nothing more than this—that it was best to goon as we are, avoiding all inquiry on the subject.
To that proposition (if that be the proposition which my right hon. friend means to maintain)—I answer, that it comes too late. The period for acting upon that policy passed by when the House consented to the appointment of the Bullion Committee.
To the question, how shall our military exertions be best supported? I reply—By supporting the credit of the country; by ascertaining the soundness of our currency, if it be sound;—by ascertaining the degree of its defect, if it be defective; with a view in the one case to apply a remedy so far as a remedy may be applicable; and it" the other to fix and settle the public opinion, which of itself is no small ingredient in the financial resources of a state.
I have no right, and certainly full as little desire, to impute to my right hon. friend that he is avowedly the advocate of a depreciated currency: but this debate would end most unsatisfactorily for the public as well as for the House, if it were to end without its being clearly understood on what precise grounds my right hon. friend thinks the present state of our currency such as it ought to be.—First whether he thinks it is not depreciated; secondly, whether, admitting it to be depredated, he considers the depreciation as incurable, and therefore only would take no step to cure it; or thirdly, whether he concurs with those who see in that depreciation a fertile source of wealth and blessings to the country;—these,

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after all, are the points in dispute:—and these points my right hon. friend appears to me to have studiously avoided.
Even in that part of his speech in which he approached the nearest to the question of depreciation, my right hon. friend so managed the course of his argument as to make it impossible that he should arrive at any definite conclusion.—With a semblance of candour which seemed as if he had adopted an inverted mode of reasoning as the best calculated in this particular instance for discovering the truth, he begins with examining the question of excess.—" Prove," says my right hon. friend, "that there exists an excess, and then I will be ready to go with you into an inquiry whether that excess has produced depreciation?"—Now it can not be necessary to remind my right hon. friend, that to reason from effect to cause has always been the course of sound philosophy.—The Committee affirms the existence of depreciation; and, as that depreciation cannot arise from any doubt of the solidity of the Bank—of its ability to meet its engagements, they attribute it (unanswerably, as appears to me) to excessive issue. "Prove this excessive issue," says my right hon. friend. But how is positive excess (if I may use that expression) susceptible of proof? How is it possible to prove, that too many bank-notes are issued, so long as there is a single applicant willing to receive them? The comparison of the amount of bank-notes in circulation with that of the aggregate, pecuniary transactions of the community would of itself afford no certain criterion of the sufficiency or excess of that circulation—even if it were possible to state that comparison with any thing like accuracy. But who shall pretend to state the actual aggregate amount of all the pecuniary transactions of the community? So far as a pretty general increase of prices is any symptom of excessive currency, that symptom undeniably exists.—But I acknowledge it to be no more than a symptom.—I admit further that the mere amount of bank paper in circulation, however large it may be, docs not of itself necessarily constitute excess. I admit that there is not excess, unless there be depreciation. Whether depreciation does exist or not, is, therefore, the question which must necessarily have the precedency in our examination.
The right hon. gent. opposite to me (Mr. Vansittart), when he opened his
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counter-propositions to the House, put, to my hon. friend near me, (Mr. Huskisson,) the question—"What do you mean by depreciation?"—He put this question, rather irregularly, in the middle of his own speech; and seemed to think it matter of triumph that he did not receive, at that moment, an answer in a single word. An answer he has, however, since received, and I should imagine (in one sense at least) to his complete satisfaction. "By depreciation, do you mean discredit?" said the right hon. gent. If by discredit, the right hon. gent. means a doubt of the solidity of the Bank,—a doubt whether the outstanding demands upon the Bank do not exceed the amount of their assets,—unquestionably no such doubt exists, and consequently "discredit" enters for nothing into the "depreciation" of Bank of England paper.
But when the right hon. gent. has obtained this concession, it appears to me that he has obtained nothing at all towards overthrowing the arguments his antagonists, or towards establishing his own. For the same concession would be equally, true with respect to a paper currency which should represent to its full amount the whole moveable and immoveable property: of the country. There would be assets in existence adequate to the redemption of that paper. Of a paper issued to such an amount, although resting on such unquestionable security, it is probable that ray. right hon. friend, who spoke last, would not dispute the excess; yet how could that excess be indicated except by depreciation?—That depreciation, in the case which I have supposed; the right hon. gent. (Mr. Vansittart) could not deny; but he must acknowledge that it would arise from other causes than discredit. The argument, therefore, or rather the suggestion (for it has not been distinctly argued), that there can be no depreciation unless arising from or accompanied with, discredit: and the inference which it covertly insinuated, that they who affirm bank notes to be depreciated, intend to attack the credit of the Bank,—entirely fall to the ground.
The alledged depreciation of Banknotes consists in this—that, whereas they did in fact represent heretofore the real as well as the nominal value of the coin which constitutes our lawful money, they, now represent its nominal value only. This is the answer to the question of the right hon. gent.

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In return, my hon. friend proposed a question to the right hon. gent., to which I think he has not yet given any answer. "If you affirm," said my hon. friend, "what I deny, the equivalency of Banknotes to money, tell me, What is the common standard by which you measure that equivalency?" This question the right hon. gent. has altogether evaded. He as given no answer to it.—Docs he mean to acquiesce in those which have been given for him by others who have taken the came side with him in this debate, or by some fanciful writers, who, under the guise and garb of practical men, have indulged themselves in the wildest theories and imaginations, upon this subject of the standard?
"The coin," (says a noble lord, who "poke last night) "is (or was) the standard of the paper." But this description does not advance us a single step; for the question still remains, "What is the standard of the coin? What is that common measure to which coin and paper may be equally referred for the purpose of ascertaining their agreement, or disagreement, with it, and with each other?"
The noble lord (Castlereagh) has indeed devised a singular definition of this measure, in which I should be exceedingly curious to know whether the right hon. gent. concurs. He defines it to be "a sense of value in reference to currency as compared with commodities."—I hope I do not misquote him. To the best of my recollection, these were the very words—" A sense of value!" But whose sense? with whom is it to originate? and how is it to be communicated to others: who is to promulgate, who is to acknowledge, or who is to enforce it? How is ft to be defined? and how is it to be regulated? What ingenuity shall calculate, or what authority controul its fluctuation?—Is the" sense" of to-day the same as that of yesterday, and will it be unchanged tomorrow?—It does fill me with astonishment that any man, of an accurate and reasoning mind, should not perceive that this wild and dangerous principle (if principle it can be called) would throw loose all the transactions of private life—all contracts and pecuniary bargains—by leaving them to be measured from day to day, and from hour to hour, by no other rule than that of the' fancies and interests of "ach individual conflicting with the fancies and interests of his neighbour.
A "sense of value!"—It is not many days since an experiment was tried upon
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this "sense," which may serve to illustrate the probable course of its operations, it left exclusively to its own guidance. The artisan who on the Thursday night had exchanged a one-pound note with his neighbour for four dollars, found in the morning that he had, insensibly to himself, become two shillings richer by the exchange.—I am not, here, about to inquire whether the Bank were right or wrong in raising the denomination of the dollar; I refer to this operation merely as an illustration of the argument: and I ask, Where would be the end of such operations if every individual's "sense of value" were to be his only guide in his dealings with his neighbours? In this instance the authority of the Bank sanctioned and limited the degree of the rise in the current value of the dollar or, to put the same thing in other words, the degree of the loss which the Bank-note should sustain in exchange against the dollar.—But is it to be imagined that, if they had merely sanctioned the principle of such alteration, without limiting the degree, two shillings in the pound, or ten per cent. is the precise amount of the rise on the one hand, or of the depreciation on the other, which all the holders of Bank notes, and of dollars respectively, would have agreed to fix by common "sense of value?" Is not such a supposition utterly absurd? Is it not clear that something wholly extrinsic to that capricious "sense," is necessary to regulate the ordinary dealings between man and man; and that the course of those dealings could not be left without a guide, but at the hazard, or the certainty rather, of immediate and inextricable confusion?
If, however, we were persuaded to leave the proportions and prices of all commodities to be adjusted by this "sense of value," we ought at least to be consistent in our theory and practice.—This "sense of value," which is now proposed to be erected, into an universal measure, has been occasionally adopted as such by individuals. There is a man now expecting the judgment of the law, whose "sense of value" led him to exchange for guineas a proportion of Bank of England paper, which he considered as no more than an equivalent. Of what crime was this man guilty, but of obeying that natural and instinctive impulse, which the noble Lord is now prepared to set up as a substitute for the standard of our money? If there be nothing more fixed and stable than indivi-

