UrJIVERSlTY OF 
 ILLINOIS LIERARY^^^
 
 "5 
 
 NO TRUST, NO TRADE! ^ 
 
 REMARKS ON THE NATURE OF MONEY 
 
 IN WHICH THE CAUSE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PZtESSNT NATZONAZi DISTRESS 
 
 IS POINTED OUT, 
 
 PROMPT AND EFFICACIOUS REMEDY 
 
 IS SUGGESTED. 
 
 Hontron : 
 
 PRINTED FOR JOHN TAYLOR, 
 
 WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL. 
 
 1826.
 
 Drury, Pritiler, Camden Town.
 
 NO TRUST, NO TRADE 1 
 
 REMARKS ON THE NATURE OF MONEY: 
 
 &c. &c. 
 
 If the engineer of some machinery, worked by steam, 
 should wish to extend its operations, he will of course add 
 in an equal degree to the capacity and strength of his 
 boiler ; then all will work well. If, after this, he should 
 attempt to replace the old boiler, and make it serve 
 the purposes of the new one, the consequences may be 
 easily foreseen ; either the machinery will stand still for 
 want of a sufficient moving power, or an explosion will take 
 place fatal to those who supply the engine — leaving the 
 machinery in a worse condition than ever. 
 
 It is the object of the following pages to shew, that one 
 of these consequences must ever await a country subject 
 to such a money law as that which at present governs 
 England ; and also to suggest a practical and simple plan, 
 which shall admit of the operative powers of England con- 
 tinuing in full and increasing action, without any risk of 
 either of the above alternatives. 
 
 a2
 
 I. 
 
 An author, whose views appear to be very much in unison 
 with those which are now prevalent in Parliament, in a 
 pamphlet, published in the year 1797, entitled " The Ini- 
 " quity of Banking, or Bank Notes proved to be an In- 
 " jury to the Public, and the real cause of the present 
 " exorbitant Price of Provisions," gives us the following 
 paragraph : — " If we suppose an island containing one 
 " hundred families, where the quantity of money is such 
 " that each family has Is. per day, it will be evident, that 
 '* all the commodities brought to market in any one day 
 " must be sold for 5/., and the whole brought to market 
 " in the course of the year for 1825/. If, from a plen- 
 " tiful crop, or an increase of industry, the quantity of 
 " productions should be increased, the prices must fall ; 
 " for the quantity of money being supposed to remain 
 "unaltered, it must be divided into smaller parts in 
 " order to correspond with the increased number of parts 
 " in the productions. Thus, for example, if the quantity 
 " of money set apart for the purchase of corn amounted to 
 " 100/., when the quantity of corn amounted to 400 bushels 
 " the price would be 5s. per bushel; but if the quantity 
 " were increased to 500 bushels, the price would be re- 
 " duced to 4s. per bushel : on the contrary, if the quan- 
 " tity of the productions were to decrease, the prices 
 *' would be raised ; for, if there were but 300 bushels of 
 " corn, while the money of the purchaser amounted to 
 ** 100/. the price of a bushel would be advanced from 5s. 
 " to 6s. 8d." 
 
 The pamphlet is composed of a variety of forcible exem-
 
 plifications of the view contained in this paragraph, and its 
 design is to shew, that to increase the quantity of money 
 by Banking must lessen its specific value ; that the issue 
 of Promissory Notes is, consequently, a robbery of the 
 public, and equally iniquitous with false coining. 
 
 If the above paragraph be admitted to have given a full 
 and correct description of the condition of man in a state 
 of society, then the author very forcibly shews that the 
 consequences will be as he represents ; but, by parity of 
 reasoning, it would also be very easy to shew, that any 
 improvement in machinery tending to supersede manual 
 labour is also chargeable with iniquity. 
 
 It might be worth enquiring what the 100 families are 
 to do with the excess of their food in a fruitful season, or 
 without a sufficiency in a bad season ; or why, in the for- 
 mer case, they should give all their money for more than a 
 sufficiency, when it is obvious the money would keep quite 
 as well as the corn; were it not enough for us to know, 
 that population is progressive, and the means of subsist- 
 ence are progressive also ; that, by the same rule, that ten 
 families, with all their appendages, their habitations and 
 cultivated lands, their food and their clothing, &c. &c. 
 become, in course of time, one hundred families, so the 
 hundred becomes a thousand ; and that the same reason- 
 ing which would apply to the progressive increase of fa- 
 milies, will equally well apply to the increase of their 
 property. 
 
