Mr. Westernrose and said:—
In pursuance of notice given a long time ago, I now rise to submit a motion to the House, the object of which is, to induce an immediate attention to the present state of the Currency; to examine into the effects produced by the changes that have, been made in its value during the last thirty years. My perseverance upon this subject may, in the opinion of some honourable members, exceed those bounds which are considered praise-worthy but, such is my confidence—not only unabated, but increasing confidence—in the correctness of those views I entertain, such my unaltered conviction of 834 the fatal consequence of that last operation upon the Currency, by the act of 1819, commonly called Peel's Bill, that nothing could induce me to abstain from this further effor to attract the serious consideration of honourable members, to the means of arresting the further progress of injustice and mischief, which unceasingly continues to flow from that measure. If, Sir, the adverse decision of the House to the proposition I moved last year ought to discourage me, I am, on the other hand, fortified by the opinion of some of the most able and enlightened persons within and without these walls; and I know that I shall have the earnest and decided support of some of them on this occasion.
Before I proceed further into the subject, I will shortly state what I do not contemplate or desire to accomplish, in the event of success upon the motion I shall put into your hand. A sort of negative statement is sometimes very useful to assist the speaker to explain the direct object he has in view. In the first place, then, I do not contemplate any attack upon the administration with any spirit of party feeling. I am a party man, that is to say, I acknowledge the necessity of acting generally, though by no means invariably, in a party with those who concur in opinion upon great fundamental principles; but on this question, no such feelings can exist, for the measure I deprecate and wish to revise, were as much the work of Opposition statesmen as of ministers. I beg to have it understood, also, that I disclaim the idea of exclusive attention to the landed interest upon this question. They are, it is true, the most grievous sufferers by Peel's Bill; they are its first victims. [Somebody observed, "There are none of the country gentlemen here."] True enough, Sir, I hardly can discern one of them in the House: though they are the first victims, they are the last to perceive it—but I say they will not be the only sufferers—for it is quite clear, that, in proportion as the value of the Currency has been raised, all debtors are sufferers, creditors are gainers; all payers of taxes are sufferers, receivers of taxes are gainers; all the industrious laborious classes, therefore, are, or will be sufferers, though it has not yet fallen equally upon all. They are all paying that for which they never had value received. They are paying in one word, in gold at the old standary of value, 835 debts, contracted and taxes imposed in a Currency of infinitely lower value.
But, Sir, proceed to another negative. I say, I do not contemplate the bringing back an unlimited paper currency. Far be from my mind such an intention invariability of value is the primary, the essential quality to look to in the establishment of a circulating medium; and an unlimited paper currency can hardly fail to be eternally fluctuating. Then, Sir, I do not look to an undefined alteration of the standard which has been re-established by Peel's Bill, upon any arbitrary principle, irrelevant to actual and past circumstances. I should hardly have thought it necessary to disclaim such intentions, did I not know that they are sometimes imputed to me. I should not object to the trail of the system proposed by the hon. member for Portarlington, in place of Peel's Bill; nor should I object to its ultimate adoption, provided the consequences should prove such as he said would result from it; I mean, principally, in respect to the value of gold, which he contended would not be enhanced beyond the amount, which at that time it bore, and which being the case, would have given an adequate money price to all commodities. The average of wheat in that year was above 70s., owing no doubt to the then lower value of gold, as well as paper; for, we must never dismiss from our minds the fact, that gold varies in its value, according to supply and demand, like any other commodity; and that though, in general, its variations have not been great, they may, by possibility, as we know from the history of past time, be very great, and have actually been of late very considerable; which I shall shew presently.
This leads me, Sir, to a positive statement of what I do think, ought to be the principle on which in 1819 a metallic currency could have been justly established, on which it ought to be fixed, even now. I will endeavour to explain myself as early as I can. First, I must assume, What indeed will hardly be denied, that considerable variations of value in our currency have taken place in the course of the last thirty years. The extent of these variations I know are very differently Stated by different persons; but not their existence. It will be admitted, that a diminution of value followed the suspension of cash payments by the Bank in 1797; that such diminutions continued and 836 increased during the; latter years of the war, and up to the time of Peel's bill; and that Peel's bill, whilst it restored the old metallic currency, gave to it the value which it possessed prior to its suspension.
The injustice attendant upon an alteration of a currency in any way, cannot be questioned a moment. The injury that was done to creditors by the act of 1797 (the origin of all our difficulties, in regard to currency) is not to be doubted; but, my position is, that after a period of twenty-two years the resumption of the old standard could by no means be an act of justice or retribution. A new currency upon a new standard necessarily ceases to be new, in any sense of the word, at some period; and an old one revived again is, to all intents and purposes, new and productive of all the same effects. Is twenty-two years such a period as shall suffice so to establish a standard, as to make recurrence to the antecedent as mischievous as the adoption of a new one? This is the important question; and I answer most distinctly, yes; and that justice required us to establish and perpetuate that measure of value which had been so long current, as near as the same could be ascertained. In pronouncing thus distinctly this opinion, I am further entitled to found it, not only on the ordinary occurrences that take place in that term of years (which however would alone amply suffice), but the extraordinary events of that momentous period. It is not merely that twenty-two years shall terminate most private contracts and engagements that were created prior to that time, that new and more extensive shall have been formed since in the more recent measure of value; but the tremendous public debt that has been contracted, the increased pay of army and navy and all public officers; and the taxes that have been consequently imposed in that period, more than justify my decision; nay, I cannot hesitate to say, that to make them payable in the old antecedent standard, is an act of infatuation, quite irreconcileable with any sane view of national faith or justice. As to the injury and supposed recompense to creditors and annuitants prior to 1797, I say, almost every previous dower or jointure must have expired; every previous charge or debt settled; and how few were there of the old stock-holders, that is, the possessors of stock prior to the war, who had not, in some way or other, parted with their stock 837 to invest in land, trade, or manufactures; each and every one of whom would receive a second and far more violent injury, by the resumption of the old standard. The injustice done to those comparatively few who kept their ancient stock is the eternal theme of lamentation by the advocates of Peel's bill, whilst the more numerous and doubly-injured are wholly put aside. The injury to all creditors done by the Restriction act of 1797, cannot be sufficiently regretted; but, indemnification to the sufferers after a lapse of two and twenty years was impossible. There have been great gainers by Peel's bill and the resumption of the old standard, numerous and dreadful sacrifices, but no retributive justice. I fully admit, and indeed strongly feel the difficulties respecting the currency at that time; and that we had only a choice of alternatives, each in a degree objectionable, but I contend, that the course adopted was the most fatal that could be chosen, and that the most obviously just would have been to establish the metallic currency as near the average value as possible of the paper currency which had lasted twenty-two years, and which might have been easily ascertained; that paramount and real standard of value, as Mr. I Horner called it, namely, Bread Corn, presented one efficient test, which, accompanied by other considerations, would have fairly accomplished this object; but the truth is, the House was wholly ignorant of the effect of its own proceedings. The hon. member for Portarlington told them the bill would make only 3 or 4 per cent difference in the value of the currency; and they unfortunately confided in this statement. They had not the least idea of the change in the money-price of commodities which was to result from this measure. Had they known what they were about, Peel's bill never could; have passed.
The abundance of money, currency, or circulating medium (as differently and occasionally designated), and its consequent depreciation or diminution of value, certainly began soon after the commencement of the war in 1793; and the great amount of paper issues by the Bank, mainly contributed to produce the Restriction act of 1797. A material diminution of the value of our aggregate currency seems to have taken place (I mean currency composed of coin, and Bank and Country notes)—before the 838 difference in value of the Bank-note and the guinea appeared. This diminution and depreciation afterwards continued and increased; and the gold was carried down in value with the paper with which it was forcibly united. Besides that, the universality of paper as a circulating medium superseded all demand for gold for that purpose here, and, in a considerable degree on the continent, and of course reduced its value. So that, on this account, to measure the value of our paper currency by the price of gold, itself reduced in value, was an egregious fallacy; and it is marvellous to reflect upon the perseverance of the hon. member for Portarlington in so doing, through all the discussion on Peel's bill, to the very last. Notwithstanding we find him in one of his pamphlets observe, that "it is a question extremely difficult to determine, what the effect has been on the value of gold, and consequently on the value of money, by the purchases of bullion made by the Bank. When two commodities vary, it is impossible to be certain whether one has risen, or the other fallen. There are no means of even approximating to the knowledge of this fact, but by a careful comparison of the value of the two commodities during their variation, with the value of many other commodities."* It is astonishing, I say, that, with the avowal of such sentiments the hon. member for Portarlington should never advert to the vast change's that had taken place in the price of corn, and other commodities, to aid him in deciding the fluctuating value of paper arid gold singly or relatively to each other.
I have invariably contended, that the only means of estimating the value of a currency are, by watching its command or power over commodities particularly of prime and general necessity, and in this country, more especially Bread Corn. I have been often grossly misrepresented herein on former occasions, particularly by the hon. members for Portarlington and Liverpool. They argued, as if I had contemplated a currency following in its value every successive fluctuation of the price of corn, which would be madness; but whoever has looked into the subject at all, knows that corn is more steady in value, upon a long period of years, though less steady or more fluctuating from year to year, than the precious metals, or per-
*Ricardo on protection to Agriculture, A. D. 1822, p. 30.839 haps any other commodity. It is unnecessary to quote the authority of ancient writers, because all admit the fact; and we know, that Corn Rents have their origin in the rapid diminution of the value of the precious metals, and consequent advance in the price of corn, occasioned by the discovery of other m nes in the reign of Elizabeth.* In modern times, and amongst modern statesmen, I refer to Mr. Horner, because so much stress has been laid by some persons upon his authority, and because he was the most prominent character of the Bullionists. Mr. Horner said, that Bread Corn was the paramount and real standard of all value, and an advance or fall in monied price must be a fall or an advance in the value of money; that the price of wheat from 1773 to 1785 was, on an average, 46s. per quarter; from 1786 to 1797, 52s. per quarter; and from 1797 to 1808 79s. per quarter; and that no facts could possibly be required more strongly and indubitably to prove the incontestable depreciation of the currency.†Well, then, without going further, I Say I may be entitled to consider it as an axiom undisputed, that the price of Bread Corn, taken upon a long period, affords the best criterion of the value of money; and after an abandonment of any fixed standard by the act of 1797, it is quite incomprehensible that our wise men should never have adverted to that paramount standard as a guide to tell us what we were about when Peel's bill was before the House.
Now, let us examine further what the price of wheat has been, upon long averages of years, prior to the restriction; and from thence to Peel's bill, in 1819, and since, making three periods. Let us see, I say, how much wheat could be had in exchange for an ounce of gold, or how much gold for any given quantity of wheat, which is the same thing; for we purchase gold with wheat as much as we
§ *Prices of Wheat. (From Smith's Wealth of Nations; vol. 1.)
| Years. | l. | s. | d. |
| 1423 to 1451 | 0 | 10 | 7 |
| 1453 to 1497 | 0 | 8 | 5 |
| 1459 to 1560 | 0 | 9 | 2 |
| 1561 to 1601 | 2 | 7 | 5 |
| 1595 to 1636 | 2 | 10 | 0 |
| 1637 to 1700 | 2 | 11 | 3 |
§ † Debate on the report of the Bullion committe, May 6, 1811.
840§ purchase wheat with gold. Now, sir, if we look to the prices of wheat, first, for one hundred and fifty years prior to the commencement of the war, to 1792 inclusive, we shall find the average, if taken of each ten years, from 32s. to 51s., the general average above 40s. and not higher the last ten than the first; but after that period, and particularly after. I the year 1797, the advance became rapid, and in truth the average of the following twenty years was actually double that of any former.* From 1692 to 1792, announce of gold of the value of 3l. 17s. 10½d. would command about fifteen bushels of wheat; from 1792 to 1797, it would command only ten bushels [In this period, prior to the Suspension act, a scarcity occurred that forwarded the advance]; from 1797 to 1802, only seven bushels and three pecks; from 1802 to 1807, it would command eight bushels; from 1807 to 1812, six bushels and three pecks; from 1812 to 1817, seven bushels and about two pecks; and subsequently the case reversed, till at this moment we have got back to the measure of the 150 years prior to the war. Other causes, I know, are alleged, particularly the different effects of war and peace, for this advance and subsequent fall in the price of corn; but how can this opinion be maintained when we know the two last wars occasioned no advance whatever in the prices of bread, meat, and labour, &c.; which I proved on my motion last year, by refer-
§ * Eton College Table of the price of wheat Average of every ten years, from 1646 to
| s. | d. | |
| 1655 | 51 | 7 |
| 65 | 50 | 5 |
| 75 | 40 | 11 |
| 85 | 41 | 4 |
| 95 | 39 | 6 |
| 1705 | 42 | 11 |
| 15 | 44 | 11 |
| 25 | 35 | 4 |
| 35 | 35 | 2 |
| 1745 | 32 | 1 |
| 55 | 33 | 2 |
| 65 | 39 | 2 |
| 75 | 51 | 3 |
| 85 | 47 | 8 |
| 93* | 51 | 0 |
| 1803 | 80 | 1 |
| 13 | 100 | 0 |
§ * War began from this date.—Bank Restriction passed in 1797.
841§ ring to the Chelsea and Greenwich tables.*
§ Well, then, I say, the Value of gold, as well as paper, had so fallen that the agricultural produce of the kingdom had doubled its money price. The rent of land had consequently doubled also, and so had labour, and every private transaction had settled into the new measure of value. Money borrowed on mortgage or other security, establishments created, jointures, family settlements of all kinds made in this measure, as well as public national engagements—when, by an unaccountable fatality, a sort of rivalry of zeal to restore the ancient—I should call it antiquated—measure, seemed to pervade the leading members on both sides of the House. Ministers had previously evinced much more caution than their opponents on this subject; but they at length went forward with equal rapidity, and Peel's bill was carried with mutual gratulations; and under its provisions the ancient measure restored. The natural consequences followed, the value of money rose, and the money-price of
| * ROYAL HOSPITAL GREENWICH. | |||||||
| Flesh per cwt. | Bread per lb. | Butter per lb. | Cheese per lb. | ||||
| s. | d. | d. | oz. | d. | d. | ||
| Peace, 1755 | 27 | 9 | 1 | for | 14 | 5½ | 3½ |
| War, 1760 | 31 | 6 | 1 | for | 13½ | 5½ | 3½ |
| Pence, 1765 | 27 | 3 | 1 | for | 9½ | 5½ | 3¼ |
| Peace, 1775 | 33 | 5 | 1 | for | 9½ | 6¾ | 3¼ |
| War, 1780 | 34 | 6 | 1 | for | 11⅛ | 6½ | 3⅛ |
| Peace, 1785 | 37 | 6½ | 1 | for | 10¼ | 6¾ | 3¾ |
| Peace, 1790 | 36 | 10 | flour per sack. 43s. | 6½ | 4 |
| ROYAL HOSPITAL CHELSEA. | ||||
| Flesh per lb. | Bread per lb. | Butter per lb. | cheese per lb. | |
| d. | d. | d. | d. | |
| Peace, 1755 | 4 | 1½ | 7½ | 4 |
| War, 1760 | 4 | 1½ | 7½ | 4 |
| Peace, 1765 | 4 | 1½ | 7½ | 4 |
| Peace, 1775 | 4½ | 1⅛ | 7¼ | 6¼ |
| War, 1780 | 4¼ | 1½ | 7 | 4¼ |
| Peace, 1785 | 4½ | 1 6\8 | 7 | 4½ |
| Peace, 1790 | 4½ | 1⅞ | 7 | 4½ |
| Eton College Table of the Price of Wheat. | |||
| l. | s. | d. | |
| 5 years before the war of 1756 | 1 | 14 | 4 |
| Average of war to 1763 | 1 | 17 | 2 |
| Price of 1764 | 2 | 1 | 5 |
| Ditto 1765 | 2 | 8 | 0 |
| Average of first 5 years after the war | 2 | 5 | 2 |
| 5 years before American war | 2 | 11 | 2 |
| War from 1775 to 1782 | 2 | 6 | 6 |
| Price of 1783 | 2 | 14 | 2 |
| Ditto of 1784 | 2 | 13 | 9 |
| 5 years ditto | 2 | 8 | 2 |
§ agricultural produce, and, indeed, other commodities, fell again, upon the same principles on which it had advanced to its former average value.