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dual feeling, to which the estimate of values can be referred, let us at least refrain from punishing the exercise of that individual feeling. If the law shall decline to fix a standard measure, it cannot reserve the right of visiting erroneous measurement as a crime. This would be an injustice like that of the Eastern Monarch who called upon the Soothsayers to interpret his dream, but refused to tell them the dream of which he required the interpretation.
No dream, it must be owned, could be more extravagant than the visions of those practical men who have undertaken to refine away the standard of the currency of the realm into a pure abstraction. There is indeed something perfectly ludicrous in the inconsistency and injustice with which they impute a love of abstraction to their opponents, while they are themselves indulging in the most wanton departures from substance and reality. "Beware of abstract theories," say they to the Bullion Committee, when they find fact and law-laid down as the foundation of its Report.—" Beware of abstract theories," say they to the honourable and learned chairman of the Committee, when they find in his first seven Resolutions nothing like theory or imagination; but a clear, concise, a dry and faithful, recapitulation of those rules which the statutes of the country have established for the weight-and fineness of its coin. Nor has the speech with which that hon. and learned gent, introduced and enforced his Resolutions—a speech which, remarkable as it was for eloquence and ability of every kind, was by nothing so distinguished as by its perpetual appeal to acknowledged principles arid established law,—even-that speech has not rescued the hon. and learned gent. from the imputations of flight bless and romance; The same caution to beware of abstract theories is addressed to my hon. friend near me, whose intelligence whose accuracy, and whose official knowledge, digested and assimilated by a powerful and realty practical understanding, make him perhaps Of all men the least proper object of such an admonition. And this admonition comes from whom? from the inventors and champions of" abstract currency;"—from those who, after exhausting in vain every attempt to find an earthly-substitute for the legal and ancient standard of our money, have divested the pound sterling of all the properties of matter, and pursued it under the name of the
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"ideal unit," into the regions of non-entity and nonsense!
When the ingenious sophistry of Dr. Berkeley, to prove the non-existence of matter, was quoted to Dr. Johnson, as a fallacy not easy to be refuted, Dr. Johnson stamped his foot with force against a stone, and exclaimed,—' I refute it thus.' Unluckily I know no process of reasoning that can reduce one of these practical men to the necessity of admitting, that a pound sterling is not a creature of the imagination: one cannot appeal even to their senses, because that sense of theirs, which I suppose is the most conversant with this subject, the "sense of value," is enlisted on the other side. But one may appeal from their theories to ancient records, to positive institution, and to existing law. On those authorities, I contend that a certain specified weight of gold or silver, of a certain fineness, is the only definition of a pound sterling, which an Englishman desirous of conforming to the laws of his country, is bound to regard, or to understand.
Here then it is that I should pause for the answer of the right hon. gent opposite to me to the question of my hon. friend.—Does he admit or deny this definition of standard? does he admit or deny the existence of a standard at this moment conformable to this definition? If he admits it, then it is possible not only to answer his question with respect to the meaning of the word "depreciation," but also to demonstrate that a depreciation, in the sense in which that word is used, does exist. Grant but the lawful standard as the instrument of mensuration; and nothing is more easy than to assign the exact proportion in which coin and notes differ in value from each other. But while the right hon. gent. denies the existence of any such instrument, how reasonably require that the accuracy of such a measurement should be proved to his satisfaction?
A pound sterling is either 20/62 of a pound of standard silver; or, 20/21 of a guinea weighing not less than 5dwts and 8grs. This is the simple and the only definition which the practice of our ancestors recognizes, and the law of the country allows; Does a one-pound note represent this portion of the precious metals, or doseit not If it does, the legal coin of the country and the notes of the Bank; are equivalent? If not, either the law misstated or the depreciation is proved
"Oh! but," says the right hon. gentle-

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man "the Bank note represents the coin itself; quacnus coin; and has no reference or relation to the quantity of gold or silver which that coin contains." But does not the right hon. gentleman see that it is impossible for him to avail himself of l the law in one instance and to deny its operation in the other?—The King's Proclamation confirmed by Act of Parliament has fixed the denomination of the coin; which denomination it is admitted on all hands, the Bank note continues to represent: but the same Act of Parliament has fixed the weight of the coin as the sole and indispensible test of the value which that denomination implies. The law (as the tight hon. gentleman well knows) watches with such scrupulous anxiety over the weight of the guinea, as to consider the loss of a single grain as sufficient to destroy its character as a legal coin. When the law evinces this anxiety about weight, is it not a little too much to assume in argument that its only care is denomination?
But what is the proposition for the sake of which this assumption is hazarded?—Not simply that Banknotes are a convenient symbol of coin, but that they are actually equivalent to it. In proof of this equivalency it is contended that the law has bound them together.
First, this argument would prove too much: it would undoubtedly get rid of all the embarrassing considerations of standard, of weight, and of intrinsic value; but, on the other band, those who maintain it would be involved in absurdities, which even the ingenuity of the righthon. gent. could not reconcile. They would have to maintain, for instance, that in the year 1095, when, previous to the resolution taken to reform the silver coinage, arguments something like those which are now used on the right hon gentleman's side of the question, prevailed upon the legislature to try the experiment of a statute by which it was made penal to receive or tender the unclipped coin at any higher price than the clipped coin,—they would have to maintain, I say, that from the passing of that act, the clipped and unclipped coin of the country became precisely equivalent; in other words, that an ounce of silver in the one became, by the operation of the statute, equal to an ounce and quarter of the same silver, in the other unquestioriably this cannot be what the right hon. gentleman is prepared to maintain as true though I must admit on the
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other hand, that a subject of this country-might at that time have been punished for acting as if he thought it false. But is the relation which was thus produced by law between two things obviously of different values, equivalency? Or is it to be imagined, that so forced and unnatural a stale of things, call it by what name you will, could be maintained by any law,—that any law could continue long in force whose purpose it was to maintain it? The consequence of this state of things in 1695, was the disappearance, that is to say, the hoarding, the melting, or the exportation of the perfect coin: the further consequence was, that, after a short trial of the compulsory law, Parliament found itself obliged to go to the root of the evil, and to reform the depreciated part of the currency.
But moreover the right hon. gentleman's assertion of the equivalency of coin and Bank notes, is in direct contradiction with admissions of his own. In the course of this debate he has admitted, (though others have denied) that in the year 1804 the paper of the Bank of Ireland was depreciated. I might here ask him in what sense he understands the word depreciated when he so applies it: and he would have to answer me as it has been answered to him, that the Irish Bank note did not then represent the intrinsic value of the coin with which it was interchangeable.
This s a most important admission on the part of the right hon. gentleman; and it has a bearing upon the present question, of which one would almost apprehend he could not have been aware, but which nevertheless he will find it difficult to deny. The premium, as I understand, in 1804 was about 1s. 6d. on the guinea. At that period Irish Bank paper, as interchangeable with English, was at a discount which pretty nearly corresponded with its depreciation in reference to the coin. The premium now openly paid in Ireland upon guineas is from 3s. 6d. to 4s. But Irish Bank paper is now exchangeable with English nearly at par. Whence is it that English Bank paper, which had an advantage over Irish Bank paper in 1804, when Irish paper was depreciated only about seven and a half per cent, should be now nearly on a par with it, when it is confessedly depreciated almost twenty per cent.? If indeed English Bank paper has suffered a depreciation to the same amount, this phænomenon is perfectly intelligible: but upon the hypothesis of the perfect

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and unchanged equivalency of English Bank paper and coin, it admits of no solution.
To my mind, I do confess, here is one decisive proof of depreciation.
But, is not the case of the dollar, (to which I have had occasion to refer with another view in a former part of the argument), itself a conclusive proof, not Only of the existence of a depreciation of Bank paper but of the opinion of the Bank, and of the government, that such depreciation does exist? Why was the Bank note, which was equivalent to four dollars on one day; worth two shillings less than four dollars the next? Those who claim to themselves exclusively the title of practical men, take a subtle distinction, and say, that it is not the Bank note which is worth less, but the dollar which is worth more: and they treat as theorists and visionaries all whose faculties do not enable them to enter into this distinction. But however the variation arose, why did the government and the Bank think it necessary to sanction and promulgate it?—Why? but because the dollar, being a coin circulating in this country by sufferance only, a currency of convention, would, according to the admission, or rather the declaration of the Bank, under the authority of the privy council, have been driven out of circulation, that is to say, would have been hoarded or melted or exported, if it had not been allowed to pass at the marketable value of the silver which it contains.
With this example before their eyes,—with this admission and declaration still recent before the eyes of the public, there are yet some persons who contend, that the disappearance of our legal coin—the guinea—is no proof of the depreciation of Bank notes, in respect to that coin; but is entirely owing to the balance of trade and of payments, and to the wiles of our inveterate enemy. The Bank note, which, confronted with the dollar, shrunk from twenty to eighteen shillings, preserves, as they affirm, in face of the guinea, an unaltered, and unalterable equivalency.—And what is it, according to their theory, that occasions this peculiarity? The law.—The law, which does what?—The law, which makes it criminal (if indeed it be criminal) to exchange the guinea for more than its denominative value in Banknotes; and which prohibits the exportation of the legal coin of the realm.
Let us see what is the mode in which these powerful and beneficial laws are
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now actually operating. The result which they were intended to obtain confessedly was to keep our legal coin at home and to maintain it in circulation. The result actually is, that such coin has vanished from domestic circulation, and that it is exported to all parts of the world. The dollars were sent into circulation, unprotected by any law which should prevent their exportation to foreign countries: for a time they circulated in abundance; at length they began to disappear. By what process has it been attempted, and successfully, to check their disappearance? By the same process which is so wisely contrived to prevent the disappearance of guineas? By forbidding more to be given for them, than they had hitherto been exchanged for in Bank-notes? No—but by a precisely contrary process—by allowing the dollars to pass at, or above their value. The consequence is, a continued circulation of dollars in this country, in spite of the balance of trade and of the wiles of the enemy.
Here then are two metallic currencies, one of which continues in circulation, while the other vanishes from it. The distinctive differences between them are, First, that of one the exportation is permitted, and of the other prohibited. I acknowledge the perversity of human nature, and its proneness to do what is forbidden; but I cannot think that principle alone sufficient to account for the exportation of the coin, which it is illegal to export, and for the continuance in circulation of that which might be exported without offence. Secondly, the one is exchangeable for its full marketable value in our domestic currency, whereas the law enforces (or is supposed to enforce) the exchange of the other at no more than its denominative rate. The bank-note is the common measure both of the guinea and of the dollar, of the exportable and unexportable coin: the guinea it is allowed by law to measure only according to its denomination; the dollar, by the ordinance of the Bank, it is allowed to measure according to its marketable value. What is the result? The coin, which is by law unexportable, flies to another market, while the exportable remains at home.
But let it, for argument's sake, be conceded that the rise of the dollar is not a proof of depreciation in the bank-note.—It follows then that if the bank-note,