§ I am perfectly aware, that the recent rise in the price of corn, to about 60s., and meat, is supposed to be destructive of the solidity of my reasoning upon this subject; and I am not surprised that country gentlemen and farmers, who have never examined the circumstances with any attention, should give way to fallacious hopes; but, so far from concurring with them, I draw from the state of the markets ah inference totally different. Observe, in the first place, that it never was asserted, that corn would not rise in value under Peel's bill above 40s., or that it would not fluctuate as at all other times, and in any other currency. I have maintained, and still do with unabated confidence, that the price will take the same range of fluctuations it did prior, to 1797; that is to say, generally between forty shillings and sixty; whereas, in the restriction currency, it ranged between sixty and One hundred. Mark this extraordinary circumstance respecting barley; the crop of last year was, hardly two-fifths of an average, and yet the average of the year to the present time has hardly reached thirty-one shillings; while, as far back as the year 1792 when there was no scarcity, and the malt-duty only half what it is now, the price was thirty shillings, which it often was at that distant period. If such a failure of crop had occurred during the restriction currency, the price would have been sixty or seventy shillings per quarter at least As to the price of meat, the exhaustion of stock by the necessities of the farmers to bring every thing to market, whether fit for slaughter or not, might well now occasion the fear of a temporary scarcity, but it would soon come down again to fiver pence or sixpence a pound. Upon the whole, I repeat, that the present state of the markets is confirmatory rather than otherwise, of my view of the subject, and effective only to overthrow the arguments of those who would persuade us we were visited with a cruel redundance of produce of every kind.
§ This restoration of the currency to the value prior to 1797 being established, it is clear, I say, that the money value of all produce and labour has in consequence reverted back, to their former rate, whilst money debts, and charges, and taxes remain 843 the same. And first, as to the influence of such a change upon the agricultural classes. The great proprietors have, it is well-known, almost without exception, great burthens. They cannot bear the necessary reduction to save their tenantry, without being themselves overwhelmed in such embarrassments as will degrade them from the rank in society they now hold. Much has been said relative to the impossibility of any adjustment of existing contracts; but, in truth, a practical adjustment has actually taken place between landlords and tenants. Where such has not been the case, and the tenant paid the value of the land, he has been utterly ruined. It is, indeed, a very well-conditioned estate, and a fortunate possessor, if the necessary deductions amount to no more than one-third, in many cases it is one-half; in some no rent at all can at present be extracted, but take it at one-third, it is a third, too, of the gross income. Where is the landlord that can bear such a reduction? The ten per cent property tax was leviable only on the nett income. It was light, it was trivial—it was mercy, compared to this masked injustice and robbery, which at one blow effectually abstracts forty per cent from the nett income of every landholder in the kingdom. Never was such a blow aimed at the aristocracy of the kingdom, their expenses of every kind remained the same—debts, mortgages, settlements, establishments. We shall have a pauperized House of Peers, nor less beggarly Commoners of the country gentlemen, at least; as to the lesser landholders, they are notoriously mortgaged as deeply as the greater; and in numberless instances, I could mention such mortgages, and in many cases younger children's provisions, swallow up the whole estate. The tenantry have certainly borne hitherto the brunt of the burthen, and their property has been sunk in one-third of the time occupied in making it. They are cruelly impoverished; and their labourers cannot do otherwise than experience their share of the poverty of their employers. They are in the worst of all possible situations, that of being obliged to solicit employment as a favour. They are altering their mode of living; they are coming down to the degrading sustenance of potatoes. We shall have the lamentable spectacle of a potatoe-fed population, and what to me is equally indicative of poverty, a smock-frock tenantry. Some gentle- 844 men I believe there, are, who would prefer having the ignorant, and dependent, boors of former times to hold under them. For my part, I regard such a condition of farmers as proof of the barbarism of a country, and dread nothing so much as the idea of a smock-frock tenantry, and a potatoe-fed population.
§ But I have said, this is not a question merely agricultural—it is not landlords and farmers only who suffer under the influence of Peel's bill; I contend, that all the industrious classes suffer. The manufacturing labourers feel it in the diminution of wages, though not equal to the labourers in the fields. But we know their money wages now are not by any means equal to what they were in the restriction currency, and if there was any thing of a deficiency in our harvests, we should find their situation very different; or I will add, if the foreign demand for our manufactures had not increased in an extraordinary degree soon after the passing of Peel's bill, their distress would have been great. The agricultural labourers, I am quite convinced, have experienced a defalcation in their earnings beyond that degree which can be counteracted even by the excessive depression in the price of corn. The diminution of their earnings cannot be estimated by the nominal price of their weekly pay. It is much greater than is indicated by that rule. The number of days occupied in looking out for work, and the harder bargains they must make in all contract work, must be thoroughly understood, before any thing like a just estimate can be formed of their real situation. I am confident that the most industrious and intelligent labourer practically understands that the money-price of bread, is to be considered relatively only to their earnings, and that if the latter fall faster than the bread, they must lose instead of gain by the change. Every thing depends on the quantity of bread they can command and not the price. I know many have often said, that they were much better off when wheat was twenty-five pounds per load, and would rejoice in the return of those times; and as to the poor-rates, though great, they were, notwithstanding, very little more than half, when measured in corn, or any other farm produce, than they are now. The only way to make any just estimate of the weight of poor-rates, tythes, taxes, or rent, is the proportion of the corn, or other produce the farm 845 groves, which it takes to pay it. The farmer must reflect how many quarters of wheat, for instance, he was obliged to sell two years ago to pay his rates, and he will find it requires nearly double now, though the nominal amount was higher. I do not believe even that the working manufacturer is better off now than he was when wheat was at that high money-price.
§ Now, Sir, the grand consideration which I wish to press upon the minds of hon. members is, the unjust and destructive consequences of such a diminution of the money-earnings of industry, with a continuance of the same money-burthens which were laid on the people, or individually contracted in the money of abundance and of lower value. The aggregate money-earnings of the entire community, in other words, the national money income, is by so much diminished as the aggregate quantity of the circulating medium or money is diminished, whether metallic or paper, and its value enhanced. It is obvious and indisputable, that the weight of the public burthens depend wholly upon the amount of the national income. It is entirely relative. Sixty millions would be little to pay out of six hundred: it would be excessive to pay out of one hundred. I will not pretend to make any estimate of the defalcation in the aggregate money income of the country produced by Peel's Bill; it will be equally illustrative to show the effect upon the first branch of national industry; viz. agriculture, where estimates are somewhat more easy. Perfect accuracy is impossible; but I pledge myself to the moderation of my statement in round numbers. It is, indeed, so simple, that it admits of no deception. I take the rental of the kingdom, calculated on the property-tax at 50 millions. I suppose the gross produce of the land to be four times the rent, three times used to be thought enough; now it cannot be less on the average than four; in some instances I know it is five. Then, taking it at four, the gross income from the land is 200 millions, distributed between landlord, tenant, tithe-owner, tradesman, and labourer. Then I suppose the money-price of the produce to be, by the alteration of the currency, reduced 30 per cent, or say one-fourth, 25 per cent. That is, the price of wheat say from 80s. to 60s., and other things in proportion, and we see at once the entire rental of the 846 kingdom (50 millions), or as much as the entire rent, is subtracted from those different parties named, each in proportion; the national income, from which taxes are to be drawn, is thus reduced 50 million per annum. It approximates just so much nearer the amount of our national burthen; but when I say 25 per cent as the reduction, the House must be aware that I am much below the mark. I can hardly imagine any man will now deny 25 per cent as the effect of Peel's bill, and I believe it to be nearer 50. But see only what it is at 25 per cent. There may be a vulgar notion, that what the agriculturists lose, others gain. But the agriculturists only lose, because others have lost also, and have not the same money to come into the market with. There is the actual diminution of quantity, or loss of so much money-income of the people; and the burthens to be sustained by them must consequently fall so much heavier. I do not say, that all classes have suffered a reduction in an accurate proportion to their former wealth or earnings; but the total of the money-income of the country has fallen. There never was, certainly, such a performance as this in the history of nations. Nothing more common, in all ages and countries, than to lower the value of the currency by various means, and thus lighten the public burthens—a plan which loses nothing of its vice, by the frequency of its commission; but to increase enormously the value of a currency in a country loaded with debt, is so egregiously stupid as well as unjust, that it can only have arisen, I presume, from perfect blindness, and want of consideration on the part of the majority of those who urged the measure.
§ Now, I put it to the House to determine whether, upon a consideration of the evident and total absence of any reflection upon these most important points, when Peel's bill was passed, it is not our indispensable duty to institute an immediate inquiry into the effects thus produced? I ask, whether, in the discussion which took place in this Mouse, any alteration in the value of the currency was contemplated by any one of the supporters of the bill, beyond three, four, or five per cent at most? I ask, whether one word was said, or thought was stated, relative to its influence on the public debt and taxes? I ask, if it was supposed that twenty-five or thirty per cent, was ever in the imagination of any body. 847 The act is not that which was intended. The House intending one thing has done another. And I ask, whether that circumstance does not afford irresistible ground upon which to establish the necessity of acceding to the motion?
§ But, Sir, there is another most important question to be considered; and that is, the practicability of maintaining the currency we have adopted in the various changes in our situation that may occur relatively to other countries. Has the subject been ever considered under the supposition of Europe being again involved in war? I believe that the first shot that is fired will be the signal for a second recurrence to the Restriction currency. I am thoroughly convinced it is utterly impossible we can sustain a war expenditure, at all approaching even the last, in this currency of Peel's bill. I have, on several occasions made a variety of calculations upon the value of the currency now and during the war, showing, I think most indisputably, that the real burthen of the present peace expenditure is equal to that we endured during the war. But, Sir, I shall now refer to a publication of great celebrity,* where a similar comparison gives the same result. The author justly observes, that to estimate the actual pressure of taxation, the augmentation of the value of the currency
§ * See Edinburgh Review, No. 72, p. 411; in which will be found the following
| TABLE of the CURRENCY in which TAXES were paid, in twelve Years, ending 1821. | ||||||
| Years. | Average Market price of Gold per oz. | Difference per cent between Market and Mint Prices, | Nominal Amount of Taxes. | Amount of Taxes in the Currency of 1792 and 1821. | ||
| £. | s. | d. | ||||
| 1809 | 4 | 10 | 9 | 16⅓ | 71,887,000 | 60,145,000 |
| 1810 | 4 | 5 | 0 | 91/10 | 74,815,000 | 68,106,000 |
| 1811 | 4 | 17 | 1 | 24½ | 73,621,000 | 55,583,000 |
| 1812 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 30 | 73,707,000 | 51,595,000 |
| Sept. to Dec. 1812 | 5 | 8 | 0 | 38½ | — | — |
| 1813 | 5 | 6 | 2 | 361/10 | 81,745,000 | 52,236,000 |
| Nov. 1812, to Mar. 1813 | 5 | 10 | 0 | 41 | — | — |
| 1814 | 5 | 1 | 8 | 30⅓ | 83,726,000 | 58,333,000 |
| 1815 | 4 | 12 | 9 | 188/9 | 88,394,000 | 66,698,000 |
| 1816 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 2½ | 73,909,000 | 72,062,000 |
| Oct. to Dec. 1816 | 3 | 18 | 6 | Under 1 | — | — |
| 1817 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 2½ | 58,757,000 | 57,259,000 |
| 1818 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 59,391,000 | 56,025,000 |
| 1819 (to Feb.) | 4 | 3 | 0 | 6⅓ | 58,288,000 | 54,597,000 |
| 1820 | 3 | 17 | 10½ | 0 | 59,812,000 | 59,812,000 |
| 1821 | 3 | 17 | 10½ | 0 | 61,000,000 | 61,000,000 |
§ must be carefully examined; that, without doing so men's minds are deceived by the sound of figures. He then proceeds to state the amount of the charge of the most expensive periods of the war, the three years, 1810, 1811, and 1812, and 1813, 1814, 1815. The average depreciation of the currency in the former period was 21½ percent, in the latter 28½: the average nominal amount of taxes was in the former 74 million, and 84£ in the latter; but their real amount at par was 58½ million and 60½ million respectively; and therefore, supposing our taxes to be sixty millions, now, we are paying in one case half a million, and in the other, one million and a half more than we did during the most expensive years of the last war. "Nothing," observes the author, "can more fully illustrate the effects of the return to cash payments than this statement. It has had the effect of augmenting the pressure of the taxes to a larger amount than the removal of the war and other, taxes since, has relieved the country."
§ This effect is here most truly stated as far as it goes, but falls short of the absolute pressure; because the change in the currency operates, as I have before, explained, to so vast a reduction of the money-income of the country out of which these taxes are to be paid.
849§ Now, Sir, I shall occupy no longer the time of the House. I will once more only remind the House of one or two points of the greatest moment for their consideration. First, that it is the paramount duty of parliament to grant with extreme jealousy, the imposition of any taxes upon the people; sedulously to guard the public purse; and that any mode by which the public burthens may be augmented, without this House perceiving the effect in the first instance, should naturally excite the strongest suspicions, and call forth our most diligent and attentive investigation. Can it possibly be denied, that Peel's Bill has augmented the burthens upon the people far beyond any calculation or contemplation at the time? And if such is the case, will any hon. member say, that we ought not to inquire into what it is we really have done? What a perfect mockery are we guilty of, in the parade of regulation respecting money bills, if such a case as this is to pass unnoticed, and not only unnoticed, but, if we wilfully turn our backs upon it! Nobody denies the depreciation during the suspension. Nobody denies the restoration of value. Does not the hon. member for Portarlington himself admit, that the difference exceeds his original statement to a considerable amount, and consequently that we have augmented the public burthen beyond our contemplation, or intention; that we have, in fact, enacted, through ignorance or inadvertence, that which we did not intend?—Upon the whole, Sir, I feel the strongest conviction upon my mind; that our duty demands of us irresistibly that we shall institute the inquiry I call for; and I therefore, Sir, move,
§ "That a Committee be appointed to take into consideration the changes that have been made in the value of the Currency between the year 1793 and the present time, and the consequences produced thereby upon the Money-income of the country derived from its industry; the amount of the Public Debt and Taxes considered relatively to the Money-in-come of the country; and the effect of such changes of the Currency upon the Money-contracts between individuals."
§ * Mr. Ricardoobserved, that the hon. member for Essex, and all those who took
*This Speech was written out by Mr. Ricardo for this Work, and sent to the Editor a few days before his death.850 his view of the subject, laid down very sound principles, but drew from them conclusions which were altogether untenable. No one doubted, that, in proportion as the quantity of money in a country in creased, commerce and transactions remaining the same, its value must fall. No one questioned, that the change from a depreciated to a metallic currency of increased value must have the effect of reducing its quantity, and of lowering the price of all commodities brought-to market. These were principles which he had himself on various occasions asserted; but the difference between him and the hon. member for Essex, was, as to the degree in which the value of our currency had been increased, and the degree in which prices generally had been diminished by the bill (called Mr. Peel's Bill) of 1819. It was from seeing the evils which resulted from a currency without any fixed standard, that he had given his best support to that bill. What he sought was, to guard against the many and the severe mischiefs of a fluctuating currency; fluctuating, not according to the variations in the value of the standard itself, from which no currency could be exempted, but fluctuating according to the caprice or interest of a company of merchants, who, before the passing of that bill, had the power to increase or diminish the amount of money, and consequently to alter the value, whenever they thought proper. It was from seeing the immense power which the Bank, prior to 1819, possessed—a power, which he believed that body had been inclined to exercise fairly, but which had not been always judiciously exercised, and which might have been so used as to have become formidable to the interests of the country—it was from the view which he took of the extent of that power of the Bank, that he had rejoiced, in 1819, in the prospect of a fixed currency. He had cared little, comparatively, what the standard establishment was—whether it continued at its then value, or went back to the old standard: his object had been, a fixed standard of some description or other. In the discussions of 1819, he certainly had said, that he measured the; depreciation of the then currency, by the difference of value between paper and gold; and he held to that opinion still. He maintained now, that the depreciations of a currency could only be measured by a reference to the proper standards that 851 Was, to gold; but he did not say, that the standard itself was not variable. The hon. gentleman, and those who supported his opinions, were always confounding the terms "depreciation," and "value." A currency might be depreciated, without falling in value; ii might fall in value, without being depreciated, because depreciation is estimated only by reference to 'a standard. He had undoubtedly given an opinion in 1819, that, by the measure then proposed, the prices of commodities would not be altered more than 5 per cent; but, let it be explained under what circumstances that opinion had been given. The difference in 1819, between paper and gold, was 5 per cent, and the paper being brought, by the bill of 1819 up to the gold standard, he had considered that, as the value of the currency was only altered 5 per cent, there could; be no greater variation than 5 per cent in the result as to prices. But this calculation had always been subject to a supposition; that no change was to take place in the value of gold. Mr. Peel's bill, as originally constituted, led the way to no such change. That bill did not require the Bank to provide itself with any additional stock of gold till 1823. It was not a bill demanding that coin should be thrown into circulation, till after the expiration of four years and a half; and before that period, if the system worked well, of which there could be no doubt, parliament could, and in all probability would, have deferred coin payments to a considerably later time. It was a bill by which, if they had followed it strictly, the Bank would have been enabled to carry on the currency of the country in paper, without using an ounce more of gold than was then in their possession.Gentlemen forgot that, by that bill, the Bank was prohibited from paying their notes in specie, and were required only to pay them in ingots on demand; ingots which nobody wanted, for no one could use them beneficially. The Charge against him was, that he had not foreseen the alteration in the value of the standard, which, by the bill, the paper money was required to conform. No doubt, gold had altered in value; and why? Why, because the Bank, from the moment of the passing of the bill in 1819, set their faces against the due execution of it. Instead of doing nothing, they carried their ingots, which the public might have demanded of them, to the Mint, to be 852 coined into specie, which the public could not demand of them, and which they could not pay if it did. Instead of maintaining an amount of paper money in circulation, which should keep the exchanges at par, they so limited the quantity as to cause an unprecedented influx of the precious metals, which they eagerly bought and coined into money. By their measures they occasioned a demand for gold, which was, in no way, necessarily consequent upon the bill of 1819; and: so raising the value of gold in the general market of the world, they changed the value of the standard with reference to which our currency had been calculated, in a manner which had not been presumed upon.
This, then, was the error which he (Mr. Ricardo) had been guilty of: he had not foreseen these unnecessary, and, as he must add, mischievous operations of the Bank. Fully allowing, as he did, for the effect thus produced on the value of gold, it remained to consider what that effect really had been. The hon. member for Essex estimated it at so per cent; he (Mr. Ricardo) calculated it at 5 per cent; and he was therefore now ready to admit, that Mr. Peel's bill had raised the value of the currency 10 per cent. By increasing the value of gold 5 per cent, it had become necessary to raise the value of paper 10 per cent, increasing the value of 5 per cent, to make it conform to the enhanced value of gold. To estimate what the effect of this demand for gold had had upon its value in the general market of the world, he contended, that we should compare the quantity actually purchased, with the whole quantity used in the different currencies of the world; and he was satisfied that, on such a principle of calculation, 5 per cent would be found to be an ample allowance for the effect of such purchases. But the hon. member for Essex had said nothing of all this. He merely came down to the House and said, My proof that there has been an alteration of 30 per cent in the valur of money is, that there is a change to that amount in the price of wheat, and of various other commodities." Every alteration, under every circumstance, in the price of commodities might so be solved, without the trouble of inquiry, by reference to the value of gold. If this argument were good for anything now, it was good for all times; and we never had had any variations in the value, of commode- 853 ties: the variations in price, which had often occurred, were to be attributed to no other cause but to the alteration in the value of money.
But suppose the calculation of the hon. member to be correct, and that all the alteration which had taken place in the price of corn had been owing to the alteration in the value of money, he (Mr. Ricardo) should ask him, whether, even in that case, the agricultural interest had suffered any injustice? It was-not pretended, that money was now of a, higher value than it was previous to the Bank Restriction bill, nor corn at a lower price. The favourite argument was, that they, the landed interest, had to pay the interest of the debt in a medium of a different value from that in which it had been contracted, and therefore, that they actually pay 30 per cent more than they would have paid, if money had never altered in value. He (Mr. Ricardo) had once before endeavoured to show the fallacy of this argument, and had attempted to prove, that the payers of taxes actually paid no more now, than they would have paid, if we had had the wisdom never to depart from the sound principles of currency; and that the stock-holders, taking them as a class, receive no more than what is justly due to them. The lion, member would lead the House to believe, that the whole of our immense debt was contracted in a depreciated currency; but the fact was, that nearly five hundred millions of that debt was contracted before the currency had suffered any depreciation; and the rest of the debt had been contracted in currency depreciated in various degrees. Mr. Mushett had been at the trouble of making very minute calculations on this subject, and had proved, that the loss to the stockholders, from receiving their dividends in a depreciated currency for twenty years, on the stock contracted for in a sound currency, would amount to a sum sufficiently large to buy a perpetual annuity, equal to the additional value of the dividends paid on the three hundred millions of debt contracted for in the depreciated currency. He should be glad to hear an answer given to this statement. For his own party, it did appear to him, that the success of the present motion would not benefit the landed interest a jot; because the motion asked for an examination as to tire changes from the year 1793 to the present moment; and, as it must be admitted, that the landed in- 854 terest had derived vast advantages? from the depreciation between the years 1800 and 1819, the present motion Compelling them to make due allowance for, the benefits they had acquired during those years would take from them an amount equal to that which they had lost by the subsequent change.
The hon. member for Essex said, that the currency had altered 30 per cent in value; but his chief proof rested on the altered price of corn. The true cause of the greater part of this alteration was, not the change in the currency, but the abundance of the supply. The stimulus to agriculture had been great during the war, and we were now suffering from a re-action, operating at the same time with the effect of two or three abundant crops. Could the agricultural interest be ruined by an alteration in the value of money, without its affecting, in the same manner, the manufacturing and commercial interests of the country? If corn fell 30 per cent from an alteration in the value of money, must not all other commodities fall in something like the same proportion? But, had they so fallen? Was the manufacturing interest so distressed? Quite the contrary, livery thing was nourishing, but agriculture. The legacy duty, the probate duty, the ad-valorem duty on stamps, were ail on the increase; and certainly, if a raised value of money had lessened the value of property, less might be expected to be paid generally upon transfers of property. The state of the revenue was to him (Mr. Ricardo) a satisfactory proof, if every other were wanting, of the erroneous conclusions of the hon. gentleman.
The hon. member for Essex had asked, if any man would say, that under the present system of currency the country could bear the expenses of a war? would any man say now, that the country could pay, as it did in the former war, eighty-four millions per annum? Now, this question was not put quite fairly; because, as the hon. member contended, that our currency was increased in value 30 per cent, he ought to ask, whether we could now afford to pay sixty millions per annum for a war, as we paid eighty-four millions formerly? He (Mr. Ricardo) would answer, that the country would be able to pay just as much real value under the existing system, as under any system of the hon. member for Essex's recommendation; for he thought, that a change in the value of her currency could have 855 no effect as all upon the powers of a country. An unrestricted; paper currency, created a new distribution, of property. It transferred wealth from the pockets of one man to whom it really belonged, to the, pockets of another who was way entitled to it; but it imparted no strength to a country.
Agreeing as he did most sincerely, with, almost all the opinions of his right lion. friend, the president of the Board of Trade (Mr. Huskisson) on this subject, he still considered, that his right hon. friend bad given too much currency to the opinion, that an unrestricted paper issue enabled us to meet with increased strength the public enemy. It was not useful to war—was most injurious in peace—and could not again be put under control, without the grossest injustice to a great portion of the community. We had happily recovered from those effects; and he sincerely trusted, that the country would never again be subjected to a similar, calamity.
It was singular, that the objection against the restoration of our currency from a depreciation of 5 per cent in a period of our years, should have come from the hon. member for Essex, who, in 1811, saw no danger in restoring it from its depreciated state of 15 per cent in a single day. The House might recollect that, in 1811, a bill had been brought in, to make paper money equivalent to a legal tender, in consequence of lord King having, most justly, demanded the payment of his rents in the coin of the realm, according to the value of the currency at the time the leases were granted. Suppose that bill had been thrown out, agreeably to the views of the hon. gentleman, who in a speech strenuously opposed the bill, and that the law had taken its course, and that creditors had been defended, in demanding their payments in coin—what would have been the result in that case r Would riot the ounce of gold have fallen the very next day from 4l. 10s. to 3l. 17s. 10 ½d.? Would there have been no inconvenience on enhancement in the value of the currency to that amount? or was the hon. gentleman prepared to say, that a rise in the value of paper of 15 per cent in one day in 1811, would have been harmless, but that it would be ruinous to raise it to the amount of 5 per cent period of. four years from 1819.
Then hen. Member for Essex had not dealt quite fairly by him (Mr. Ricardo) 856 in a pamphlet which he had recently published. In speaking of Mr. peel's bill, he acquitted his majesty's ministers of any intention of plunging the into the difficulties which he thought that bill had caused; he paid a compliment to their integrity, by supposing them ignorant but not so to him (Mr. Ricardo;) Without naming him, the hon. gentleman alluded to him and his opinion, in a way. that no one could mistake the person meant, and said, that it required, the utmost extent of charity to believe, that in the advice he had given he was not influenced by interested motives. The hon. gentleman would have acted a more manly part, if he had explicitly and boldly made his charge, and openly mentioned his name. He (Mr. Ricardo) did not pretend to be more exempted from the weaknesses and errors of human nature than other men, but he could assure the House and the hon. member for Essex, that it would puzzle a good accountant' to make out on which side his interest predominated. He (Mr. R.) would find it difficult himself, from the different kinds of property which he possessed (no part funded property), to determine the question. Rut, by whom was this effort; of charity found so difficult? by the hon. I gentleman, whose interest in this question could not, for one moment be doubted whose whole property consisted of land—and who would greatly benefit, by any measure which should lessen the value of money. He imputed no bad motive to the hon. gentleman. He believed be would perform his duty as well as most men, even when it was opposed to his interest; but he asked the hon. gentleman to state, on what grounds he inferred, that he (Mr. Ricardo) should, under similar circumstances, be wanting in his.
I beg particularly (continued Mr. Ricardo) to call the attention of the House, to the opinions which I have given on the cause of our recent difficulties, and which the hon. member for Essex now reprobates; as I think that, for every one of those opinions, I can appeal to an authority which the hon. gentleman will be the last to question for it is to his own. I contend, that the present low price of corn is mainly owing to an excess of supply and not to an alteration in the value of the currency What said the hon. gentleman in this House, in the year 1816, when corn had fallen considerably, and when the causes of that fall was the subject of discussion?
857 "The first and obvious cause, I say, has been a redundant supply beyond the demand, and that created chiefly by the produce of our own agriculture. Permit me, Sir, here to call to the recollection of the House the effect of a small surplus or deficit of supply above or below the demand of the market. It is perfectly well known, that if there is a small deficiency of supply, the price will rise in a ratio far beyond any proportion of such deficiency: the effect, indeed, is almost incalculable. So like wise on a surplus of supply beyond demand, the price will fall in a ratio exceeding almost tenfold the amount of such surplus. Corn being an article of prime necessity, is peculiarly liable to such variations: upon a deficit of supply the price is further advanced by alarm; and upon a surplus, it is further diminished by the difficulty the growers have in contracting the amount of their growth, compared to the means which other manufacturers have of limiting the amount of their manufacture."*
Now, I would ask the House in what these sentiments differ from those which I have had the honour of supporting in this House, and which the hon. gentleman now thinks so reprehensible? But further, the hon. gentleman contended, in the speech alluded to, that the diminution which at that time had taken place in the amount of the circulating medium was not in any way the cause of the fall in the price of corn, but on the contrary it was the fall in the price of corn which was the cause of the diminution of the quantity of the circulating medium—"I say" (continued he) "there is nothing which will prevent it" (corn) "so falling, nor are there any means to force a re-issue of this paper currency which has thus vanished in a moment: nothing but a revival of the value on which it was founded can accomplish the object."