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which would heretofore have purchased four dollars, is not depreciated in respect to the dollar because it is now obliged to call in two shillings to its aid in order to make the same purchase, neither would the bank-note, which heretofore purchased a guinea with the aid of one shilling only, be depreciated in respect to the guinea, if it should now be allowed to make the same purchase with the aid of four or five shillings. I think I may defy the most practical of men to quarrel with this proposition.
Well then—if this be so—and if it be indeed an object to keep our guineas at home, why is not the operation, which has been so successful with respect to the dollar, applied to the guinea? What difference is there in the principle? and what difference in the practical policy of the transaction, but such as would preponderate in favour of the guinea? If it be answered, "that the guinea is a legal coin, which the dollar is not; that the dollar might be treated as arbitrarily and unceremoniously as we pleased, but that the same experiment could not be tried upon the guinea without an alteration of the law, and that alterations of the law are dangerous." I reply, that the law is much less in our way on this point than gentlemen seem to apprehend. It is true that the dollar is a foreign coin of which our laws take no specific cognizance; but it is equally true that there is another coin in the country, not a legal coin,—a coin, of which the law takes no notice except to put it out of its protection; which no man is obliged, or even permitted, to receive from another in payment; which in short is as completely devoid of the qualities of British coin as the dollar, and indeed more completely so, since it is expressly stripped of those qualities by statute.—Now, if such a coin as this can be found, where is the harm of trying upon it the same experiment which has been so happily applied to the dollar; especially if it be, as fortunately it is, a gold coin, and there fore capable of supplying that share which dollars do not supply, towards the completement or a metallic circulation?, The coin to which I allude, is one which my hon. friend near me (Mr. Huskisson) is accused of having treated in his pamphlet with exaggerated respect, but which in the course of this debate has, I think too much disparaged;—I mean the light guinea.
The light guinea is not, any more than
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the dollar, a legal coin. A guinea having arrived by wear at a certain degree of lightness, is at once divested by law of all its qualities of coin, and is reduced to its intrinsic value, whatever that may be, as bullion. It happens, to be sure, at the present moment, that this reduction, as measured in bank notes, is a promotion. But that is equally true in respect to the dollar. The rate at which the dollar now passes is not only higher than it was some time ago; but higher than that which it bears, from its intrinsic value, in comparison with the legal coin of the country. Whether it was right to raise the denomination of the dollar, I do not think it necessary to give an opinion: that is done. But upon the principle, whatever it was, on which the denomination of the dollar was raised, there can surely be no objection to suffering the light guinea to go for what it is worth, and thereby obtaining an anomalous gold currency, to correspond with the anomalous silver currency, each alike independent of the legal coin of the realm.
The legal coin—the guinea of full lawful weight,—would still remain, in the eye of the law, in that of the imagination, and in the argument of the right hon. gent., as the equivalent for bank-notes. It would not often come forth indeed to afford a practical illustration of his argument; but he might continue to enjoy the satisfaction of maintaining, as he does now, as an abstract proposition, that bank-notes and guineas are equivalent in law.
Meantime the advantage derived from the marketablencss of light guineas would be, either to retain at least that portion of our metallic circulation at home, or to make the foreigner or the enemy pay its full value for it on exportation.
It is on all hands acknowledged—by the right hon. gent. and his supporters it is earnestly contended—that our gold finds its way out of the country, either in discharge of the balance of payments, or in to the coffers of the enemy. That enemy is by some persons represented as sitting' like a great spider in the midst of its web, and drawing along the living lines and fibres of his net all the gold of Great Britain into an abys from which it is never to return.—By what process this can be effected, except by that of a trade of some sort or other, we are not told,—and I am at a loss to conceive. Among all the dangers of the country, many of them, real and formidable, a danger, hap-

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pily more visionary than this was never apprehended by a disordered imagination.
That our gold however goes from us, is generally asserted and believed; and whether by a natural efflux, or by some unheard-of power of magnetic attraction in Buonaparté, is, in regard to the question which we are considering, of little moment. It goes; and we wish to stop it. It can be stopped effectually only by being retained in circulation at home. It can be retained in circulation, (as those who raised the denomination of the dollar, and who gave the reasons which were given for raising it, must of all men be the last to deny), only by allowing it to pass for what it is intrinsically worth, or what it will fetch in the market.
Here, however, I shall be met by an argument which has been urged with much vehemence and solemnity by the right hon. gentleman, (Mr. Vansittart) that the law absolutely prohibits the exportation of our coin, and that any reasoning therefore, which is founded upon the supposition of that exportation, is not only incorrect, but is of a most immoral and dangerous tendency, as holding out encouragement to perjury and fraud. Let us examine this argument.
We are all agreed upon the fact, that gold bullion is at a high price in the currency of this country. We are all agreed, that either as the consequence of this high price or as the cause of it, or both, there is a great scarcity of gold bullion in this country. We are all agreed, that the gold coin has nearly vanished from circulation: and nobody doubts, so far as I have heard, and nobody has asserted more strenuously than the right hon. gent. and those who side with him, that this high price and scarcity of bullion, and this vanishing of our gold coin, are infallible indications of a large exportation of gold; of which exportation a large part must, as infallibly, have consisted of coin, either melted or unmelted. Upon these facts, I say, we are all agreed. Now I ask, is it not idle, is it not absurd, to assume, for the purpose of argument, a supposed obedience to the law, which notoriously has no existence; and to deny for the purpose of argument, a fact which is acknowledged by all to be the surest symptom, and contended by many to be the origin and cause, of the evils which have brought us to the necessity of the present discussion? Is it not wholly unworthy an assembly of legislators, to pre-
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tend an ignorance in our legislative capacity of that, which every one of as in hit individual capacity perfectly believes to be true? Is the existence of a statute which, as we know, is openly violated, and for the most part with impunity, every day in the week, to be pleaded as a bar against any attempt to remedy the evils which confessedly result from its violation?
What then can be more unjust, or more ridiculous, than to represent those persons as countenancing and encouraging perjury and fraud, who only tell you, what you yourselves avow, that perjury and fraud are and have always been committed under your present system of law; and who, inferring that they always will be committed under that system, suggest to you the expediency of amending it? Who are the encouragers of crimes?—they who, finding the existing law notoriously inadequate to counteract the temptation to commit them, propose either to change the law or to remove the temptation;—or they who content themselves with whimpering over the depravity of human nature, and, instead of endeavouring to prevent the commission of the crime, console themselves with the reflection that the mischief to the public is only in proportion to the guilt of the criminal?
He was not an unwise or unjust judge, of whom it is recorded, that
"He sent the thief, who stole the gold, away,
"And punist'd him who put it in his way."
Undoubtedly, it is neither wise nor just to place temptations in men's way, which we know, by constant experience, to be sufficient to overpower the positive enactments of law. It is neither politic nor moral to resort on every occasion to the obligation of oaths as supplementary to a defective legislation. This policy unfortunately pervades too many of our statutes; and it is but rarely successful in its object,—never perhaps where considerable gain and great facility conspire to tempt to perjury. The exportation of coin, or of bullion melted from coin, when the exchanges are unfavourable beyond a certain limit, is looked upon as so much in the natural course of things, that most writers who have treated of coinage and of trade, have laid it down as a consequence not to be disputed, and not even necessary to be proved. According to the concurrent opinions of such writers, the efflux of bullion from one country to anothe is governed by causes nearly as steady and uniform in their operation, as those Which

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govern the seasons or the tides. As well might you pretend to fix a limit on the shore, and bid the flowing ocean advance no farther, as attempt by the interposition of a statute to stop the tide of the precious metals in whatever direction it is made to flow by the influence of commercial necessity and commercial demand.
The right hon. gent. and those who adopt his views of the present question, acknowledge the force of these principles: they attribute, in fact, the whole of our difficulties to their operation. There is indeed a slight difference of opinion among them as to the cause of the export of our gold; some attributing it to the demand for gold in the market of the continent,—others to the necessity of remitting it from hence, in payment of the balance of trade; but all concurring that, whatever may be the degree in which either of these causes, separately or jointly, operate, the result is an irresistible attraction of the gold of this country to the continent. Is it not, then, with marvellous inconsistency that these Same gentlemen oppose the mere existence of a powerless law, and a high-coloured description of the crimes which it occasions and constitutes, as an answer, and the only answer, to those who contend, that, if the evil which the law is intended to prevent, be indeed one which it is important to check,—and if the efflux of our gold be Certain, so long as the force of the temptation is stronger than the restraint of the law,—it is necessary, and it would be as wise as humane, either to alter the law, or to diminish the temptation?
I may perhaps be inclined to believe, that the repeal of this law would be in itself no unwise measure. That belief might be supported by the opinion of many able writers and experienced statesmen, and by the example of many of those Stales in which commerce has been most flourishing, and credit and coin most abundant. I admit hat the immediate, the momentary effect of this repeal, (if unaccompanied by any other measure), might be to increase the exportation of our gold, by removing the scruples of such persons as may now perhaps be wavering between temptation on the one hand, and obedience to the law on the other. Even so, however, it wolld have the benefit of saving all that perjury and fraud, which shock, so justly, the moral feelings of the House; and of extending to the honest trader a convemence which is now exclusively reserved for the dishonest one. But in the long
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run, I certainly do not believe that the repeal of this law would swell by a single guinea the amount of the export of out gold.
It is true that the repeal of this law alone would not have a necessary tendency to bring gold again into circulation in this country, either by recalling what has been exported, or by enticing what is now hoarded, out of its hiding places. That would be the effect of the other alteration to which I have already alluded—of suspending the law and the proclamation which limit the current rate of the guinea, and permitting it to pass according to its intrinsic value.
I have indeed stated this proposition hitherto only as applicable to the light guinea; of which the purchase, at its intrinsic value, is certainly no infringement either of the letter or the spirit of any existing proclamation or statute. I do not know whether I might, without presumption, say, that the law is by no means clear on this point, even with respect to guineas of full legal weight. Guineas of legal weight, however, I left out of my proposition in the former part of my argument, expressly, as I said, in the hope of conciliating the right hon. gent., by leaving-untouched, in respect to guineas of full weight, his proposition, of the equivalency of Bank paper and legal coin. But if the right hon. gent. should be disposed to concur with me at all, I trust, upon reflexion, he would not be prevented from doing so by the contemplation of this trifling advantage to his argument.—If he will con-, sent to let guineas go for what they are worth in the market, he will have a gold currency;—he will prevent the exportation of our coin; he will get rid of fraud' and perjury: and all this benefit he will purchase at no greater expence, than that of being one argument out of pocket. It will then, to be sure, be vain for him to contend, against the daily evidence of men's senses, that Bank paper and guineas are, at their present respective denominations, equivalent to each other: but at least we shall have them both, and they may circulate amicably together.
That by no other possible means the coin of the country can be retained in circulation, so long as the precious metal of which it is composed is intrinsically of a value so much higher than the rate at which it is estimated in our currency—is a proposition of which all experience, as well as all reason, establishes the truth.