On this point, I rather agree with the hon. gentleman's present opinions, than with his former ones, that there are means of forcing a re-issue of paper, and of raising the price of corn; but I trust that we shall not have recourse to them. The hon. gentleman proceeds to say—"Now, Sir, let us turn from the contemplation of this gloomy picture, and consider what prospect there is of remedy, or what means we have of affording relief. If I
* See First Series of the present work, vol. 33, p. 36.858 am right in attributing the primary cause of all these calamities to the effects of a surplus in the market beyond the demand, the remedy must be found in taking off that surplus; or it will remedy itself in a short time by a reduction of supply. The danger is, that the present abundant supply should be converted into an alarming deficiency." The hon. gentleman goes on to say, that it is impossible, for any length of time, for the price of corn to be below a remunerating price, and that it is possible for the harvest to be so abundant as to produce loss instead of advantage to the grower. These were the opinions which he (Mr. Ricardo) held on this subject, and which he had at various times, though with much less ability, attempted to support in that House. If he had learned them from the hon. member, it was very extraordinary that at the moment he adopted them the hon. member should turn round and reproach him for conforming to his sentiments.The hon. gentleman proceeded to animadvert on the arguments and statements set forth by the hon. mover in a pamphlet recently published, and particularly on one, in which the hon. member, in making up the balance of advantage which the stock-holder had derived from the Several measures affecting the currency, entirely omitted to set on one side of the account, the various sums which had been paid to him in discharge of his debt by the sinking fund in the depreciated currency, and which, amounted to upwards of one hundred millions. If the money advanced by the stock-holder to the public had been in a depreciated currency, so had been the payments made to the stock-holder; and it was not fair for the hon. gentleman to calculate on the sum of such advances, but on the difference between the advances and payments. As the hon. gentleman stated the question, it would appear as if all the advances to government had been in depreciated money, and all the payments from government to the stock-holder had been in currency of the Mint value. Nothing could be so little conformable to the fact; as the advances and payments were made in the same medium, and, as far as the amounts were equal, they were equally injurious to both parties.
After going through various other objections which he took to the contents of the same pamphlet, Mr. Ricardo went on to justify the opinions which he had given before the Bank committee from an attack 859 which had been made upon them, in another pamphlet, by the hon. member for Callington (Mr. Attwood). He concluded by objecting to the motion. It was too late to make any alteration in the currency. The difficulties of the measure of 1819 were now got over. The people were reconciled to it. Agriculture, he believed, would soon be in the same flourishing condition as the other interests of the country. If it were not, it would only be on account of the mischievous corn law, which would always be a bar to its prosperity. As a punishment to the hon. gentleman, he could almost wish that a committee should be granted. He would, of course, be chairman of it; and tired enough he would be of his office, by the time he had "adjusted" all the interests relative to his new modus! He could not tell how the hon. gentleman would go about the performance of such a labour; but this he would say, that the immediate result of granting such a committee would be, to produce the most mischievous effects, and to renew all the inconveniences which had been previously occasioned by the uncertainty and fluctuations of the currency.
The Marquis of Titchfieldsaid, that as he had seconded the motion, he was anxious to take an early opportunity of explaining the views and justifying the objects with which he should go into such a committee as his hon. friend, the member for Essex, desired to have appointed. But though, on many accounts, he was eager to express his opinions on this subject, that eagerness was nevertheless somewhat damped by the consciousness that he must appear under many disadvantages, and principally on account of the contrast that would be drawn, so much to his prejudice, between himself and the mover, who, from his experience, abilities, and long study of the subject he had introduced, was entitled to possess so much weight with the House and with the country. The cause which his hon. friend had undertaken, and with so much honour to himself had supported, although it belonged undoubtedly to all the productive classes of the country, was still more emphatically at that period the cause of that great body of men, who were till lately considered, and even still had the, name of it, as the most powerful portion of the community, but whose influence had, within a year or two, declined in so marked a manner—he meant the landed 860 proprietors of the kingdom. For, however much it might be the fashion, or as he would rather call it the prejudice, to consider this question as one of a dry uninteresting and speculative nature, fit only for the researches of political economists, yet he felt any impartial person could not go through an attentive examination of it, without a decided conviction, that the real substantial matter of this motion was not less than, whether a great part of the present possessors of the land should remain upon their properties, distinguished by that influence in the community which had been the pride of their families through so many generations, or whether they were to be shortly exiled from their estates, with no better prospect than that of an obscure and a penurious life, in the meanest villages of the continent, having not so much sold as surrendered their hereditary seats into the hands of a class, which, if the hon. member for Essex were right, will have been unjustly enriched at their expense, by the unequal and merciless operation of the late changes in the currency. It was neither, then, his business or his intention to go into all the details of the subject, and therefore, of course, he did not mean to attempt to go through the whole chain of proof which would be necessary to shew, that the hon. member for Essex was right in the conclusions to which he had come. For the House would bear in mind, that the present motion was for a committee to inquire; and if upon most questions details were more properly reserved for that stage, and superfluous and uncalled for at an earlier period, such must be still more strikingly the case on that question; as it was one of the greatest magnitude and intricacy that had ever occupied the attention of parliament. But, as it would be impossible to cope with the subject in all its details within the limits of a speech, it was most gratifying to him to reflect, that, in the view he took of it, fairly considered, the merits of the question were to be compressed within no very great compass, and were to be fairly and honestly canvassed, without dwelling upon minutiæ, and without entering at all into nice and abstruse points.
In the course of what he had to say, he should take the liberty of remarking upon some of the arguments, or rather observations, of the hon. member for Portarlington (Mr. Ricardo), and he trusted he should be acquitted of disrespect or pre- 861 sumption, if he should express dissent from the authority with very considerable freedom. To some of the arguments of the hon. gentleman he would attempt an answer, in the order in which they naturally came; but to what had been said in the way of insinuation against his hon. friend, he would answer at once, that the object of the motion was not, by any means, to favour the class more immediately interested in it, at the expense of the rest of the community; but it was to do justice—simple justice—to that class, and by that very circumstance it would be conferring a benefit upon all the other classes at the same time. He should have been disposed to say much upon this point, if the hon. member for Essex had not made it so clear; for, conscious of the most honorable intentions, but conscious also that a selfish jealousy had been unjustly imputed to the landed interest, and unworthy motives falsely ascribed to its advocates, that hon. member had most properly placed very forward in his speech an indignant denial of the calumny.
The case he had to make out really appeared to him so plain, and the justice of it so urgent, that if he had no means of guessing what was the disposition of the House respecting it, he should have been of opinion that it would be simply necessary to state one or two facts, which undoubtedly no man could deny—that the subject of the currency was one of much doubt and difficulty—that the distress of the greatest interest in the country was beyond parallel urgent—and that a very strong and general impression prevailed, that a great part at least of the cruel suffering of which the landholders complained, arose from the Cash-payment bill of 1819, which it was the object of the motion before the House to alter and modify. In all other cases, those simple facts, in a House of Commons not blindly obedient to the will of the minister, would be sufficient to ensure to his hon. friend his committee; but when in addition to those facts, it was competent for any one who had looked with any care into the subject to adduce reasons of the great weight they must be admitted to possess, even by those who were most zealously employed in controverting and counteracting them, for supposing the general impressions upon those points to be correct, if parliament, notwithstanding, should still decline the task of investigation, he would not hesitate to assert, it would be neglecting to 862 employ one of its greatest functions at as most critical moment, and would be forgetting those duties of which the remiss exercise would be most criminal in the authors of the neglect, and most fatal to those suffering parties, whose calls were so loud, and whose claims were so pressing for relief.
For all who might feel as he did, very doubtful of being able to handle a subject of this intricate nature, the noble ford said there was a most agreeable and encouraging consolation in the circumstance, that, whatever doctrines one might broach, whatever predictions one might hazard, and whatever surprise and disapprobation one's sentiments might excite, it was impossible for any novice to come off worse, as to the result, than some of those who were considered among the most distinguished authorities living, for every thing connected with the study of political economy. He was very far indeed from making this remark in the way of hostility to, or disparagement of, the persons to whom he was alluding. He used it simply to shew how little right any one had, of whatever consequence for his knowledge and abilities, to expect to settle questions of this description by his own individual opinion, and how improvident as well as indecorous it would be, in a great and delicate matter like this, that so divided and agitated the community, for such an assembly to be governed by the dictum of a theorist; and how impossible to justify our refusal to have recourse to those large means which the appointment of a committee presented, of sifting this subject to the bottom, and by collecting and bringing under one view all possible information, and every conflicting opinion, of finally setting the question to rest, and of satisfying the public mind. But, while solacing one's self with the reflexion, that experience has confounded to so great a degree some of the most eminent of the economists and that any person of slender abilities and narrow information could meet with no discomfiture so great as to inflict any very severe humiliation, there was, on the other hand, a most discouraging circumstance in this—that people generally were so uninformed on these points, that in discussing them, unless one set out with the plainest and most elementary remarks, there was little chance of being understood by the greater portion of hearers or readers; while, on the other hand, by 863 advancing axioms and evident truths, there was a danger of being ridiculed by others for occupying them with truisms. This latter danger, however, he should make bold to defy, sheltering himself under the fact, that notwithstanding all the discussion this subject had undergone, it might still be heard any day in society, from persons otherwise intelligent, that in their opinion to talk of the depreciation of the currency must be nonsense, for that they were unable to comprehend how a pound-note at one time could differ from a pound-note at another—that a pound-note must be a pound-note always,—that it was impossible the same piece of paper, with the same characters marked upon it, should be more valuable at one time than at another—and when above all, the famous resolution of 1811 was recollected, he thought it would be perfectly excusable for him, even in that assembly, said to be so enlightened, to set out with the mathematical axiom, that "a part is less than the whole,"—an axiom which, now that the late chancellor of the Exchequer was no longer among them, he apprehended no one would be found hardy enough to dispute. In mentioning the name of that extraordinary person, the noble lord said, he much lamented his inability to do justice to the merits of so great a master of reasoning and eloquence, who so confounded the philosophers of 1811, by unfolding to his admiring audience, that the old favourite axiom of Euclid was nothing but a popular delusion; that in reality a part might be easily equal to the whole; and that therefore there was no reason for doubting, that the pound-note which required the assistance of eight shillings to procure a guinea, was equal to the pound note which required the assistance of but a single shilling of precisely the same value with those of which eight had become necessary. That great man, for his singular merits, he supposed, or perhaps for their unworthiness of him, had been taken from them and bestowed upon another assembly, which, not having had the same practice in finance, it was to be hoped he would long continue to enlighten. [A laugh!] He could not, however, be said to have finished his course prematurely; for, twelve years before, he had obtained an imperishable name, by placing triumphantly on the Journals of the House of Commons, that astonishing resolution, which had deprived Euclid of his ancient 864 and long acknowledged reputation. He was most anxious to disclaim all personal ill-will towards the late chancellor of the Exchequer. Indeed, it was impossible he should be under any such impulse; but he would not shrink from confessing that, in a political point of view, he could never hear his name pronounced, much less pronounce it himself, without a feeling something like bitter animosity; because he considered that minister as the author, in great part, of the calamities in which the landed interest of the country was involved. He believed that few parts of the financial administration of that period were exempt from much and well-merited censure; but all the other measures to be lamented were trifling in the scale of mischief, compared with that fatal resolution which ministerial influence unfortunately carried in the House of Commons, the effects of which were now helplessly deplored, and which would so long survive the name, as well as the administration, of those with whom it originated. The mischief of that resolution might be described, with perfect justice, in a very few words. Its effect was to blind the public to their real situation; thereby both promoting the evil and rendering the sufferers less capable of guarding against it. It assured the public, in the middle of a great and rapidly increasing depreciation, that no depreciation existed. The Bank therefore went on fearlessly adding to its issues; which of course increased the evil by increasing the cause of it, and the landholders went on with the cultivation of poor soils, undertaking expensive improvements, fondly imagining that the additional Bank-notes he was receiving were additional riches. The landholder, never suspecting that his dealings were virtually in a lower coin, borrowed fearlessly, sums vastly larger than he could have ever dreamt of—that would have staggered his imagination, if he had had a suspicion wheat could ever be at thirty-nine shillings a quarter; for, while he was receiving a hundred and forty, he took for granted, he might safely calculate upon bad times not bringing him lower than perhaps seventy or eighty shillings; and thus the prudent man even was induced to borrow, what it was clear he had now no chance of paying without ruin. That ever-memorable House of Commons told him what they knew to lie false, or ought to have known—that the pound-note was of full value, when it was 865 in reality depreciated 30 per cent. He borrowed the pound-notes worth thirteen shillings, and he was called upon to repay pound-notes worth twenty. The proprietor dying in 1810, 11, 12, 13 or 4, might have left his property to his eldest son, with an obligation to pay half of it in mortgages, and provisions for younger children, and after those were discharged the heir might still be in possession of perhaps a magnificent income. A fall of prices, from natural causes, of which of course he would have no right to complain, reduced his income 25 per cent: but that did not affect him seriously, as the articles he consumed fell also, and although his income was trenched upon by the fixed money-payments, he was still able to maintain his station in society. Cut then, in addition to this natural fall, came the artificial one, from the contraction of the currency, to the amount of 25 per cent, which added to the 25 per cent reduction of the same amount, which was independent of the currency, brought the whole reduction to 50 percent, and so left the proprietor to pay a pound to annuitants where, literally speaking, he did not receive a farthing. To supply this deficiency, he was obliged then to allot what had before appeared to him his own nett income, which however, in this new state of things, barely sufficed to meet the demands upon the estate, and consequently the unhappy owner, was at one stroke reduced to beggary and dependance upon the charity of the younger branches of his family. That was very far from being a case of mere fancy. It was to be met with, in a greater or less extent, in every part of the country, and almost at every turn.—But, if the House of Commons he had been alluding to had taken the honest, straight forward, manly, and natural course, by avowing the depreciation instead of concealing it, none of those cruel revulsions in property could have taken place; for every man, when he engaged to pay a pound, would have settled at the same time, whether it was to be a pound of thirteen shillings, or of fourteen shillings, or of any other value below par, or whether it was to be a pound of full value. All other nations at all other times had found that guard against a dishonest government tampering with the currency. It was reserved for an English govern-meat, in the nineteenth century, incredible to relate, to improve upon fraud and injustice, and to render the commission of 866 it more cruelly and extensively ruinous, than it had ever been in the hands of any government, either ancient or modern, and the instrument of the worst part of that system of measures, was the late chancellor of the Exchequer, and his resolution of 1811.
The noble lord said, that in contemplating the melancholy results of that Resolution, and the widely-spread distress that had flowed from it, it was scarcely possible to find any consolation, although, as an individual, he certainly received much gratification from reflecting, that his right hon. relation, at the head of the government, not only had no share in laying the foundation of those disasters, which were now admitted on all hands to be so appalling and unfathomable in their ultimate consequences, but that two of the most splendid efforts of his great genius were directed to save his country from the calamities he foresaw in the baneful policy of 1811. All his talents of every kind—of argument, wit, and it might be added of illustration and quotation, did he master up in one of those two celebrated, and universally admired speeches on that subject,* which, as they were published, he had had the advantage of reading and studying, to prove the apparently simple and indisputable proposition, that 75 and 100 could not be the same thing, that old Euclid was correct in his notion that a whole is greater than one of it's parts, and that therefore, the Bank-note which required the assistance of eight shillings, could not be esteemed equal to the Bank-note which required the assistance of but one of those same shillings. That view, however, notwithstanding his great powers, he utterly failed in persuading the House of Commons to adopt; for that House, well knowing that his right honourable relation was in opposition, and that Mr. Vansittart was in alliance with those who had the dispensing of the good things of power, gave, of course, their decision against his right honourable relation's amendment, against Euclid, and against the, till then, undoubted dictates of common sense, by an overwhelming majority of two to one—just the sort of decision which might be anticipated that night, against the motion of the hon. member for Essex, who, he trusted, would not be hurt or disap-
* See First Series of this Work, v. 19, p. 1076.867 pointed at so poor a requital of his exertions, recollecting as he must endeavour to do, the fate of the right hon. gentleman opposite to him.The noble lord next said, that however dark and forbidding the subject might appear, and although his own acquaintance with it was very recent and he felt but imperfect, yet he had the most entire confidence, that to understand it sufficiently for a judgment on what the House was then called upon to decide, was open to almost any person's comprehension, upon a very little attention to a mere statement of the question. The question, required nothing but to be fairly stated For a long period, all the pecuniary transactions of the country were carried on in pound-notes, manifestly and indisputably depreciated; because, where there were previously forty millions of notes, there were, afterwards, sometimes fifty, sometimes sixty, and sometimes seventy, without any corresponding increase in the transactions of the country. Now, the effect of this was obvious, from this clear, irrefragable principle—that in currency quantity is every thing; for if, to take an example, there were forty millions of notes in circulation in a country at one time, and eighty at another, and the transactions of that, country remained the same, then two notes in the latter case would be only equal to one in the former; but if, when the increase took place from forty to eighty in the notes, there was also an increase to that amount—namely, double—in the transactions of the country, then two notes in the latter case would be equal to two in the former. By doubling, therefore, the amount of Bank-notes, a depreciation of one half would necessarily take place, unless commercial dealings had increased. If such an increase should take place, to the amount of double, then the depreciation of the notes would be entirely cancelled; if only a fourth, then the effect of the additional issues would be counteracted to that extent only, and the balance would be a depreciation of a fourth, Now, in applying this principle to the state of this country during these operations on the currency, it would not be necessary to take into consideration the increased pecuniary transactions of all kinds, great and extraordinary as they undoubtedly were; because they might be considered to have been counteracted by the diminution in the value of money, which was going on with about a corres- 868 ponding rapidity, and this diminution in the value of money was of a nature distinct from depreciation, properly so called. That, however, was a distinction not formerly taken into account, but at the same time a very useful and important one to be kept in view. The importance of it he would mention presently, and would first endeavour to state the character of the operation, and the rules by which it was governed. He felt he should do this satisfactorily, because he should do no more than refer to the authority upon which he relied—he meant, a speech delivered last session by his right hon. friend, lately become president of the Board of Trade, which he took for granted made the matter clear to all who had heard it. He (lord T.) was inclined to make a still further distinction in the meanings of that term, and to consider depreciation as divisible into three species—that which proceeded from natural causes, such as the increase of the precious metals—that which proceeded from artificial causes, such as the clipping of the coin—and that which proceeded from artificial causes also, the economy of the precious metals; Economy of money was by contrivances to spare the use of it, according to the description of his right hon. friend, by substitutions for the precious metals in the shape of voluntary credit. Every new contrivance of this kind, and every old one improved, had that tendency. When it was considered to how great an extent these contrivances had been practised in the various modes of verbal, book, and circulating credits, it was easy to see that the country had received a great addition to its currency. This addition to the currency would, of course, have the same effect, as if gold had been increased from the mines in that proportion, and of that creditors could, therefore, have no right to complain, since every man was understood to take his chance of such changes—arising solely from a defect inherent in the nature of money, on which account the precious metals were not a perfect, but only the best, standard of value, that mankind had been able to devise. For it was of the artificial, forcible, depreciation that the creditor justly complained, because he could not be expected to take that into account; since no subject could be supposed to calculate upon fraud and perfidy in the government. This forcible depreciation had always, up to 1797, been effected by clipping the coin, which of 869 course was a robbery upon all creditors to that amount; and corresponding in principle was a forcible raising of the value of currency, which was a robbery to that extent upon the debtor. In former times, when governments, in order to relieve their necessities, determined to condescend to the weak and wicked policy of cheating their creditors, they had recourse to a very simple process—which was only to clip off a portion of each piece of coin, allowing the piece to retain the same denomination. If they chose to commit this fraud to the amount of one-half then, to take the guinea for an example, they clipped it into two—still calling each piece, nevertheless, a guinea, and thereby paying off the creditor to whom a guinea was owing, with half a one. When, on the other hand, governments were not in debt, but wished to add to their means by increasing the burthens of their subjects, they increased the value of the coin, by ordering that the guinea, to take a similar example, should contain double the quantity of gold, retaining the same name; by which means the taxes, nominally the same, were in reality doubled, and private debts, of course, likewise; for where an ounce of gold had been agreed to be paid in consequence of such an edict, the payer was obliged to bring two ounces. These were the clumsy expedients governments, formerly resorted to; but, in 1797, it was discovered, that the same thing might be done as effectually, and less openly, by means of a forced paper circulation. For as the fraud was accomplished by increasing or diminishing the quantity of-the circulating medium, when once a paper currency was compulsorily current, the government could increase it to any amount at pleasure, and the only difference in the two cases was, that the addition to the gold currency could only be made by clipping the coin, which every body was immediately aware of; whereas in the other case, they had only to send into the market an additional number of notes, by which the currency was increased unperceived. And for the contrary purpose of raising the value of money, in the one case, the government caused the coin to contain double the quantity of gold, or declared that a guinea should be called half-a-guinea, the object of which was immediately detected; and, in the other case, they had only to withdraw from circulation a certain quantity of paper, the absence of which 870 the public in general could not possibly discover.
To apply these principles, then, to the late situation of this country, matters stood thus: The Bank-notes were depreciated, and became, therefore, in the situation of clipped or debased guineas, which state of the circulation prevailed from 1797 to 1819. During this long period, a great portion of the national debt was contracted, the larger portion of the taxes were imposed, the salaries of public servants were increased in proportion, lands were bought and burthened, and at last, when almost every transaction had come within reach of this depreciation, the ministers, the tax-receivers turned round upon the people the tax-payers, and told them all these taxes imposed in clipped guineas must be paid in guineas of full value—and that, however improvidently and unjustly the government had bound its subjects to that agreement, the country must submit, consoling itself with the glory of returning to a good sound, wholesome, natural state of things—wholesome, most undoubtedly, to the ministers, whose salaries were augmented, and power extended in proportion, but ruin and misery to the payers of takes and the holders of mortgaged estates, who were called upon to pay a full guinea for every clipped one they had undertaken to pay. An what appeared to render the question so simple and easy, was, that every one at all familiar with the subject, admitted this to have been the case to a certain extent, and the only thing in dispute was, the degree in which it had taken place. Of the various opinions which were considered of authority, one was, that the burthens of the country had been increased 10 per cent—another, 25 per cent—a third 50 per cent—and a fourth might be added which went the length of estimating the increase at 100 per cent.
His hon. friend called upon the House to set the question at rest, by first discovering to what extent the burthens of the country had been really increased; and next, to discover how far a remedy was to be obtained, consistently with justice to all classes in general, and for those most especially, who had been so grievously affected by that aggravation of the public burthens. That was, in truth, the history of their present situation. It was clearly desirable to return, as soon as possible after the war, to cash payments, because the country was they, and had been 871 all along, without any standard at all which was not an inconvenience only but calamity. The only doubt was, how soon that return to cash payments could be accomplished, and what standard was to be fixed upon. The mere returning to cash payments was a matter of indifference almost, with reference to the difficulty: of accomplishing it. The real difficulty was, returning to cash payments at the ancient standard. But that consideration was so much overlooked, extraordinary as it might seem, that he (lord T.) would venture to say, that nine-tenths of the House of Commons and of the country, excepting of course those who were conversant with subjects of that nature imagined the only question to be, whether they should receive and pay sovereigns Bank-notes—whether it should be gold or in paper, and that the only party who could be at all concerned in the matter was the Bank. They scarcely knew what was meant by the term "standard of value," never dreaming that it depended wholly upon that, what was to be the amount of every man's property. To return to the ancient standard was certainly, to be wished, for the sake of the precedent provided the advantages were hot purchased too dearly. Was it, or was it not too costly to effect this? Could the country bear the painful operation of the process? That was the point oh which the whole question hinged. It was decided the country would be able to bear it, because the burthens it would occasion would amount to little more than 3 per cent. And here he must take the liberty of remarking, that he could not let the hon. member for Portarlington off so cheaply as that hon. gentleman seemed to wish; for he had said, that he bad given it as his opinion, that the cost of the measure would be 5 per cent though lie had lately admitted it to be 10 per cent, from the deference he paid to the authority of Mr. Tooke. The fact however was, if his (lord T.'s) memory did not deceive him greatly—for he spoke only upon memory, and regretted much, that it had. not occurred to him to examine the passage in the hon. gentleman's speech of 1819 which was accessible in those volume which were well known to Contain reports of all parliamentary proceedings.—but he felt confident of his recollection of that speech when he said, that the hon. member's words were not 5 but 3 per cent—remarking; that in a very 872 short time ail alarm would be for gotten and that people would laugh at the very idea that any mischief could have been apprehended from so trifling apprehended as that of adding to the burthens of the country 3 per cent. That, the noble lord said, he was confident was the substance of the hon. gentleman's prophecy Under the impression then, that the cost would be but 3 per cent, the measure was adopted; and at so small a cost, it was not surprising that a great majority had decided to encounter it. Some, however, there were who objected to it, even on the ground of so trifling a sacrifice as 3 per cent; for 3 per cent was undoubtedly but a trifle, compared with the oppressive weight of what was now discovered to be the cost of it. It was now seen that those calculations were entirely wrong, having been founded in error; for; they proceeded on the theory, that the difference between the market and mint price of gold was a correct index of the depreciation of the Bank-notes. Without entering at large into the refutation of that error, he could go far, he thought, towards satisfying the House upon it, by observing, that out of the many pamphlets this subject had produced in the last three or four years, two had lately appeared of great and admitted authority—one by Mr. Blake, and the other anonymous, which was understood to be from the pen of one of the members of the House most distinguished for his knowledge of this subject, and whom he might almost name, as the member for Portarlington had mentioned it as the production of the: member for Callington, (Mr. Attwood*) These two pamphlets were directly opposed to one another on all other points, but agreed upon the important and decisive one, that the difference between the market and mint price of gold was, under the circumstances of the war, and the extraordinary and novel state of things that characterized it, no index whatever of the depreciation. And for a guide in that inquiry, it would not have been more idle to rely upon the price of iron, cotton, timber, or any other commodity Instead, then, of going into an argument to prove that the difference between paper and gold was no criterion of the depreciation, and that the degrading
* A Letter to Lord Archibald Hamilton on Alterations in the Value of money printed for Ridgway A.D 1823873 of our money had been much more serious he would content himself with the fact that the two great authorities he had mentioned, though, at variance, on all other points, were agreed upon, that; and, moreover, that the truth of that position was every day more, generally acknowledged. A belief in the contrary opinion had been the ground-work of the confidence that the ancient standard might be resumed without a greater, sacrifice than 3 or 4 per cent. That those calculations, were erroneous was now university admitted; for the hon. member for Portarlington himself acknowledged, that it was to be rated at 10 per cent while the hon. members for Coventry and Callington rated it at nearer 50 per cent and the hon. member for Taunton, whose opinion was perhaps the most safe one to abide by, both on account of the weight of his authority, and the circumstance of his standing about midway between the extreme opinions that had been given to the public, had declared that, in his judgment, the rise in the value of the currency was to be put at 25 or 30 per cent, and in some instances more. The result however was, that, instead of 3 per cent the public found a burthen of 30 per cent imposed upon them as the price of their return to the ancient standard; in other words, that every man's debts and taxes bad been increased in the same proportion. The country gentlemen had consented to a measure, the nature of which they did not comprehend, of the effects of which they had not a suspicion at the time, but which had now, in the most alarming manner, been forced upon their notice; and the question was, whether they would not, at least, make an effort to remove or alleviate the weight of a burthen they had rashly, and under a delusion, consented to be charged with. If they should come to so unaccountable a determination as quietly to await the event—a mode of meeting difficulties they had unfortunately been very fond of—he would ask them, before adopting so fatal a course, whether it would not be sufficient to rouse any other set of men, that had ever been heard of from indifference, to recollect, that Mr. Peel's bill had been passed with scarcely any opposition—that at, first only a few long-sighted persons had foreseen any mischief from it—that every month almost the alarm had increased—and that was most important, that every man of whatever degree of authority, had 874 acknowledged, that, he had underrated the pressure it would occasion—that he who had made a high, as well as he who had made a low estimate, had equally been of opinion since, that he had been below the mark. The nation consequently was engaged in an undertaking the arduous nature of which it had either been altogether unconscious of, or at least had greatly mistaken—and, was it possible for those who would be the chief sufferers to decline examining if it was in their power to extricate themselves from so formidable a predicament? Could they resolve patiently to encounter difficulties, which were not more unexpected than they were complicated and overwhelming? Did any party in distress ever before think it superfluous to inquire whether a remedy was with in their reach?But it had been said, that, hard and cruel as was the situation in which the productive classes had been placed, there were imperative reasons for submitting to the consequences—that, whatever might be the disposition of those aggrieved to adopt a remedy, and what even might be their means of providing one there were considerations which should induce them to acquiesce in whatever they complained of as the result of Mr. Peel's bill—for that 1st, the country had been pledged to return to cash payments at he close of the war—2nd, that the present sufferers had seen good times during the depreciation, while another class had been in distress, and the recollection of the advantages they had enjoyed, should reconcile them, to use Mr. Malthus's expression, to the turn that had taken place in the wheel of fortune—3rd, that such changes in the currency had, in other times, been attempted, and happily accomplished—and 4th, that, as the new state of currency had lasted since 1819, no alteration could be effected without injustice. Upon each of those arguments, as they were considered such insurmountable obstacles to the proposition of the hon. member for Essex, it was necessary to make some observations.
But, before noticing any of them, he could not omit to comment upon one of the modes in which the supporters of the hon. member for Essex bad been attached. What he alluded to he hardly knew how to describe—for argument it undoubtedly was not—of the name of objection even it was unworthy—since it was a 875 piece of the emptiest abuse—though unfortunately it had been, very successful in discrediting that just cause, in the support of which he had been troubling the House. Whenever any wish was expressed to interfere with Mr. Peel's bill, it was immediately exclaimed, "Oh! you landhorders are finding your incumbrances inconvenient, and your creditors urgent: you can't bring yourselves to part with your luxuries, and so you must contrive something to get rid of your mortgages; and this is what you mean by equitable adjustment." And thus the term equitable adjustment had actually become a by word for all that was dishonest. That, seemed really curious; for if the merits of a proposition could be determined by the sound and nature of an expression, one would have thought that a better term could not have been indented to recommend such a measure to the legislature. The natural meaning of equitable adjustment, he humbly conceived to be such an arrangement as was most agreeable to the most scrupulous honesty—it meant, that contracts should be executed in the spirit and intention in which they had been made. Whether such an arrangement could be carried into effect was another question but that it was other than consistent with strict honesty it was, he would assert, ridiculous to contend, and dishonest to insinuate. And here, it was most instructive to reflect, what the blindness of faction could do; for whenever this expression had been used, it had always been treated as belonging to the radical and revolutionary school. Little was it imagined by those senseless declaimers, that this remarkable expression had proceeded from a very different source.—one that would not be suspected of radicalism; for it was from no other than the Tory member for the county of Norfolk (Mr. Wodehouse), and the stage on which it was produced would probably astonish, many of these unfair objectors as much, for it was at one of those meetings called Pitt dinners—an occasion in some respects certainly very suitable, but whimsical enough in others, since the fame of that great man, whose career the party had met to celebrate, had been so materially tarnished by his having set aside they ancient standard of value, after it had been kept inviolate for near two centuries. But, the baseness of this calumny was only equalled by its absurdity; for if the sound of words merely, 876 was considered, surely an arbitrary appropriation must be worse than an equitable adjustment; and yet such language had been applied to the latter term, that nothing beyond could be found to describe the character of the former.