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The present state of the law in the present state of our currency operates, in fact, as a bounty upon the exportation of our coin.
Of the two causes of the export of gold, which are admitted by the right hon. gent. and his friends,—the supposed demand for gold on the continent,—and the supposed necessity for exporting it to set right the balance of our trade,—the first will undoubtedly have an uncontrolled operation, so long as there is no counter-demand for gold in the market at home—so long as the Bank do not purchase, and as no one else purchases here, except for exportation:—the second would, in a natural slate of things, find its limit far within the amount of the balance to be set right; it would cease to operate, whenever the scarcity of gold, produced here by exportation, and the plenty produced on the continent by its importation, rendered gold less eligible for transmission abroad than any other merchantable commodity. But this limit it can never find, so long as gold is the only merchantable commodity for which the consumption of this country affords no market.
Independently, however, of these causes, the difference between the real value of the precious metal and that at which it is rated in our currency, would be itself sufficient to ensure us against the continuance of a guinea, in circulation. Demand on the continent might be counteracted by demand here; and gold would cease to be a preferable article for transmission abroad, from the moment at which it, like other articles, could be sold for its real value at home. But, imprisoned in the coin, and degraded by its imprisonment, gold has an unconquerable tendency to escape from a situation so unnatural: and it would make its escape from such a situation, even although you did not owe the continent any thing; and although there were no more demand on the continent for gold, than for any other article of merchandize.
But this, I may be told, is the language of theory. Is not the principle, then, recognised by any Sober practical authority? Let us hear the statute-book itself. "Whereas it has been a practice," says the preamble to the act 14 Geo. 3, chap. 70," to export the new and perfect coin of the realm for private advantage, and to the great detriment of the public; and the like practice will continue" (adds this theoretical and visionary preamble) "while pieces differing greatly in weight, are current under the same denomination, and at the same rate of value.—"
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The persons who framed this act, and. framed it for the express and practical' purpose of restoring the credit of our currency, could not be ignorant of the penalties under which the exportation of coin was prohibited: yet we see, that in spite of these penalties, they take for granted as inevitable the "continued" exportation of the coin, so long as the temptation to export it continues. We see further, that, in their opinion conformity to standard weight is the distinctive quality by which the value of money is to be estimated. We see lastly, that without any reference to demand for gold on the continent" without any reference to an unfavourable, balance of trade, the certain result of ail attempt to circulate together, "under the same denomination and at the same rate of value," two descriptions of currency, differing in intrinsic value from each other, is to drive that which is of the higher intrinsic value out of circulation.
This is, in fact, as I understand it, the whole doctrine of the Bullion Committee upon this subject: and so far from having the guilt or the merit of novelty, we find it assumed six-and-thirty years ago, in the preamble of an act of parliament, as a doctrine established and self-evident.
Of this doctrine, thus adopted by Parliament in the year 1774, there is an earlier and not less authoritative recognition in the Report of sir Isaac Newton, in the year 1717;. of the existence of which Report I was surprised to hear a right hon. friend of mine (Mr. Rose) declare himself entirely ignorant. A person so distinguished as my right hon. friend unquestionably is by great knowledge and indefatigable research, I should have thought, could hardly have missed a document of such interest and importance, and so immediately bearing upon the subject before us. This Report was made by sir Isaac Newton, in his capacity of Master, of the Mint, and is to be found in; cur Journals, vol. xviii. p. 664
It is too long for me to trouble the House with reading it: but gentlemen will find, upon looking into it, that upon a reference made to him by the lords of the Treasury, as to, the best method of preventing the melting down of the silver; coin, sir Isaac Newton represents the;, temptation to melt and export it, as "arising from the higher price of silver, in other places than in England, in proportion to gold;" that is to say, from the circumstance, that the silver coin than

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our standard currency, was, by the regulations of our Mint, exchangeable with the gold coin at a rate somewhat lower than that at which it was exchangeable, as bullion, with gold in the general market of Europe. So small was this difference, that the taking of sixpence from the current rate of the guinea was estimated by sir Isaac Newton as sufficient to cure the evil; and yet, small as this difference was, during its continuance, and by its operation alone, the silver coin of standard weight was daily vanishing from circulation.
In this report of sir Isaac Newton, and in the principles which are laid down in it, is to be found the answer to many of my right hon. friend's (the Chancellor of the Exchequer's) observations upon that part of the Report of the Bullion Committee which refers to the re-coinage of, the silver currency in the year 1696. The subsequent disappearance of the new silver coin, is not, as my right hon. friend seemed to insinuate, a proof that the re-coinage at that time had been unadvisedly undertaken; or that it was not the only cure that could be applied to that depreciation of the currency, which Parliament had attempted in vain to remedy (as I have already had occasion to state) by a penal law. It is true that, by a slight error, in the valuation of the two precious metals with respect to each other, the silver coin was rated a small degree below its just proportion to gold; and that, in consequence, it began to disappear not long after the re-coinage was completed. But this technical error does not in any degree vitiate the principles on which the re-coinage had been adopted. It in no degree diminishes or affects the merit of those who had the courage to undertake, and the firmness to carry through that important work, in spite of the prevalence for a time, even in this House, of prejudices very much akin to those of the present day.
Those prejudices were sufficiently strong to defeat for a considerable time the intentions of the government, after they had upon mature deliberation convinced themselves of the absolute necessity of the measure; but the good sense, temper and perseverance of that administration triumphed in the end; and it is no disparagement to my right hon. friend, to recommend the example of the administration of 1696 to his serious consideration.
The war in which king William was
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then engaged against France, may not have been equal with the present war in magnitude of exertion. Yet if we compare the means of the country at that period with its present means, and consider the exertions which were then made, it would perhaps be difficult to say that any excuse could be offered now, which was not in a great measure applicable then, for sparing, amidst the burthens of war, any internal effort which was not indispensable. But, the restoration of the currency to a sound state was then deemed to be indispensable; and the war was considered not as a reason for postponing the required effort, but as an additional reason for making it with as little delay as possible.
The high price of gold was then, as it is now, one striking indication of the deteriorated state of the currency. The indication might, indeed, be at that time more undeniable, because, gold not being then our standard coin, and the guinea not being limited by law as to the rate at which it should pass current, the high price became immediately visible in the gold coin as well as in bullion, the guinea being actually exchangeable for as much as thirty shillings of the clipped silver. The unfavourable state of our exchanges with foreign countries afforded then, as it does now, the other most unerring proof that all was not sound in the currency of this country; a proof of which my right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer clearly admits the validity, when he admits that the unfavourableness of the exchange might probably now be corrected by correcting the excess, or (if he objects to the word excess) diminishing the abundance of our paper currency. This admission I understood my right hon. friend to make in the most unequivocal terms: not meaning thereby that I understood him to admit that it was advisable to diminish the paper currency for the sake of correcting the unfavourableness of the exchange; but simply that such a correction of the exchange would be the effect of such a diminution of paper.
This leads me to consider the subject of the exchanges, as it bears upon that of depreciation. I shall treat it as concisely as I can: both because I must confess, that with all the attention which I have bestowed upon it, I am perfectly conscious that I have not been able to unravel all the intricacies of the subject; and also

1105
because it appears to me, that the whole question as to depreciation is disposed of by the preceding part of the argument, that is to say, by the comparison of currency with bullion. The state of the exchanges may add some illustration to that argument; but is not wanted for the purpose of establishing it.
If that which constitutes the par of exchange between any two countries, be (as, if I am not mistaken, it is) an equal quantity of precious metal in their respective currencies; this definition alone sufficiently shows that, whatever other considerations there may be, whether growing out of law or out of opinion, which regulate and sustain the rate of a currency at home, its value can be estimated abroad by no other criterion than that of the quantity of precious metal for which a specific portion of it is exchangeable. The foreigner knows nothing of the value of the currency of any other country except that a certain portion of that currency represents and will procure in his own country a certain quantity of precious metal.
The question of the exchanges would therefore be as simple as the question of depreciation, if there were not confessedly other causes which operate upon the exchange, and the operation of which may sometimes be concurrent with that of the relative values of the respective currencies, and sometimes may tend to counteract it.
A country which imports from another more than it exports to it of all other articles of commerce, is supposed to make up the difference by a transmission of bullion. In point of fact, this transmission takes place in much fewer instances than the theory supposes: but the necessity of making it either actually or virtually, cause" a variation in the rate of exchange in favour of the creditor, and to the disadvantage of the debtor country; the amount of which variation is measured by, and expresses, the cost of making the transmission.
Supposing the currencies of two countries each in a perfectly sound state, any variation from the par of exchange, between them can be produced only by the one country having a debt to discharge to the other. Supposing the debts and Credits of two countries to be exactly balanced, any variation from the par of exchange between them can only be produced by a depreciation in the currency of
1106
one of them. These causes, however, may both exist at the same time: and they may exist either on opposite sides or together; in the one case aggravating, in the other counteracting each other.
A country might be largely in debt to another, and yet, if its currency were sound, and the currency of the creditor country deteriorated, the course of the exchange would exhibit only the difference between the contending effects of such deterioration on the one hand, and such debt on the other:—and it might happen that these effects might be so precisely balanced, as exactly to neutralise each other. But when a country is in the situation of being indebted to another, and at the same time of having a depreciated currency, the depression of the exchange exhibits the combined effect of both causes.
This last may, or may not be, our present situation. For I am far from taking upon myself to assert that the balance of the payments from us to the continent enters for nothing into the amount of the unfavourable exchange against this country. I only deny that it can be the sole cause of that unfavourableness. Still less do I pretend to define the share which this cause may have in producing the effect. But as it is obvious that the depression of the exchange from this cause can never for any great continuance of time very far exceed the expence of transmitting bullion for the liquidation of the balance of payments: as it is not only acknowledged but contended, that bullion for this purpose is in fact transmitted; as the expence of the transmission is perfectly known, in all its several parts of price, freight, and insurance; and as their collective result, is notoriously very far within the limits of the actual depression of the exchange; there will remain of that depression a large share to be accounted for, after every deduction that can be made on account of the balance of payments; and that remainder can no otherwise be accounted for, than by the deterioration of our currency.
The state of the exchanges therefore is a proof, though I do not admit it to be a necessary proof.—still less could I allow it to be the test,—of a depreciated currency. I do not admit it to be a necessary proof; because, the price of bullion in the currency is proof sufficient without it. I do not allow it to be the test; because under certain circumstances a currency might be depreciated to a limited degree; without

1107
producing a visible depression of the exchange,—nay, it might co-exist with an exchange positively favourable. These cases would arise, whenever the effect produced upon the exchange by the balance of payments in favour of the country Whose currency is depreciated in the one case exactly equalled, or in the other exceeded, the degree of the depreciation. But though a depreciation of the currency might thus exist without inducing an unfavourable exchange; a state of the exchange unfavourable to a great degree, and progressively growing worse for a great length of time, is an infallible indication of a depreciated currency.
This is all the use that I think it necessary to make of the arguments to be drawn from the exchanges; and so far as this goes, I cannot understand how any one can doubt as to their bearing. We do not doubt with respect to other countries, that a sound or unsound state of their currency influences the state of their exchanges. When we see the exchanges between Hamburgh or Amsterdam, on the one hand, and Russia or Austria on the other, unfavourable in a great degree to either of the two latter countries, we have no hesitation in at once ascribing that unfavour-ableness, in great part at least, to a depreciation of its currency.
My right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has taken what I must think not a very fair advantage of an argument of an hon. gent. opposite to me, (Mr. Sharp) when he has represented him as having recommended the general policy of Holland and of Hamburgh as an object of imitation for this country,—because the hon. gent. stated, that by not issuing a paper-money, the currencies of Holland and of Hamburgh had been preserved from depreciation. The hon. gent. certainly did not guard and qualify his statement with all the circumstances which were nevertheless obviously connected, in his mind, with the proposition which he was advancing: but it is quite as clear that nothing but the strong temptation of flying from argument to declamation; could have led my right hon. friend so far to mistake the hon. gent.'s meaning. The meaning of the hon. gent. evidently was not to holdout Holland as having been wise in its submissions and compliances towards France, and as enjoying the reward of her prudent obedience in a state, of enviable happiness and prosperity. Still less could he intend (how is it possible that any rational being Could
1108
be for a moment suspected of intending?) to extol the prowess of Hamburgh:—" prowess" was, I think, the word which my right hon. friend did not disdain to put into the hon. gent.'s mouth, for the sake of making an indignant comment upon it. The scope of the hon. gent.'s argument, I understood to be simply this:—that if Holland, impoverished by an exhausting war, and preyed upon by an exacting despotism,—if Hamburgh, in the very clutches of the French power,—if these unhappy states, stripped of their commerce and independence, could yet maintain their respective currencies undepreciated;—it would seem to follow that a state of war, however expensive and burthensome,—that stagnation of commerce,—that even the oppression of a conquering enemy,—were not sufficient justifications, much less necessary causes, of such a system of currency as that which (according to the hon. gent.'s argument) now existed in this country; and of which my right hon. friend and others seemed prepared to justify the continuance so long at least as the war shall continue, as our commerce shall be embarrassed, and as our enemy shall persevere in his present system of measures. This is what I understood the hon. gent. to contend: and, whatever might be the worth of his argument, it surely was not open to the imputation which my right hon. friend found it convenient to attach to it; as if the hon. gent. had been guilty of the egregious absurdity of proposing for the imitation of this country, the political courage of the Dutch, and the military prowess of the Hamburghers.
I am not, however, disposed to deny the assertion, which my right hon. friend has grounded upon this argument, that inferences are not to be conclusively drawn from the establishments of other countries, whether political or commercial, to our own. The principles of public credit are so much better understood, and so much more religiously observed in this country, the line of separation between the financial operations of the state, and the concerns of the national Bank, confounded too often by arbitrary governments, is here so distinctly marked, that it cannot be doubted but many general propositions are true of paper currencies abroad, which would be utterly inapplicable to the system of the Bank of England.
The depreciation of the Austrian paper money, there fore, which has been cited

1109
and commented upon by my hon. friend near me (Mr. Huskisson,) is not precisely an example; it is not a counterpart of our actual situation: but it does afford a most useful warning; it shows how rapidly paper money sinks in value, when once power has been in any degree substituted for confidence; and how tremendously, when once the first impulse has been given, the force of the descent accumulates and increases. The depreciation of Austrian paper was not, in its origin, like that which we are now discussing; there was, in its origin, something of discredit, of a distrust (that is) of the solidity of the funds upon which the paper was issued.
If solidity of funds, however, were alone sufficient to keep up the credit of a paper, even the assignats of France would not have fallen so soon and so rapidly in value. The rulers of France by whom that paper money was coined, affected to be surprised at the depreciation of securities, resting, as they contended, on foundations more solid than those of the Bank of England—and calculated, like the paper of the Bank, to promote the prosperity of the country in which it circulated. Well and wisely did Mr. Burke, when, in the language of an orator, and in the spirit of a prophet, he foreshowed that series and succession of calamities, which the principles of the French revolution, in all its parts, must inevitably produce—well and wisely did he describe those essential qualities of the paper of the Bank of England which constitute its real value.
"They (said he, speaking of the National Assembly) imagine, that our flourishing state in England is owing to Bank paper, and not the Bank paper to the flourishing condition of our commerce, to the solidity of our credit, and to the total ex-, elusion of all idea of power from any part of the transaction. They forget that in England not one shilling of paper money of any description is received but of choice; that the whole had its origin in cash actually deposited; and that it is convertible at pleasure, in an instant, and without the smallest loss, into cash again. Our paper is of value in commerce, because in law it is of none. It is powerful on change, because in Westminster hall it is impotent. In payment of a debt of 20 l. a creditor may refuse all the paper of the Bank of England. Nor is there among us a single public security, of any quality or nature whatsoever, that is enforced by authority. In fact, it might easily be
1110
shown, that our paper wealth, instead of lessening the real coin, has, a tendency to increase it; that instead of being a substitute for money, it only facilitates its entry, its exit, and its circulation; that it is the symbol of prosperity, not the badge of distress. Never was a scarcity of cash and an exuberance of paper a subject of complaint in this nation."
These were the characteristics of the paper of the Bank of England, when Mr. Burke contrasted it with the assignats of France. Its convertibility into specie upon demand, was suspended by the act of 1797, on grounds which it is not now necessary to discuss. The suspension was, for a series of years, unattended with, any symptoms that indicated depreciation. And it must be our wish, as well as our interest, to believe, (what from reasoning also appears most probable,) that this suspension alone, if not followed up by excessive issue, might have endured, as long as the political circumstances of the state might have rendered its endurance necessary, without producing that effect. But if that effect has been produced, as seems to be established beyond the possibility of contradiction, let us not, instead of attempting to correct it, endeavour rather to palliate its evils, and to reconcile ourselves to its consequences. Even under the change produced by the temporary suspension of cash payments, let us remember, that the essential and fundamental principles upon which the character and the utility of Bank paper rest, are those described in the extract which I have just quoted from Mr. Burke. Let us not, under the pressure of what has been always considered as a temporary necessity, and in the despair of meeting what I trust is no more than a transitory and as yet a curable evil, abjure this language and these doctrines of Mr. Burke, and adopt in their stead the cant and sophistry of those against whom his arguments were directed.
Far be it from me to imagine that between the notes of the Bank of England and the assignats of the National Assembly, there now exists that resemblance of which Mr. Burke in 1791 denied and disproved the existence! But in proportion as I am satisfied that the Bank note is of a different nature from the assignat, in that proportion do I dislike to bear them defended by the same arguments. "Ce n'est pas l' assignat qui perd, c'est l'argent qui gagne," was the motto and the doctrine of