He would now leave this. Abusive non-sense, that had been directed against those with whom he acted on this occasion, and pass to the real arguments by which they had been opposed. At first sight, undoubtedly, the argument, that all along during the restriction, the country was pledged to return to cash payments at the end of the war, would appear conclusive on the point, and inexorably to require of the sufferers to submit. But, upon looking into that argument less superficially, it appeared to him without any weight at all. It was true, the country was pledged to return to its ancient-currency at the end of the war—but, under what circumstances did it enter into: that pledge? Did the country say in its bond—was it recited in the preamble to the act of parliament—"Whereas for a length of time the currency has been depredated, is continuing to be depreciated, and moreover is likely so to continue, nevertheless, at the end of the war the depreciation, to whatever extent it may have proceeded, shall be stopped, and the currency, however it may have become disordered, shall be reformed"? If any such language as that had been held, then indeed, there would have been no case for a remedy—no appeal could have been made to the legislature of this day for its interference as a court of equity—the pledge must have been redeemed at whatever cost. But, instead of holding such language as this, parliament had taken an opposite course—it acted on the supposition, that no depreciation existed; for the House of Commons, that enlightened—nearly omniscient body—said, with authoritative wisdom and oracular, dignity—"True it is, you fancy there is a depreciation, but it is a gross mistake—it is a mere phantom of the brain—Banker notes are as valuable as ever—their, value, has been all along unchanged and will continue so; and, therefore, when, the country comes to pay its debts at the end of the war, it will pay upon just the same terms as it would pay now—the only difference will be, that the payment may be then in gold, whereas, now it must be in paper; but the guinea then will be just the same as the one-pound note and a 877 shilling now, and consequently, in undertaking to return to your ancient currency at the termination of the war, you are undertaking what can cost you nothing—what cannot signify a jot—you are imposing upon yourselves no sacrifices—you are legislating upon a mere matter of convenience." That, in substance, was the language held in 1811, and those were the circumstances under which that fatal pledge was given. Was it mot notorious to all who were acquainted with the transactions of the two principal eras in the history of the Bank restriction—particularly the second—the one in 1811—that the engagement to revert to the ancient standard was entered into under the impression, that no additional burthen would be the consequence? And that would unquestionably have been the case, if there had been no depreciation; and the country was told, from the highest authority, that there was none. The proposal of the government was therefore readily adopted, and the bargain was ratified. The measure of borrowing in inconvertible paper, to be repaid in paper convertible at the ancient standard, was only to be dreaded by the country, from the possibility of being called upon to pay more than had been lent; but that could not be if depreciation did not exist, and the House of Commons assured the public that such was the case. On that assurance, unfortunately, the public relied. Could any one imagine that such an engagement could have been entertained, much less recommended, if the country had been aware that the inevitable consequence of it was to entail upon it, and upon every individual of course equally for his private concerns, the necessity of repaying to creditors from 30 to 50 per cent more than had been borrowed? That the public, in 1823, knew to be the case; but did not know when the bargain was concluded—nay, were assured of the contrary. The bargain, therefore, was made under a false impression. And, did not all sense of equity forbid the notion, that a bargain, where one side was not conscious of the weight of it, and was moreover purposely kept in the dark; should be insisted upon in all its strictness? This was a case, if ever there could be one, in which equity required, that the transaction should be revised and adjusted, that compensation might be made. To keep in force Mr. Peel's bill was to sanction the most violent and shameless injustice. It was to enforce the execution of what was 878 consented to under a delusion. It was to consider a pledge given by the House of Commons as binding only against one party. For, what was the meaning of the resolution in 1811, declaring, that Bank-notes were equal to the legal coin of the realm in public estimation? What was the object and design of it? It could not nave been a merely speculative, theoretical opinion, produced, and maintained for the purpose of idle disputation and a display of sophistry. It was for an important practical object. It was to quiet the fears of debtor and creditor, by giving an assurance, that neither party should suffer by the financial policy of the government—that the one should never have to pay more than he borrowed, and that the other should not be obliged to content himself with less than he had lent. That assurance would have been realized, if the resolution had spoken the truth. But, as every man had at last seen, that resolution' was nothing but falsehood and nonsense; and therefore the pledge it gave; could not be redeemed. As the pledge given: was in fact a pledge to opposite things at the same moment, it was clear that it must be violated altogether towards of the parties, of that it must be violated in part, towards both. Being in such a predicament, what was the fair way of acting? Was it to force one party to bear alone the whole weight of your errors and guilt? or was it not rather to place the effects of your imbecile wickedness equally on the shoulders of both? If the currency of 1811 were resorted to, the whole weight would be imposed upon the creditor, and the debtor would have the advantage of oil those unfortunate changes; but, if the ancient standard were maintained, then the creditor bore none of the weight, and the debtor had none of the benefit. While, by adopting a standard between those two extremes, the loss and the gain would be equally divided. Thus, as near ah approach to a state of perfect justice would be made, as was possible under the circumstances; for it was to be borne in mind, that when the currency was once tampered with, perfect justice was no longer in question, and a government resorting to that disgraceful expedient, at once threw away the mask, and openly professed not to regard justice, as long as it was inconvenient to do so. The only thing such a government had in its power was, to make its injustice as little mischievous 879 as possible, by distributing the cruelty it had committed, alike among all its subjects. That only remedy the government of this country had unfortunately neglected; and it was upon that, that the hon. member for Essex and his friends had insisted, demanding it as a right, for the numerous victims of parliamentary injustice—who were no less than the whole body of the productive classes of the empire. The language addressed to the government was, "You have accumulated an overwhelming weight of injustice and misery by your wicked and blundering alterations in the currency; your blindness has been equal to your perfidy; you have robbed your subjects, and have not been considerate enough to rob them alike. Whatever you do now, there must be heart-rending cases of individual suffering: you cannot diminish the aggregate of injustice and wretched ness, but you can prevent the weight from being intolerable, by distributing it, and extending it over the whole surface. The acts of 1797 and 1819, committed two open robberies—those robberies cannot be recalled, but you may contrive that the class last robbed should only suffer that violence to the same extent as was the fate of the one first attacked. You are fallen into that melancholy, disgraceful, odious, and horrible condition, that you must cheat somebody, therefore be considerate enough, in the midst of these horrors, to cheat all alike."
The second weapon against the hon. member for Essex—that is, the one which is next in favour with his opponents—is the circumstance, that the landholders did not complain of the change in the currency as long as the mortgagee and annuitant were affected, and that consequently it was not reasonable in them to complain now, when it was the turn of the other party to have the advantage. This was probably the first time it had been contended, that one class was to look after the interests of another, and, as far as the changes of the currency were taken into account, a rival class, It was certainly not according to the ordinary course of human affairs, that a party profiting by a particular state of things should be the most keen and acute in discerning that it was not according to strict justice. All experience, the nature of the human mind, and indeed common sense, pointed out, that if those who suffer do not ask for redress, nobody else would perceive that there was anything to redress. No more 880 could be expected than that the party possessing an undue advantage should be ready to abandon it as soon as the case should be made clear. If the annuitants of 1811 had been conscious of their wrongs, and had called loudly for a remedy, and the landholders had refused an inquiry into their complaints, then undoubtedly, speaking of the landholders as a body, they would, in 1823, be asking for relief with a very bad grace. But it was a gross misrepresentation to say, that the landholders were any party to those proceedings; for, besides that the country gentlemen were entirely passive, and, as they generally appeared, merely servilely obedient to the ministers of the day—no more so than on most other occasions—and that moreover they of all others were blinded to the nature of the Bank Restriction act, the fund-holders of those days obtained every advantage asked for by the motion before the House; for they got an inquiry. It was true they got no remedy; but that was because the House of Commons did not recognize the existence of any grievance; for the grievance was the depreciation, and the depreciation was solemnly denied. To put the landholders upon equal terms with the fundholders, they too must have the benefit of an inquiry; and, if the result of such an inquiry should be the same answer that was given to the fundholder in 1811, it might safely be said, that remonstrance would be heard no longer; for the House of Commons would never again dare to have recourse to such a combination of falsehood and absurdity, and the truth of the prediction therefore could never be ascertained. To vote, that the landholders had suffered nothing from the currency, which was in substance the vote carried with reference to the fundholder, would be to pass over again Mr. Vansittart's resolution. But, even if it were an admissible argument, that since the one class had been benefitted to the injury of the other during the war, the tables might now be turned without injustice, in that point of view, the landholders would nevertheless be oppressed, for the annuitants were only wronged during the war; but, as the standard of 1819 was to be permanent, the productive classes would suffer, not for a time, but permanently—and so there was no fairness in the reprisals made upon them.
The third argument was, that the attempt of 1819 was no more than what had been attempted formerly, and what 881 had been happily accomplished. There could be no greater fallacy. Reference was made to the times of Elizabeth and William; but that was to compare two things wholly different. In former times, whatever debasement or reformation of the currency took place, was necessarily open and avowed: but, in the debasement of 1797, it was not so, and in 1811, it was absolutely denied; and by means of a servile House of Commons, it was to a great extent actually concealed from the public. Formerly, there could be no concealment, because the operation was a very clumsy one, being nothing more than cutting a piece off the guinea, when every man, of course, perceived its diminished size, or substituting some baser metal for gold or silver, which was at once apparent in the altered colour of the coin. The ingenuity of our times had discovered an expedient, by which the same end might be accomplished more silently; for by means of paper, as the appearance remained the same, the effrontery of a government might be sufficient to keep the people in ignorance of what had happened. As long as such things were done in the face of day, individuals were able to provide against the consequences, and such, history informed us, had become a regular practice; but, during the late depreciation of the paper currency, the people were deprived of that resource, because, confiding in the House of Commons, they believed there was no occasion for it. Some few had the presumption to go counter to the expressed opinion of the House of Commons, and being firmly persuaded of the existence of depreciation, took the precaution of stipulating in their lease to receive the rent partly in kind. But of such prudent foresight, the instances were rare. Another great distinction between the late restoration of the currency, and that of former periods was, the vast difference in the transactions of the country and it was evident, that the extent and complexity of the mischief must depend upon the number of debtors and creditors.
Another characteristic of the late depreciation was the universality of it; for, as the currency was entirely paper, there could be no exception to the change; whereas, former debasements were partial; for if the silver was deteriorated; the gold was untouched and vice versâ. Thus, in former times, there was a security against 882 this fraudulent policy, as plain and certain as the index was, by which it was open to detection. The sudden difference between gold and silver in the market, pointed out to the public the violation of the most sacred engagement by which a government can be bound. If a given quantity of silver would not purchase the same quantity of corn that it had procured a short time before, while, by taking gold instead of silver into the market, the price appeared unaltered, then it was clear to the meatiest capacity, that the rulers of the country in which that phenomenon appeared had been exercising the privilege of the executive to deteriorate the silver coin. Undoubtedly, pending transactions were more or less affected by that circumstances But it was known to what extent this artificial depreciation had gone, and contracts were made with reference to the standard as it existed in its purity. In the depreciation of the late war, the pubic had neither such an index nor such a security; for, as the currency was entirely of paper, of course no means of comparison could be had, and for that mode of payment, no convenient substitute could be found. It would have been necessary to resort to the simple but cumbersome practice of early and barbarous ages, before the advantage of using the precious metals was known, when oxen and sheep were the media of exchange. Unluckily, even this miserable protection was not open to the British public, for its inherent respect for authority aiding the wretched sophistry of the day bad so blinded and bewildered half the nation, that half at least, of the persons with whom an individual wishing to stipulate against a further alteration of the currency would have had to deal, would probably have been persuaded to attribute the rise of price to nothing but an increased demand for the particular' commodity in question. The mischief of this fatal policy was still further aggravated by the circumstance, that from the nature of a paper currency, the facilities for loans increased in the same proportion that they became more ruinous.