1111
a treatise, published in Paris during the reign of the National Assembly, for the purpose of maintaining the credit of assignats, by accounting for the difference between their nominal and exchangeable values. "It is not the Bank note which loses, but the dollar which gains," is the argument by which we have heard the rise in the denomination of the dollar explained: "It is not paper which has fallen, but gold which has risen," is the argument which has filled all the pamphlets and all the speeches which we have read and heard upon this subject. The arguments are identically and undistin-guishably the same:—I wish that any of my honourable friends who maintain the undepreciated state of our paper currency, could satisfy me and the country that there is some essential difference in their mode of applying them. I wish they could show me that the doctrine of the French pamphlet might be false, while that of the English pamphlets and of their own speeches is true.
I do not need to be reminded of the many essential differences in the circumstances of the two paper currencies. I am here speaking, not of the causes of depreciation, but simply of the fact. That assignats were discredited in all sorts of ways, no person doubts. But the price of the precious metals in those assignats was, after all, the evidence and the measure of their depreciation. The high price which other commodities bore in assignats, afforded, to be sure, strong suspicions of depreciation; but it proved the fact, and established the degree of that depreciation only as compared with the price for which the same articles could be obtained in gold or silver. I say this to guard myself against the imputation of disparaging Bank notes by comparing them with a currency so notoriously worthless and fraudulent. Paper currencies may be depreciated from various causes which have no resemblance to each other; but whatever be the causes of depreciation, the test of it is in all cases the same.
On all these grounds, I own my entire, though unwilling, conviction—that a deprestation of our paper currency does actually exist;—that the permanently un-favourable state of the exchanges with foreign countries, is an indication—and the long-continued high price of bullion at; home, the proof—of it. I can at the same time most truly say, that I shall hold my-self infinitely indebted to any man who,
1112
by reasoning and argument, by reference to admitted facts and established principles, can bring me back from this most unsatisfactory conviction.—No man set out in the examination of the subject with less disposition to arrive at this conclusion: and no man would more gladly find reasons that could satisfy his own mind for receding from it.
I confess, however, that although I can make full allowance to others for the same unwillingness which I have felt myself, to believe in the fact of an existing depreciation, I am more alarmed than encouraged by the apparent disposition rather to escape from the avowal of this fact, than to controvert it. I cannot see, without concern, the constant flight from the point, at which the controversy really lies, to the war, to the harvest, to Portugal, and to Buonaparté;—in short, to every imaginable topic, except those on which the discussion essentially turns. This may confuse and perplex the argument, by raising a crowd of images with which it has noelation. But as to the point at issue, it seems to me a confession of weakness rather than a display of strength.
Still greater is my apprehension, when I hear what are the motives assigned for continuing the present state of oar currency, whatever it may be, rather than making any attempt to decide what that state really is, and, if necessary, to correct or to improve it. Some persons there are indeed so sanguine and extravagant as to deny altogether that either improvement or correction is necessary; or that the ideas which these words convey can be applicable to a system which they consider, not as an evil, but as a benefit. We have been told of "localized" currency, of an "insulated" circulation, as a blessing far out-weighing all the other advantages arising from our peculiar local situation; as something analogous to them; something which was wanting to complete the perfection of our insular character, and which we have fortunately stumbled upon by accident—for I think no man has been hardy enough to say, that we could have or ought to have established it by design.
One hon. gent. (Mr. Baring) only, I think, has gone back to the origin of the Bank Restriction in 1797, and has imputed to the great man who was the author of it, an intention of laying in that measure the foundation of a system of fraudulent finance, and of providing for an indefinite

1113
extension of the public expenditure abroad by retrenching the just value of the payment to the public creditor at home. This is the imputation brought forward by that hon. gent.: and, while I fully acquit my right hon. friend (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) of any participation in this sentiment, I cannot but express my regret that he should not have distinctly disclaimed it; especially as he thought proper to bestow such lavish and unqualified commendation upon the speech in which it was contained, and to declare in more large and positive terms than I think he would upon reflection be disposed to confirm, his concurrence in the general views and doctrines of that speech.
But acquitting my right hon. friend altogether of the wildest and most extravagant of the tenets which have been advanced by persons who admit and admire a depreciated currency, I see cause of sufficient alarm in those which he has avowed and maintained. If the causes of the present state of our currency be, as he says, the unfavourable balance of our trade, and the necessary extent of our war expenditure; if so long as those causes continue to operate, gold must, as he contends, continue to flow out of the country; if nothing can contribute to recall it, except a turn of the exchanges in our favour; if that turn can never be produced, except either by the previous turn of the balance of trade in our favour, or by the reduction of our paper currency; if the balance of trade, having been turned against us by the anti-commercial decrees of our enemy, must continue against us till those decrees are repealed; and if, of the only other expedient for correcting the exchanges (viz. the reduction of out-paper currency), my right hon. friend, while he admits the efficacy to be probable, denies the application to be possible;—I am afraid the result of this series of propositions, every one of which I collect from the speech of my right hon. friend, is, not only that we have no remedy for the present evil, but that we are likely to arrive at a term, when all our exertions for the safety of the country must cease, from our absolute inability to maintain them.
The precious metals are necessary to feed and sustain our military operations abroad. In all former wars, what went out in bullion for military purposes, was replaced in the course of trade by fresh importations. But now, according to the
1114
argument of my right hon. friend, our commerce itself is but another drain for our bullion, and must continue so as long as the enemy pleases. The time, therefore, must come, when the stream, always flowing and never replenished, will be exhausted; and when consequently all the operations, whether of war or of commerce, to which it gave motion, will stand still. This, I beg it may be remembered, is not my statement: it is that which I collect from the speeches of those who profess to see nothing requisite to be set right in the present system of our currency. It would be a statement of complete despair, if there were absolutely no check in nature for the course and progress of the mischief. One check—one only check there is; a check, as I should think, safe as well as effectual. But while we are comforted with hearing from my right hon. friend that such a check might, in hi" opinion also, be effectual, we hear from him at the same time, that it would be absolute destruction to resort to it.
In addition to these motives of policy, there are, as I have heard this night, not without astonishment and dismay—considerations of justice, which preclude any systematic redaction of the amount of our paper currency. Such a reduction, it is argued, would change the value of existing contracts, and throw into confusion every species of pecuniary transaction, from the rent of the great landed proprietor down to the wages of the peasant and the artisan. Good God! what is this but to say, that the system of irredeemable paper currency must continue for ever? What is it but to say, that the debts incurred, and the contracts entered into, under the old established legal standard of the currency, including the debts and contracts of the state itself, are now to be lopped and squared to a new measure, set up originally as a temporary expedient; and that the sacredness of public faith, and the obligation of legalengagements, are to be conformed to the accidental and fluctuating derangement, and not to the antient and fixed rule, of our currency?
If this be so, there is indeed no hope that we shall ever return to our sound and pristine state.—This objection is of a nature lo propagate itself indefinitely. Every day new contracts must necessarily be made; and every day successively (as it is of the essence of depreciation to go on increasing in degree) at rates diverging

1115
more and more widely from the real standard from which we have departed. Every day, therefore, must interpose additional impediments to a return to the legal standard. Never did the wildest and most hostile prophesier of ruin to the finances of this country venture to predict that a time should come, when by the avowal of parliament, nominal amount in paper, without reference to any real standard value in gold, would be the payment of the public creditor. But still less could it ever be apprehended that such a system was to be built on the foundations of equity and right;—that it would be considered as unjust to give to the paper creditor the real value of his contracts in gold, but just to compel the creditor who had trusted in gold, to receive for all time to come the nominal amount, whatever that might come to be, of his contract in paper.
This proposition appears to me so, monstrous, and shows so plainly to what an extravagant and alarming length we are liable to be hurried, when once we have lost sight of principle and given ourselves up to the guidance of expediency, that I am sure this House ought to lose no time in pronouncing its opinion as to the maxims by which, for centuries, the currency of this country has been preserved in eminent purity and integrity; and in declaring its determination to acknowledge no others in the theory of our money system, and to look to a practical return to that system, not only as advantageous to the state, but as indispensable to its justice and its honour.
For these purposes, it is in my opinion necessary, in the first place, to enter a distinct record of what is, in our opinion, the legal standard of our currency. I know not how this can be done with greater clearness and correctness than by adopting the first Seven of the Resolutions proposed by the honourable and learned chairman of the Bullion Committee.
To these Seven Resolutions are opposed, and for them it is intended to substitute, the first of the Propositions of the right hon. gent. opposite to me.
I should have no hesitation in affirming these first Seven Resolutions, if they stood simply and positively on their own merits: but when I find that we cannot get rid of them without admitting into their places Proposition so exceptionable as the first Proposition of the right hon. gent., and one which, when admitted, will bring in
1116
its train other propositions still more exceptionable—one in particular (I mean the Third) absolutely repugnant (as it seems to me) to common sense; I consider the affirmation of the original Resolutions as doubly important, not only from what it will establish, but for what it will exclude.
This is not the time to discuss the Propositions of the right hon. gent. Otherwise it would be easy to show that the doctrine of his first Proposition, which referring every thing relating to the money of the country exclusively to the prerogative of the crown, states as altogether equal and indifferent the exercise of that prerogative by the will of the crown alone, or with the concurrence of the two Houses of Parliament; that this doctrine, if not absolutely false in principle and in theory, (a question which I will not now discuss) is at least, in any practical view, and to any practical purpose, unsound: it is. incomplete, delusive, and dangerous; it states the prerogative, indeed; but does not state it as defined and regulated by law. This, however, is a part only of the objections to the right hon. gent.'s Proposition. There are others which I shall reserve till the moment, if unhappily that moment shall arrive, when it becomes itself the subject of substantive discussion. What I have now said, in my opinion is sufficient to disqualify it as a substitute for the precise and unimpeachable statement of the monetary system of this country as established by the joint authority of the Crown and Parliament, which is contained in the hon. and learned gent.'s first Seven Resolutions.
If I do not go at large into these Resolutions for the purpose of explaining and defending the vote which I shall give in favour of them, it is because in the whole course of this debate I have not heard a single objection urged against them. It is singular that the whole skill of his antagonists should have been exnausted, not in attacking, but in evading his statement; that of a chain of reasoning which, if it could be loosened in a single link, would, I admit, fall to pieces, not a single link has been attempted to be loosened. It remains entire and unbroken, and connects undisputed premises with an inevitable conclusion.
The eighth and ninth Resolutions of the hon. and learned gent, contain truisms which no man disputes; and which the right hon. gent. in proposing to substitute

1117
for them his second Proposition, only makes less completely true by the omission of one essential circumstance. The eighth Resolution states that the notes of he Bank of England are stipulations to pay on demand. The right hon. gent.'s second Proposition omits the words on demand.'—Why this omission? It can hardly be accidental; it can hardly be without some meaning: and yet the right hon. gent. so far as I have heard, in the speech With which he introduced his Propositions, did not offer any thing to account for so singular an alteration. Is it possible that he can mean to say, that Bank-notes are not stipulations to pay on demand? It is perfectly true that the restriction law of 1797 suspends the fulfilment of this stipulation, and protects the Bank against the consequences of a refusal to fulfil it: but does not the right hon. gent. see the danger of confounding two things so different as the temporary suspension of the effect of an obligation, and the actual annulment of the obligation itself? I am almost sure that the right hon. gent, must, upon reflection, be aware of the perilous tendency of such a confusion. But in the mean time, forasmuch as a correct and complete definition is preferable to one which is undeniably and dangerously defective, I cannot hesitate to vote for the eighth and ninth of the original Resolutions, to the exclusion of the right hon. gent.'s most unnecessary and most suspicious amendment.
The tenth of the original Resolutions contains a clear, indisputable, and (as I have before described it) inevitable conclusion, from the state of the law, as accurately laid down in the preceding Resolutions, coupled with the notorious and undisputed fact of the high price of bullion. The truth of the averment contained in this Resolution is not directly denied. The dispute is only whether that which is admitted to be true is not nevertheless unfit to be recorded. It is not denied that the exchangeable value of Bank-notes is at this moment considerably less than their denominative value, if those values respectively be measured in gold or silver; but it is disputed whether gold or silver be the fit measure of the value of Bank-notes. This is in effect the whole of the argument, not upon this Resolution only, but upon the whole question in dispute. It is the single point on which all our discussions turn.
I have already discussed this point so
1118
much at length, and have so nearly (as I am afraid) exhausted the patient indulgence of the Committee, that I do not think myself at liberty here to recapitulate the arguments upon it. I will content myself with asking of those who maintain a contrary opinion, and particularly of the right hon. gent. (Mr. Vansittart) "If the precious metals, and particularly that one which is the legal standard of the currency of the country, be not the proper measure of the value of that currency—what is?" The right hon. gent. has his answer ready in his third Proposition: and a most curious one it is.—" Public estimation" is, according to the right hon. gent. the true standard measure of the value of a currency; and the common measure of the two parts of a currency as compared with each other. If I felt upon this question with the spirit of a partisan—if I had been a member of the Bullion Committee, and were responsible for their Report, I should say, that the right hon. gentleman's third Proposition was absolutely beyond my hopes. Speaking impartially, I must say, that if I had seen this third Proposition any where but where it is, fairly printed and numbered in the right hon. gentleman's series, I should have thought it an invention of his antagonists, calculated to place the fallacy of his doctrine in the most glaring and ridiculous point of view, but carrying the licence of exaggeration rather beyond pardonable limits, and defeating its purpose, by the grossness of the caricature. I would have taken no other person's word than the right hon. gentleman's own, that he, a man of science, a man of practical knowledge and experience, was the author of this Proposition.
This Proposition, however, is not now regularly before us. I think it absolutely incredible that it should ever be brought before us for our direct consideration and adoption. It-is now only to be viewed as the contrast and contradiction of the tenth Resolution of the hon. and learned gent.; as intended to divert us by the prospect of something better from sanctioning that Resolution. And how does it effect that purpose? By showingus that, if we will let that Resolution alone, and hot unsettle the public mind by resolving any thing at all about the measurement of the value of Bank-notes, there is already a sufficient rule for the just estimation of their value. What is that rule? "Public estimation." Good. And who is the party whose opinion is to be settled? The public. To

1119
whom do they appeal? To the House of Commons.—The public opinion is divided; the public appeal to the House of Commons for judgment; and the House of Commons, after gravely hearing the arguments on both sides, delivers, not its own decision of the question in dispute, but a decree that the opinion of the public has already decided it.
Is this (I do not say) wise, judicious, satisfactory? I ask if it be intelligible; if it be not a mockery of the public; a degradation of our own character, and an abdication of our own functions?
Again I say, I cannot, will not believe that we shall ever be seriously called upon to vote this third Proposition.
But even so, we must not leave this main point of inquiry undetermined, nor our determination upon it unrecorded. The tenth of the original Resolutions contains the just and indisputable inference from the known law and the acknowledged facts of the case. Till the indentures of the Mint be altered, and the statutes which sanction them repealed, definite weight of precious metal constitutes the true standard of our currency. By that standard while it subsists in law, every species of our currency must be measured. Measured by that standard, Bank notes have not at present a value equal to their denomination. Unless the premises can be denied, it is in vain to dispute the conclusion. And this conclusion, if it be true, it is our bounden duty solemnly to record.
These ten Resolutions therefore expound the law of the currency; and establish the fact of the actual depreciation of that part of it, which consists in paper.
Here I confess I should be contented to leave the matter: conceiving that the remedy to be applied to the evil may best be proposed by the executive government; and that the causes of it, though to my mind obvious and manifest, yet are not as capable of certain and demonstrative proof, as the tact of its existence.
I have myself no doubt of the truth of the hon. and learned gent.'s Eleventh Resolution. But I am not prepared to affirm it by my vote. I think that unlike in this respect to those which have preceded it, it asserts more than it proves. And I think it implies a degree of blame upon the Bank, which I am not ready to impute to that body.
When it is stated that the depreciation of bank notes is owing to an excessive issue, and that the excessive issue has been
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produced by a want of check and controul, it is difficult not to construe such a statement as imputing to the Bank a heavy responsibility both for the excess of their issues, and for a neglect of those precautions by which such excess might have been prevented. But the check and control which are said to have been wanting, may have been, and in point of fact were, in part at least, extrinsic to the Bank. The main check was the payment of their notes in specie upon demand: for the discontinuance of this check the Bank is obviously not responsible. If indeed I could agree with my right honourable friend (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) in considering the question of excess as independent of that of depreciation, and as capable of being satisfactorily proved or disproved otherwise than through the depreciation, I could not affirm the fact of an excessive issue without imputing to the Bank the blame of having intentionally produced that excess. But the check of cash payments once removed—which was, as I apprehend, the only infallible guard against excess, I know of no test by which the Bank could ascertain the fact that their issues had become excessive, except by that of their paper having become depreciated. The degree and the long continuance of the unfavourableness of the exchange strongly indicate—and the high price of bullion incontrovertibly proves,—the depreciation; the depreciation proves the excess.—But such being the order of the demonstration, it is not till the fact of depreciation was established that I could consider that of an excessive issue as proved: and it would not be until such excess should have been persevered in against better knowledge, that I should think it just to animadvert upon the conduct of the Bank in the terms of this Resolution.
Besides, I confess I think it unnecessary. I cannot help being satisfied, that without any specific resolution on the subject of excess, the effect of this debate, should the first ten Resolutions be adopted—nay, I cannot help hoping that the effect of the debate itself,—will be to correct that evil.
For this purpose, however, it is undoubtedly desirable, that the Bank should be disabused of some notions which it appears to entertain, and of others which have been suggested in this debate; at least if those notions are, as they appear

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to my understanding, entirely erroneous.—" It is impossible that there should be an excess in the issue of bank notes," say the Bank, "because those notes are never issued except upon solid security—the security of real mercantile transactions." Surely, it cannot be necessary to show that although this may be an adequate precaution against loss to the Bank, it is none against an excessive issue. It surely cannot be contended that every mercantile transaction, that is to say, every object of commerce, may be represented to its full value id the paper currency of the country, and represented not once only, but as often as it changes hands, without any inconvenient augmentation of the mass of that currency. A. sells to B. a bale of cloth, or a hogshead of sugar, and receives from B. a bill of exchange payable in two months. Here is a bill founded upon a real mercantile transaction. A. carries B's bill to the Bank for discount; and a bank-note to the amount of the bill is sent into circulation. Next day B. transfers his goods to C. and receives from C. a similar bill of exchange. Here is another bill founded on a real mercantile transaction. Like the former, it is carried to the Bank; and, like it, is the cause of adding a' bank note of the same amount to the circulation. Is it not plain that this transaction may be almost indefinitely repeated, till the bale of cloth or the hogshead of sugar is represented an hundred fold in the currency of the country? The security of the Bank is not in the rule of its issue, but in the solvency of the several parties. This may guard their notes against depreciation from discredit; but what tendency has it to secure them from depreciation by excess?
"It is impossible," others have said, "that there should be an excess, when the mass of property to be circulated in this country,—the rents of land, the profits of trade, the expenditure of the State, and the receipt of the revenue,—are grown and daily growing to an amount so much beyond all former experience." "The amount of the circulating medium," it is said, "so far from having increased in a ratio equal to that of these' several enormous demands' for its employment, bears an infinitely smaller proportion to those demands than it has done at former periods of our history. It cannot therefore be in excess;"—This proposition 'has been' much dwelt upon by many gentlemen who have spoken in this debate:
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and the difficulty of dealing with it lies in his—that on neither side of the comparison are what it assumes as data, fixed and certain; that on the one side the total amount of the currency of the country, including paper of all kinds, is necessarily unknown; and on the other side, who is there (as I have before had occasion to ask) that shall pretend to estimate with accuracy the aggregate amount of all the private transactions of the country? The peremptory inference that excess is impossible, is surely not to be drawn with confidence from premises necessarily conjectural.
In one sense, indeed, which, however, I can hardly suppose to be intended, it may be true that there never can be any such thing as excess, or superabundance of currency in a country: it cannot be superabundant if you do not care for its depreciation. Suppose for instance ten millions sufficient to carry on all the transactions of the country—fabricate fifteen millions of paper instead of ten, the whole fifteen will circulate:—the only consequence will be, that the commodities for which it is exchanged will rise fifty per cent, in their nominal price. Make those fifteen millions twenty; the addition will in like manner be absorbed into the enhanced prices of commodities. Excess of currency cannot be proved to the conviction of those who will not admit depreciation to be the proof of it.
But again, if we were to allow the accuracy and certainty of all the data that are assumed by those persons who have relied on this argument; to allow whatever amount they please for the pecuniary transactions of the country, public and private; to allow them to fix where they please, the amount of the currency; and to assume that its actual amount at the present moment, consisting, as it does, almost exclusively of paper, is not greater—is even less—than when it consisted in part, and in great part, of gold;—still it would remain for them, before they could infer the impossibility of excess, to show, that there was no improved mode of carrying on the transactions of the country, which facilitated and quickened all pecuniary transfers, arid made a less quantity of currency perform what had required a greater amount before; it would remain, for them to show that the very substitution of paper for gold did not greatly contribute to this facility; that a bank note of one hundred pounds would not perform