Next, as to the injustice that would be committed by any alteration in the bill of 1819 upon all who have entered into any money engagements since that period. It certainly could not be denied, that some injustice in this way would be the effect of a modification of Mr. Peel's bill, 883 and every year such a measure was delayed, the objections to it would become stronger. The session before last, when a similar motion was made by the hon. member for Taunton, the balance of advantages would have been greater in favour of that measure, than last year when it was brought forward by the hon. member for Essex; and the hon. member for Essex undoubtedly could not consider his motion of 1823, as salutary as that of 1822. Every year the objection to such a measure became stronger; but the weight of such an objection had not yet become sufficiently strong to overturn the justice and expediency of the motion. For, as he had already observed, the whole question was, by what course the greatest sum of injustice would be avoided? The currency once tampered with, perfect justice was no longer within reach. Undoubtedly, contracts since 1819 would be disturbed, which would be a hardship deeply to be regretted, but which was chargeable only on those who first violated the standard, and set at defiance the principles of an upright policy. In repairing such evils, injustice must be done; but that was the misfortune and not the fault of those who undertook the task. To make the remedial measure fair, it would be necessary to do less than justice to some parties, and to do absolute injustice to others. This was the most heart-rending circumstance in this vast and complicated evil. The consideration, however, of the fraud that would be committed upon creditors of the last three years was alleviated not a little by what he believed to be the fact, that persons had been unusually cautious in their contracts, and not inclined to enter into any—owing to their distrust in the restored standard [Here Mr. Huskisson cheered]. He perceived, by the cheer of his right hon. friend, that he did not concur with him in this opinion. He thought, however, he could diminish somewhat of his right hon. friend's confidence, by reminding him of what had occurred the last year to his right hon. friend himself. It would be in the recollection of the House, that the right hon. gentleman, then first commissioner for the office of Woods and Forests, had moved, as an amendment to the motion of the hon. member for Essex, that the House would not alter the standard, meaning, beyond a doubt, to discountenance the notion, the standard would ever again 884 be interfered with. Of his meaning there could be no doubt; for in the course of his speech he told the House that his object was, to follow the example of that great man Mr. Montague, who was chancellor of the Exchequer to king William, What followed was curious indeed. For when the hon. member for Callington taunted the ministers upon their blind presumptuous policy, in proposing so rash a resolution, under the difficult circumstances of the country, the noble marquis then at the head of the government, by his answer, entirely overthrew the plans of the mover of the amendment; for he said he considered the meaning to be only, that the House would not at that time alter the standard—which was manifestly at variance with the intentions, and completely subversive of the views, of his colleague. The mention of this fact could not but be regarded as a pretty decisive answer to the cheer of his right hon. friend; for, if the leading minister of the Crown had not sufficient confidence in the standard to support the resolution alluded to, what sort of confidence could be expected from the public? By lowering the standard, they, would undoubtedly defraud those who had become creditors since 1819; but as the only just principle was, to see that as few as possible were defrauded, and that all the king's subjects bore the burthen alike, the House could not properly be deterred from the measure, by consideration for the comparatively few contracts entered into, since the passing of Mr. Peel's bill. It was a principle admitted on all hands, that when a currency was once tampered with and had become disordered, it could only be restored, with perfect justice to all parties, by fixing upon that point for a standard, where during the depreciation it had continued the longest. If, therefore, the standard had been departed from only for a few years, justice was on the side of returning to it; but if for a long series of years, then it would be as flagrant an injustice to return to it, as it originally was to depart from it. This doctrine had been well expressed in the debates on the Bullion question, by two gentlemen who were decidedly of the party called Bullionists, and who could not be considered as men of visionary or unscientific notions. Their language was, "return to the standard forthwith, for if it is delayed, it will be impracticable and 885 unjust to do so." So that those stout Bullionists gave it as their impartial opinion—for the question had not then arisen—that what has been since done by Mr. Peel's bill would be unjust; and yet the thoughtless cry of the present day was, that the advocates for a repeal of it were dishonest politicians. The two gentlemen he had alluded to were Mr. Henry Thornton and Mr. Sharp. The passage in Mr. Thornton's speech had been read to the Mouse early in the session, by the hon. member for Norfolk; but as it had been brought forward at not a very favourable moment, and appeared a most important auxiliary to his side of the question, he would also take the liberty of reading it. Speaking of the important subject of the standard of our currency, Mr. H. Thornton said,
"There was great danger of our finally departing from it, if we suffered the present depreciation of our paper to continue. The first resolution of his right hon. friend appeared to him to be liable to the construction of laying in some claim to depart from it, if such a measure should hereafter be deemed expedient; for it asserted the king's right to alter the standard; and the very mention of such a right when the temptation to exercise it was occurring, might naturally excite apprehension among the public. Indeed, the argument in favour of a deterioration of our coin (or of a change of its denomination, which was the samething) would, while the present state of things continued, grow stronger every day. To change the standard when the paper has been long depreciated is only to establish and perpetuate a currency of that value to which we already are accustomed, and may also be made the means of precluding further depression. The very argument of justice after a certain time passes over to the side of deterioration. If we have been used to a depreciated paper for only two or three years, justice is on the side of returning to the antecedent standard; but if eight, ten, fifteen or twenty years have passed since the paper fell, then it may he deemed unfair to restore the ancient value of the circulating medium, for bargains will have been made and loans supplied, under an expectation of the continuance of the existing depreciation. If therefore we were earnest in our professions of attachment to the standard, we ought not to place ourselves in a situation of irresistible temptation. By the present 886 decision of the House the question of adherence to the standard might be determined."
Mr. Sharp said, "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."
So, if Mr. Henry Thornton were alive and in the house, the hon. member for Essex would probably have had the benefit of his assistance. It appeared then, in all these points of view, that the sufferer from the Cash-payment bill had a claim for relief. And, if the House should be of opinion that justice pointed that way, could there be a doubt how expediency would enjoin them to act? As to the expediency of providing a remedy there were two great subjects for consideration. One was, the revolution which, to a great extent, would otherwise take place in the landed property of the country. The other was, the situation of the country with regard to foreign powers. As to the future condition of the landowners, the most sanguine probably could scarcely imagine that, if prices continued at the rate of the last two years, it would be impossible for the generality of them to preserve their stations in society. Those whose estates were much incumbered would be forced to content themselves with a very small portion of their former property, selling the greater part for that low price which would be the necessary consequence of a market glutted by an excessive and universal distress. Those who are usually called the monied men would step into these ancient possessions of the landed gentlemen, and the unfortunate sellers would become obscure residents in those foreign countries where the wreck of their fortunes would be sufficient just to maintain themselves and their families. He would not here argue the question, whether such a change would be injurious to the country at large. He was ready to admit, that it was a matter of reasonable doubt what would be the result to the general interests of the community. If those who were in possession of the land should be swept away, a new race would succeed them and the soil would equally be cultivated, and, looking at the abilities and industry of those who formed the strength of the monied class and into whose hands the land would fall, it was impossible to deny that, in some 887 respects, the change would be advantageous. Whether, therefore, it would signify to the state at large that the distressed landed proprietors should be left to their fate he would not argue, but would assume that such would be an evil. And let men differ as they might upon that point, it was hardly possible for them to doubt, that there could be any other result from the continued supineness of the country gentlemen than the total disappearance of many of them, and the degradation of most that should be left.
Still, however, it was evident, that the delusion about high prices remained. The absurd hope still existed, that in the new currency those average prices might be obtained, which had never been known except in periods of scarcity or of a depreciated currency. This hope had been kept alive and had received new vigour from the rapid increase of the last two months. This symptom of bad times the unhappy farmers had mistaken for the
| The price of wheat was, from 1688 to 1792, divided into periods of war and peace, on the average— | ||||||
| £. | s. | d. | ||||
| During the war of Revolution | from 1688 | to 1697 | 2 | 10 | 8 | |
| Peace of Ryswick | from 1698 | to 1701 | 2 | 12 | 6 | |
| War of Spanish Succession | from 1702 | to 1712 | 2 | 4 | 11 | |
| Peace of Utrecht | from 1713 | to 1739 | 2 | 0 | 4 | |
| War of Flanders | from 1740 | to 1748 | 1 | 15 | 5 | |
| Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle | from 1749 | to 1754 | 1 | 18 | 2 | |
| War of American Boundaries | from 1755 | to 1762 | 2 | 1 | 10 | |
| Peace of Paris | from 1763 | to 1774 | 2 | 9 | 5 | |
| War of Revolted Colonies | from 1775 | to 1782 | 2 | 1 | 11 | |
| Second Peace of Paris | from 1783 | to 1792 | 2 | 6 | 2 | |
| Making on the average the price of wheat in peace greater than in the preceding war considerably more than five per cent. |
§ So, to the surprise probably of the great bulk of the country gentlemen, war perhaps had a tendency to lower rather than to raise prices, and therefore threw them upon the state of the currency as the only solution of the great change they had experienced.
§ But, however indifferent it might be considered whether the old landed aristocracy should be displaced and the vacancy supplied by a new set of men, no one could dispute the importance of putting the country into a condition to undertake a war. That it was very far from being in such a condition he was perfectly convinced. He did not mean to say that, if the honour and safety of England were in danger, the resources of the state would be insufficient to enable it
888§ forerunner of good; and their blindness, equal to their misfortunes, had led them to suppose, that the price of 60s. prevailing in the month of June amid all the speculation arising from the war in Spain and the certain lateness of the harvest might nevertheless be permanent. By some unaccountable mode of reasoning they inferred, that what according to all appearances was the maximum was to be counted upon as the average, and forgot that, to give prosperity, above sixty shillings should be the average of the whole year; whereas it had in reality been about forty. If, in their delirium of joy at the late rise, the country gentlemen, of whom not one was present at an early period of the debate, could be prevailed upon to attend to some facts calculated to damp their sanguine expectations, he would read an abstract of the average prices during periods of war and peace, from the Revolution to the commencement of the late war—
§ to engage in a war and to carry it through with as great vigour as distinguished it in the last contest. But nevertheless it was impossible not to be aware that, for all purposes not immediately British however much they might be so indirectly, the country was utterly unfit to go to war. If an invasion was threatened or a colony was taken possession of, there would, he doubted not, be perfect alacrity to take up arms against any enemy or any number of enemies; because, all private interests would be forgotten for the general welfare; and indeed the ultimate benefit of those private interests themselves would require it. But, at the same time, the particular interests of certain classes would be placed in such jeopardy by war, that no ministers would venture to recommend it, unless they 889 could shew that the honour of the nation would be affected by remaining at peace. It would be quite in vain to hold forth to the public upon the vast importance of preserving the balance of power, and of not departing from the policy pursued ever since the Revolution. Those objects were, in truth, essentially British, but they were indirectly so, and the question admitted of dispute. He would ask, then, why it was, that in possession of the greatest resources the country could ever boast, there nevertheless never was a time when nothing far short of the last necessity could drive the nation into war. The undeniable answer was, it is crippled by the debt. The debt was a fetter from which there was no extrication whenever a commanding attitude was necessary. Every minister must feel, that there was no such chance for his overthrow, and for the success of his political opponents, as the chance of a financial convulsion; which was scarcely a matter of doubt, if we should ever be engaged in an extended war. The ministers therefore would naturally be pacific, because they knew that war would in all probability be fatal to their power. The two great classes in the state, in point of influence, were the landholders and the fundholders. The fundholders would be against war, as long as it could be avoided by any means; because the inevitable consequence would be, a reduction of the debt by some means direct or indirect, if the contest should be at all protracted; and if on the other hand the struggle should be short, and a bankruptcy avoided, then the debt being augmented and additional burthens falling on the landholders, as they could scarcely support the pressure of those they had now to maintain, they would in that case be altogether overwhelmed. The landholders therefore were opposed to all warlike schemes, almost as much as the fund-holders; though not with the same warmth or so universally, as he was sorry to perceive; for no one could disguise from himself, if he had observed what had passed in the last two or three months, that war would not be ungrateful to some of the distressed agricultural districts, because they foresaw from it a relief from, instead of an addition to, their burthens. Such a motive could not be too strongly condemned. The necessity for reducing the national debt might become unavoidable—the justice of the reduction might be indisputable—the fundholder himself 890 might be anxious for it—but, however forcibly those considerations might press, it would be a ruinous measure if adopted on the arising of a supposed emergency, if ever it should be resorted to it could only be with honour and advantage, on a clear demonstration of the justice as well as necessity of it, after a fair hearing of all sides, and a dispassionate examination of all opinions. The breaking put of a war would be no moment for a dispassionate inquiry. The thing itself might be just, but necessity and expediency would take the precedence of justice, and whether the justice of the case would authorize it or not, the season would be so suspicious a one, that it would have all the effect of an arbitrary spoliation. Such a calamity, no one could dissemble from himself, must be impending over the country, if a blow should be aimed at its honour and safety, if this new standard of value was to be adhered to, as unjust, in his opinion, as he was sure it would be impracticable to maintain in the event of an extended war, unless some great change should take place in the value of the precious metals—which was not unlikely, and the chance of which was our only hope—from the late events in South America. But then he feared that such a change, to be effectual for this country, must be almost such a one as is described by an ancient historian, who relates that silver, all of a sudden, became as plentiful as stones. This, then, when there was at least no immediate danger of a war, was the time for satisfying ourselves as to the justice of the present standard; for if we discovered it to be unjust, we could alter it without suspicion, and if we; discovered it to be just, we should more cheerfully struggle to maintain it, and our difficulties would be half overcome by the very consciousness that he could not honestly decline to encounter them.
§ It was impossible, the noble lord said, to mention the general subject of war without referring to the state of things on the continent, since that had the most intimate connexion possible with the present discussion; for upon Mr. Peel's bill depended the question, whether the influence of England should be every thing or nothing at all on the continent. He was firmly persuaded that if the currency had been fixed at a juster standard, the interference of France in the affairs of Spain, so unfathomable in its consequences to this country, would not have taken place. 891 In the face of England, protesting and menacing that great blow at her interests, that daring encroachment on the rights of nations would not have been ventured upon by the fanatical rulers of France. That, from his own observation in the course of the winter at Paris, and he believed he had been in the way of pretty good information—he was confident was the opinion of all parties there. On the character of that interference, there was little variety of feeling in the British people, though as to the great importance to us that the French government should be thwarted and that its wicked hostility to liberty should recoil upon the authors of this cruel invasion, opinions were more divided. How, with the experience of history to guide us, it was possible to entertain a doubt of this kind he could not comprehend. It had been hitherto the general opinion among English and French politicians, that the alliance of Spain was of the greatest value to France, and made her most formidable to England. To doubt this, one must forget that the combined fleets of those two nations had swept the channel, and that all former maritime coalitions against us were very inferior to what we must expect to see arrayed against our ascendancy some day or other. If the French government should succeed in re-establishing the despotism of Spain, nothing could be more certain, than that Spain will become, what she has always been since the treaty of Utrecht, the mere satellite of France. Family interests will be predominant, from the natural inclinations of the two branches of the house of Bourbon; but a much stronger tie would be, that as the restored despotism of Spain would owe both its restoration and its prolonged existence to the French Bourbons, the interests and wishes of the Spanish nation would go for nothing in the direction of affairs, and such a Spanish government would never dare to decline, whenever it might suit France to drag her into a contest with this country. And when it was considered what a vast additional danger would arise to England from the mere necessity of watching and blockading such a length of coast as the coast of Spain, it seemed not easy to exaggerate the importance to France of having Spain for a certain friend instead of a natural enemy. He thought it therefore matter of the deepest lamentation, that we had not stepped forward in defence 892 of a cause that it would have been both honourable and wise to defend, had it not been for our peculiar circumstances with regard to the debt. He could not believe that any English minister, whether Tory or Whig, would have consented to remain a passive spectator of these occurrences, or that he would have confined himself to despatches politely written, if the public debt had amounted to no more than such a comparative trifle as 400 millions instead of 800. But, considering as he did, that war was out of our power, consistently with a due regard for the fears of those two influential classes, the landholders and the fundholders, he felt that the government had taken the only course open to them, and had not allowed the country to be unnecessarily lowered in the eyes of Europe. He fully admitted and bitterly deplored, that the country did not fill that high situation it had a right to; but that was not any fault in the spirit or ability of the administration, for it was the necessary result of our glorious return to the ancient standard of value, and the disguised and intolerable addition to all taxes and burthens which that measure had entailed upon us. Of this defence the government could not avail itself on the late discussion of the negotiations; for the leaders of it in the two Houses, compelled by their situation as they probably thought, had taken a lofty tone, and had declared, that the country had never been better prepared for war; which boast every one must feel, if the safety of the fundholders were considered, to be nothing but a ridiculous rhodomontade. And, as nothing could be more disparaging to a country than to remonstrate without being ready to support its remonstrance by arms, he felt a most conscientious conviction that the government had taken the best line for the country, and that his right hon. friend, to use a sporting expression, considering he had a jade to ride had rode the race skilfully. Bur, perhaps, there was still a greater mischief behind, which was the knowledge on the continent, that financial embarrassment was the real key to our present policy, and the encouragement which that reflexion held out for nicked and ambitious enterprises. The whole history of England, and the well-known character of its people, marked at once to every foreign government, that nothing but financial considerations could have restrained the impulse every true Englishman felt on 893 the promulgation of the horrible sentiments in the French king's speech to the Chambers. They all knew full well that there was but one check to that impulse—600 millions of debt borrowed in one currency, and to be paid in another. The state of our finances had been perfectly understood from that instant, and had become matter of congratulation to the despot and of grief and dismay to the oppressed.
§ To all this it might be replied, that however lamentable this state of weakness might be, there was no hope of any remedy from the labours of a Committee on the Currency, and however great the mistake of 1819 might be admitted to have been, there was now no mode of repairing it. He was convinced there was no such occasion for despondency, and that the remedies were several, and one, indeed, easy and obvious. The nature of them it would be rather premature to enter into, because the evil to be remedied was not yet acknowledged; and besides such details were of course the peculiar province of a committee. Possibly the House might resolve, as a former House of Commons had done, that a Bank note and a shilling had been always equal to a guinea; and then, undoubtedly, there would be nothing to remedy, and the efforts of the hon. member for Essex would be extinguished in the most decided manner. In case of a more satisfactory result than such a one as he had anticipated as possible, he could not sit down without briefly mentioning the various modes of relief to which he looked. First came the expedient of an adjustment of contracts, that had been so much decried, to which the noble lord, the member for Salisbury, looked with so much confidence, that, as it was understood, he intended to propose an amendment to the motion of the hon. member for Essex, for the purpose of narrowing the question to the merits of that particular remedy. He (lord T.) would not say more upon it, because he hoped the House would have the advantage of hearing that noble lord upon all the bearings of it. If he thought it practicable he would prefer it to every other plan, because by it alone would perfect justice be obtained. Not being very sanguine that such a plan could be carried into effect, he was more inclined to what would naturally be the proposition of the hon. member for Essex—namely, to alter the standard, and to place it at some point between 3l. 17s. 10½d. and 5l. 4s. Ano- 894 ther remedy would be, to put out a sort of government paper, depreciated in different degrees, in which contracts of certain debts should be payable, and salaries that had been regulated at certain times. For the latter part of the arrangement, he should consider himself bound to begin with his right hon. friend, the president of the Board of Trade, as he was so ambitious of following the example of Mr. Mountagu. But, if no such extensive remedies were thought practicable, there was one of a smaller description, about which there ought not to be a moment's hesitation—he meant, to alter the standard from gold to silver. This measure would at once diminish the burthens of the country five or six per cent; and it would be absurd indeed, as well as criminal, to make light even of so small an advantage as that. He was sure it would attract the favourable attention of the House to this minor remedy, to mention, that it had the support of a noble marquis in another place,* who, early in the session, had declared himself strenuously in favour of it.
§
The noble lord then said, it had just occurred to him, that he had left unnoticed what had struck him as a very singular observation of the hon. member for Portarlington [Cry of Question, and Hear, hear!]. He would compress this last observation within the smallest possible limits. That hon. gentleman had said, that he could not see how an alteration in the currency was to assist the country in meeting a war. He (lord T.) was astonished at that observation, for the answer seemed obvious and undeniable. If the currency were to be depreciated 25 per cent, then the burthens of the people nominally remaining the same, would, in reality, be reduced 25 per cent, and that proportion would be disposable for the objects of the war without any fresh imposition of taxes. If such a depreciation were to be brought about without regard to justice, then, in his opinion, not only there would be no advantage at all, but, from the shock to public credit, the disadvantage of such a proceeding would be equal to the dishonour of it. Whether such a measure would be consistent with justice, was the great point in dispute, and that to which a committee would first devote its attention.
*The marquis of Lansdown. See vol. 8, p. 28.
§ He would now detain the House no linger than to remind them that to reject the motion would be to decline taking into consideration a subject the most momentous, and of the most anxious interest that had ever pressed itself on their attention. With reference to the foreign relations of the country, prudence and the national honour would manifestly recommend it; but, if the government and the parliament had come to the painful resolution, that England must consent to abandon for ever the lofty station she had so long held among the nations of the world, he trusted the House would think it worth while to take the course pointed out by his hon. friend, in order to avoid that great revolution in the landed property which must otherwise take place; and he would intreat the ministers more especially to reflect what their duty was to that great body of men, who had kept a Tory administration in power for near sixty years, and who, however they might have served their country, had at least served faithfully and zealously his majesty's present ministers and their political ancestors—the country gentlemen, whose very reproach to the rest of the community was their tame and undeviating acquiescence in the measures of all governments, whatever those governments might happen to he, and whatever they might choose to propose, and who had a claim therefore on their rulers for compassion; but if those rulers were deaf to the calls of gratitude, and dead to all sense of what they owed to that great, important, but much abused and long suffering portion of their countrymen, he would beseech them to pay some regard to their own doctrines of the horror of all revolutions, and he would suggest, that those who contemplate with the utmost alarm the smallest innovation, if it was to affect the salary of a public servant Or to injure the influence or a Borough proprietor, should not wholly disregard so extensive an innovation this, which was to sweep from the face of the land its present possessors, consigning them to beggary and to exile; and as a large portion of the present ministers had given proofs of energy and of a readiness to encounter difficulties, when their own individual interests had been at stake, he trusted that they would not entirely: neglect; the interests of that great body of men whose existence was at stake—that they would not be altogether indifferent to the rate of that class—that they would not shrink from task 896 Of saying it—and that they would set about redeeming past errors with some decisive and spirited proof of a genuine love for their country.
Mr. Baringsaid, he must deny that the present was a question which interested only one or two classes of the community. On the contrary, he considered it to be a question of the utmost importance to all classes of society, and he was anxious to state his opinion upon it, because he wished to account for what might appear to be an inconsistency in his conduct. Having, three years ago, when the question of the currency was under consideration, made a proposition to the House of a similar nature to that now made by the hon. member for Essex, it might he asked, why, three years later, he should feel it his duty to oppose the inquiry now called for. The noble marquis who had just sat down, had, in a very few words, pronounced his (Mr. B.'s.) defence, when he had said, that in the question of currency "time was every thing." And he would say, that the extract which the noble marquis had read from a speech delivered, in the year 1811, by that excellent and able man, Mr. Henry Thornton, explained exactly the principle on which the question now rested. It was impossible for any man to state precisely, that three, or four, or five years should be the determinate time, after which a currency that had been tampered with, should be restored to its original value. It was essentially a question of time—not limitable to any specific period; and if a legislature had been so unfortunate as to tamper with the currency of a country—whether they should afterwards return to the course from which they had departed or not, was entirely a question of time. Supposing that position to be generally admitted, if an alteration were made to any certain amount—to the amount of 15 or 20 per cent for instance—in the currency of a country, it would become a matter for argument, whether it would not be better to leave it on the principle of depreciation, rather than to return at once to the old standard. He was of opinion, however, that, though a committee at present would do no good, the hon. member for Essex had conferred a benefit on the country, in different ways, by the agitation of the question. In the first place, the numerous meetings throughout the country had induced the people to believe, that the interference of the legislature was called for with a view to 897 the alteration in the currency. Now, when such an universal feeling prevailed from one end of the kingdom to the other, it became necessary for that House to discuss the subject. He disapproved of the remedy which had been proposed by the committee of 1811; and, looking to the reasons on which that remedy was founded, he thought no practical wisdom had been shown by that part of the House which had supported it; because, if any measure could be more absurd than another, it was—in the midst of a war—in the midst of the fluctuations of money occasioned by loans—to ask the Bank to resume its payments in specie. It appeared that, in proportion to the difficulties of this question, individuals were peremptory and obstinate in their opinions. The question was not now settled, much as it had been discussed. Every one who had spoken or written on the subject, had treated all those who opposed their theory as dolts and fools. It would have been wise if that House had passed a resolution, stating that this was a question of very great difficulty, and that no party had been found who could show them the way out of it. Many gentlemen would doubtless ask, "What is the use of these discussions—what is the good of showing that one-half of the people have been deluded by the other?" It was a most important duty to do it. In the first place, it was always useful to hold up truth and sense to public view; and it was of the greatest possible advantage—not that they should leave no lights and no land-marks behind them—but that they should not leave any false lights; that they should not be instrumental in preserving any deceitful landmarks, to puzzle and lead astray posterity. When those who came after them looked back to what had occurred within a few years, they would find a resolution on the Journals of the House of Commons, at which they must laugh; but which would appear as gravely on the pages of those Journals, as if the whole wisdom of parliament had been consulted in drawing it up. Therefore it was proper, that the opinions of the contemporaries of those who formed that resolution should be clearly and distinctly known.
The right hon. the president of the Board of Trade (Mr. Huskisson), whose sentiments on this subject had been extremely orthodox when he was out of place, but which were no longer so now he was in office, instead of inserting on the Journals 898 a resolution reprobating any attempt to tamper with the currency of the country, contented himself with a simple declaration, that it was not expedient to make any alteration in the currency. Then, let them look to the writings of his hon. friend, the member for Portarlington, who had asserted opinions which held extremely cheap any statement, that the alteration in the currency had produced the distress which had been complained of. Posterity would assuredly be more acute than he was, if they understood perfectly what his hon. friend meant.—He would not consent to go into the proposed committee, because it would be unjust to the country to hold cut expectations which could not be realized; and because he thought that parliament, when it conceived it to be the interest of the country to bolster up the paper currency for the purpose of carrying on the war, had done so with a feeling of perfect good faith. He admitted, that the system had been detrimental to many—and especially detrimental to the most helpless part of the community; because there were few evils with which the generality of people were less conversant, than those which arose out of a tampering with the currency. The great body of the people had proceeded on the principle which had been referred to by the noble marquis—that a Bank-note now was just as good as a Bank-note at any former time: they conceived, without any thoughts of the future, that they were receiving a full equivalent for their gold; but they now discovered their error. While, however, he admitted the great evils which the system had produced, he was willing—considering the period which had elapsed—to put up with all the inconveniences that were now felt, rather than have recourse to what had been called an "equitable adjustment." He was well aware of the baneful effects which this tampering with the currency had had upon the principal families of the kingdom. He did not think the noble marquis, who had stated in such forcible language the grievous injury which that tampering had inflicted on the aristocracy of the country, had at all overrated it. On that aristocracy he had no claim; but still he thought that it ought to be upheld. There was not, he believed, a private family in the kingdom, which had not been impoverished in some degree by the system. He himself knew instances in which large nominal fortunes were left to the elder 899 sons of respectable families,; which fortunes were not sufficient, to discharge in-cumbrances. And, if that was the case with great fortunes, how stood the farmers throughout the country? Their situation was necessarily still worse. Many of them who had laid aside money to purchase land which they had partially mortgaged, had been entirely ruined by the speculation. Numerous families had been reduced to beggary, without perceiving the invisible hand which had struck them down. That much misery had been created by tampering with the currency, was generally admitted. It was, however, in a great measure, denied by the hon. member for Portarlington; and, where his hon. friend did allow that any wretchedness bad been thereby created, it was accompanied by so much of argument on the other side, and so little of feeling for those who had suffered, that it absolutely went for nothing. Indeed, his hon. friend appeared to be ignorant, that this tampering with the currency had been the great cause of the distress which had been experienced. Then, as to the question of depreciation, if it could not be brought, like Mr. Mushet's calculations, to a table, his, hon. friend would not admit it to exist at all. On that evening he would hear of nothing but the difference between gold and paper; but he (Mr. Baring) would contend, that there had been a depreciation of the precious metals themselves, in consequence of the issue of paper, when they came to turn out all the gold and silver from England into the market of the world.
The hon. gentleman then proceeded to-trace the depreciation in the value of money, from the discovery of the mines in America down to a much later period, when an abuse of the banking system was acted upon extensively by Russia, Austria, Denmark, and the United States of America; and contended, that the. difference between gold and paper was no criterion of the prevailing distress, as had been asserted by the hon. member for Portarlington. All those depreciations, of one sort or another, had been the result of an extravagant paper system; and, whether it was a depreciation of gold as compared with paper, or of paper as compared with different commodities, it was manifest, that the same injustice had been committed. When he had moved for a committee, he wished that committee to go into an inquiry as to the state of the silver currency, unembarrassed with 900 any other question. The Bank, he believed, if his advice had been taken, would have placed the country in its present situation, without any additional issue of paper,—The hon. member then argued that the reference made by the hon. member for portalington to the duty on the probate of wills, as a proof that property had not depreciated, was fallacious. The probate duty arose from personal property, and that property was chiefly in the funds. Individuals who had purchased at 60, might at their death leave a property which would sell at 70 or 80. The produce of the stamp duties was an equally unsafe criterion. It was true, the amount of those duties had increased; but that was a proof of distress rather than of prosperity. In the year 1817, the injury to property caused by the depreciation fell with intense severity on the manufacturers; and there was a general sweep of the middle class of traders into the gazette; but a new race speedily sprung up, while the agricultural classes were, from their situation, doomed to endure a more lingering misery.—As to the question of equitable adjustment the thing was utterly impracticable. Where one man had got too little, and another too much, they would find it impossible to go to the latter and tell him to give up a portion of his property to the former. That property had long since got into other pockets; and, with all the industry and ingenuity in the world, they would not, at the end of fifty years, have got through any single parish in England. After all, the difficulty was to be traced to private debts and incumbrances. For no agriculturalist would tell them that, if he were even relieved from one-third of his debts, that relief would enable him to go on.
Before he concluded, he wished to say a word or two on the question of a silver currency. When the subject was agitated in a committee of that House, he had endeavoured to convince them of the propriety of having a double standard. He had argued, that it would be a great security against any future deviation from a metallic currency. Under the present system of a gold circulation, he did not think, if the country were again involved in a war, that two campaigns would elapse, before all the commercial classes at least, would call out for a return to the happy times of a paper money. But, if the circulation was placed on the broader basis of two metals to the currency, there would 901 be less danger of resorting again to the paper system. It should be recollected, that since the return to cash payments, the country had not had any difficulties to contend with. We had uniformly had good harvests, and had, on no account, been obliged to send gold in extraordinary quantities out of the country. If, too, the Bank had two currencies to work with, it would greatly facilitate its operations, in case of a demand for the precious metals; as there was no country of Europe in which silver might not be had, in the event of a run upon the Bank. In his opinion, if we had remained in the state we were in before the conclusion of the war, silver would have become the standard of the country. These considerations induced him to think, that a silver standard of currency would be a security against war.
Upon the whole, whatever propriety there might have been in bringing forward a motion for going into a committee, before we had returned to cash payments, he could not think that the adoption of it, after a lapse of four years, would be advisable. If the professed object of the motion had been to relax any of the inconveniences resulting from the change of the currency, it would have been less objectionable; but seeing that the professed object of it was the adjustment of all contracts, and that the inevitable effect would be, to unsettle the public mind and to derange the credit of the country, he could not consent to vote for the proposed committee. To interfere with existing contracts would be to do an act of great injustice, not only to the agriculturists themselves, but to all classes of the country. For, let it be borne in mind, that such a measure must necessarily include not only the old contracts, but those new ones which had been made since the restoration of a metallic medium. At the same time, in making these observations, he did not wish to be included among those persons who thought that no injustice had been done by tampering with the currency; and he would say, that the House and the country were such indebted to his hon. friend, the member for Essex, for having again brought the subject under the notice of the House.
Mr. Wodehouse was about to address the House, when lord Folkestone rose and observed, that as many members had yet to deliver their sentiments on the question, he should move an adjournment of 902 the debate till to-morrow. The Motion was accordingly put and agreed to.