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in a given space of time an infinitely greater number of operations in exchange of commodities than an equal sum in the more bulky and Jess transferable shape of guineas.
That these or any other arguments can disprove the possibility of excess, I utterly deny,—and I trust that the Bank has, by this time, ceased to believe. On the other hand, that the existence of excess can be proved by the converse of these arguments, or that any conclusive inference can be drawn from the positive amount of paper in circulation, or from the comparison of that amount, either with the amount, of currency in circulation at any former time, or with that of the pecuniary transactions, revenue and expenditure of the country, I do not pretend.
The currency might be increased or diminished in any assignable degree, without affording any inference fairly conclusive upon the point in question, unless that diminution or increase were accompanied by a variation of its value. Whether that value has or has not varied, is therefore the sole question. It is the point from which we must return. And as it is one which is capable of being either proved or disproved directly; they who argue about it analogically, instead of directly, afford a strong indication of their own distrust in the soundness of their reasoning.
That excessive issue has therefore been the cause of depreciation I entertain no doubt. And although for the reasons which l have given, I do not think it necessary to declare this fact in a distinct Resolution, I trust that the statement of principles in those Resolutions which precede, and those which follow, is sufficient to answer every practical purpose of such a declaration.
The twelfth Resolution simply records a fact about which, there is no dispute—the unfavourable state of the exchanges.
The thirteenth Resolution attributes this unfavourable state of the exchanges, in a great measure, to the depreciation of the relative, values of the currency of this country, as compared with that of other countries; without however excluding the operation of other causes. The fourteenth declares it to be the duty of the Bank, under the present circumstances, to, take the state of foreign exchanges, as well as the price of bullion into their view regulating the amount of their issues.
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The twelfth Resolution requires no comment.
To the thirteenth and fourteenth, however the right hon. gent. opposite me (Air. Vansittart) may object, my right hon. friend (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) must agree. He must agree at least, unless he thinks, cither that the depreciation of our paper currency is a good thing in itself; or that, being an evil, it is productive of good by which it is more than counterbalanced. He must agree to these Resolutions; for he admits that the reduction of the amount of Bank paper would have; tendency to set right the exchanges. The state of the exchanges therefore is not in his opinion, as it is in that of others, wholly independent of the amount of the Bank, issues, and unaffected by it. If the exchanges are affected by the issues of the Bank, and affect in their turn, as they undoubtedly do, and as by some they are thought to do exclusively, the price of gold, and the general commercial interests of the country, the state of the exchanges cannot be altogether a matter of indifference in any question respecting the amount to which the bank issues should be carried. But the Bank have told us distinctly, that they do not advert to the exchanges with a view to regulate their issues. Their reason for not doing so they stale to be, that they do not consider the amount of their issues, and the state of the exchanges, as having any connexion, or bearing in any degree upon each other. In this opinion my right honourable friend (the Chancellor, of the Exchequer) thinks, as I think, that the Bank is wrong. He must therefore naturally agree with me in the necessity and expediency of correcting their error on this subject. Consequently I can anticipate no objection on his part to the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth Resolutions.
The fifteenth Resolution cannot be opposed by any man, who is not prepared to go the full length of the argument, that excess of paper currency is a thing of it self physically impossible, or, who is not desirous of converting the temporary suspension of cash payments into a permanent system. With these exceptions, every man must concur in the opinion, that the convertibility upon demand: of paper into coin is the only permanent and certain security against excess in the issue of paper; and must be anxious that, this principle, having been called in question, should be unequivocally affirmed, More especially

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must those persons be anxious for such an affirmation, who are prepared to vote for the last but one of the propositions of the right hon. gent. opposite to me (Mr. Vansittart); in which the expediency of returning to cash payments as quickly as possible, is so clearly and properly recognized I have already declared that I am one of those who concur in that proposition; and who would not object to voting at the same time for the concludirig proposition of the right hon. gent. which declares the inexpediency of reverting to cash payment" at the present moment: but to those propositions, the Resolutions of the hon. and learned gent. (Mr. Horner) which I have already discussed, and especially this fifteenth Resolution, appear to me to form the best and most natural introduction.
I now come to the concluding Resolution of the hon. and learned gent., and that with respect to which alone I differ from him to the extent of being compelled to vote against it. Agreeing with him as I do in all the main principles of his argument; admitting as I do, that the evil which he has denounced exists, and that he and his fellow-labourers have traced it to its source; admitting also that it requires remedy; I am certainly bound to explain why I cannot go along with him in his practical conclusion: and I will endeavour to explain myself upon this point, I hope to his satisfaction.
The object of this Resolution is to change the term of the restriction upon cash payments at the Bank; and to ascertain, though not necessarily to shorten, the period of its duration.
I have already said, that throughout the whole of this business, I consider the Bank as entirely passive. The restriction was originally imposed upon them by Parliament. By Parliament it was renewed more than once during the continuance of the former war, alter the Bank had declared its readiness to pay in cash;—by Parliament it was re-enacted at the re-commencement of the war;—and with a policy, which I deeply regret, but for which the Bank is he way answerable, was made commensurate in its continuance with the continuance of the war. If therefore the error has prevailed of considering this as a war measure, it is not to the Bank, but to Parliament, that this error ought to be imputed. The Bank Was taught by Parliament so to consider the subject; and it is hard to visit upon the
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Bank, the consequences of our own error.
Nothing can be more obvious than that, concerning its own interests as a commercial corporation, the Bank may have thought itself not only warranted but obliged to adopt a different course of conduct, with a view to prepare for the resumption of cash payments at a period of six months after a definitive treaty of peace, from that which they would have adopted with a view to a different period, definite in point of time, but independent of the consideration of peace or war. It is possible that, taking the colour of their opinions from Parliament, and considering the war as the cause of the restriction, and peace, whenever it should be made, as certain to supersede the necessity of it, they may have thought that the six months, which are to intervene between the conclusion of the definitive treaty and the call upon them for cash, would be sufficient to enable them to replenish their coffers; however they might have exhausted them in the mean time, by a liberal assistance to government, and however they might have omitted to replace their issues by the purchase of gold in the market. I do not say that such has been the conduct of the Bank: I say, that if such has been their conduct, it is perfectly natural and excusable. We know, indeed, in point of fact, that they have omitted to purchase bullion. I regret this—because I think that continued purchases, on their part, would have tended to keep their notes and the precious metals more nearly on a par. But we have nothing to do with the policy On which the Bank conducts its own private concerns; we have no right to examine into the state of its coffers; and it would be highly improper and mischievous to do so. We had a right to require, before the Bank restriction, payment of their notes in specie on demand: that right we have voluntarily foregone for purposes, and with a view to interests not of the Bank, but of our own; and all that we have now strictly aright to require of the Bank, is that it shall be ready to resume its cash payments at the period which Parliament has fixed for that resumption.
It would, therefore, in my opinion, be unjust to shorten by any compulsory measure the duration, or to change the nature of the term for which the restriction has been enacted.
But I also think the change would be impolitic as well as unjust. I am for ad-

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hering to our bargain; although I do not think it a very wise one. I am afraid, that if we proposed to alter it for our own convenience, we should not only not obtain our object, but, by throwing loose the terms of the existing agreement, should risk the non-performance of that agreement when the period for exacting it arrives.
That our first object might be defeated by (he Bank, if we could suppose that the directors of the Bank (which, however, I am very far from believing) were capable of defeating it by design,—is sufficiently obvious. But even innocently, and with the sincerest desire to conform themselves to the expressed wish of Parliament, the Bank directors, suddenly driven out of the course which they may have adopted in reliance upon the former act, by this new and unlooked-for interposition, might, by the very measures which that interposition Rendered necessary, create a state of things which would oblige us hastily to recall it.
We read in the Report of the Bullion Committee of the alarming effects of a too sudden and violent contraction of the Bank issues. We feel at the present moment the ill effect of an uncontrolled augmentation of them. The result of the present discussion must and will be (I cannot doubt but it will) to check the latter evil: but I am afraid, that, by fixing peremptorily a new period for opening the cash coffers of the bank, we should incur a danger of the former kind to an extent of which the consequences cannot be foreseen. Of these consequences, that which I most apprehend, which I think the most certain, and consider as the most to be deprecated, would be that, the act under which the restriction is now limited being repealed, the new limitation would be found impracticable; and that we should thus he left without the prospect of any definite period for the restoration of the sound and natural state of our currency.
In the present state of this discussion, I shall be well contented if we come out of the committee with the principles of our money system unequivocally recognized, and with the prospect of our return to the practice of them only not impaired. Of that issue I will not despair. For the rest, I am willing to leave to the good sense "and good intentions of the Bank, and to the suggestions of the executive government, that gradual retrenchment of the excess of our paper currency, which can
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alone correct those evils, the existence of which we all agree in acknowledging. I impute nothing to the Bank for whatever has taken place amiss: I rely confidently on their disposition to amend it. As to the government, I am quite sure, that whatever may be the present feelings of my right hon. friend, no obstinate attachment to preconceived opinions will prevent him from looking at the whole subject with impartiality, or from setting himself with that solicitude which its importance demands to review and to re-consider-all the facts and arguments connected with it, and to adapt his conduct (his counsel, rather—for it is in that way alone that he can properly influence the Bank) to whatever may after full deliberation be his own final and sincere conviction. I think that, after full deliberation, he cannot be convinced but aright.
If I am asked, "What will you then be satisfied, after all, with doing nothing?—with leaving things as they are?" I answer—We the House of Commons do perhaps as much as at this moment we can do, we do something practical—some' thing essentially useful and important, if we strengthen, by a declaration of our opinion, the foundations of the money system of the country; if we re-establish the credit of the true standard of our currency, at a moment when it is attempted to be brought into doubt and disrepute.
The Bullion Committee will not have sat in vain, if its Report shall have recalled the attention of parliament to that system, and that standard, which it was never the intention of Parliament to abandon. Nor will this House have misspent its time, if at the conclusion of this long and anxious investigation, it shall give its sanction to the principles of the Bullion Committee, so far as the system of our money and the standard of our currency are concerned, even although it may withhold that sanction from the practical measure which the Report of the Committee recommends.
The House was then resumed, and the further consideration of the Report adjourned till to-morrow.