 The use of money, considered as capital, is to provide a 
 store for the unproductive classes of society— for the young, 
 the aged, and the infirm ; for all who do not contribute 
 by their own exertions to the support of themselves and 
 their families. With money they can purchase the labour of 
 the productive classes, who can, whilst they are in full 
 vigour, produce more than enough fur their own imme-
 
 diatc wants, and are disposed to exchange tlieir surplus 
 produce for the accumxdated labour of their cotemporaries 
 and predecessors, whether that accumulated labour be in 
 the shape of a house, a cultivated field, cattle, clothing, 
 household furniture, &c. &c. or enibodied in things rather 
 ornamental than useful, such as gold, silver, and precious 
 stones. Considered as currency, the use of money is to 
 facilitate and simplify the exchange of commodities. 
 
 As it is supposed, by our author, that 100/. will be in 
 <iorrect relation to ten families for the convenient ex- 
 change of their property ; viz. their food and clothing, 
 their flocks and herds, their houses and cultivated lands, 
 &c. so it will require lOOOZ. to be in the same relation to 
 100 families. 
 
 But suppose that at some given period the labour of the 
 productive classes is doubled or trebled by the aid of me- 
 chanical invention, and that the former average amount of 
 labour were adequate, not only for present subsistence, but 
 for laying up a store sufficient for old age, &c. In this 
 advanced stage of society it is obvious that a much less 
 portion of labour is actually required than heretofore, and 
 that, if the whole be continued to be employed, a still 
 further accumulation of the necessaries and luxuries of 
 life must be the consequence ; so that a man would in time 
 be enabled, not only to lay up enough for himself, but for 
 the next generation after him, and so forth. 
 
 Now if mankind, at some given time, attributing an 
 arbitrary value to the precious metals, should determine 
 the quantity of standard gold in a guinea to be equivalent 
 to a quarter of wheat, or a suit of wearing apparel, or a 
 ton of coals, &c. so as to make it a matter of indiffer- 
 ence whether these things were exchanged the one against 
 the other, or each of them against a guinea ; and in like 
 manner, that twenty of these guineas, or twenty quarters
 
 of wheat, or twenty tons of coal, should at the same time 
 be equivalent to an acre of land in a certain state of culti- 
 vation, or to a cottage of certain dimensions, &c. &c. 
 — under these circumstances would it not be manifestly 
 wrong to say that the acre of land, the cottage, the twenty 
 quarters of wheat, &c. were not each of them as fair 
 a representation of the value of twenty guineas as the 
 gold itself? Undoubtedly it would. But if they be of 
 equal value, then is a pledge to pass over into other hands 
 the cottage, the land, the corn, &c. equally valuable with 
 a pledge to pay the sum of twenty guineas. 
 
 It is obvious that gold and silver in this case derive 
 their value, in relation to the necessaries of life, solely from 
 public opinion, or what would now be called the market 
 price, founded upon an appeal to the practice and judg- 
 ment of those who are supposed to be competent to decide. 
 But the other articles of value, before enumerated, derive 
 their marketable value also from the same source :— for 
 their real value they have a better origin, it being cer- 
 tain that society might subsist without gold, but not 
 without those things. Surely, then, in nature they have an 
 equal right to represent the gold, as the gold has to re- 
 present them. 
 
 If this be true, then that which is to designate their 
 relative value ought to be something which stands in an 
 equal relation to all of them, and not be taken from any 
 one, to the exclusion of the rest, unless we hold the opi- 
 nion, that a part may be equal to the Avhole. 
 
 But the governors of the earth have found it convenient 
 to collect the revenue of their states in money, and thus 
 have given to the precious metals a paramount value ; the 
 consequence of which has frequently been most fatal to 
 individual comfort and public welfare, which may be made 
 evident by pursuing our former argument.
 
 8 
 
 Suppose, then, at that time when twenty guineas in 
 public opinion were equivalent to a house, an acre of 
 cultivated land, twenty quarters of wheat, &c. an act 
 should pass the legislature, establishing the weight and 
 purity of the guinea ; and that some urgent necessity of 
 the state should afterwards require a guinea from eacli of 
 the individuals holding the above properties ; it is mani- 
 fest, that whilst the bullion proprietor could pay his guinea 
 without difficulty, the other proprietors would be subject to 
 considerable inconvenience ; and that if this contribution to 
 the state were repeatedly called for, the bullionist, by with- 
 holding the gold, might possess himself of ten times its 
 actual worth. The history of English money shews this 
 to be no imaginary supposition, and it also shews what 
 unjust expedients have frequently been adopted to make 
 money conform to the circumstances of the times. 
 
 11. 
 
 To these consequences would the people have been sub- 
 jected by the promulgation of such a money law as that 
 which now governs England, if all their transactions had 
 been accustomed to be made through a metallic medium, 
 and without a credit or funding system. But the expe- 
 rience of England has shewn to the world, that faith in 
 each others integrity, and in the integrity of government, 
 is of no less importance to the commercial and national 
 prosperity of a people, than the multiplying power of the 
 pulley is to their mechanical riches. 
 
 If credit, then, be at all allowed of, and the mode of 
 passing every kind of property be made equally summary, 
 it is clearly apparent, that in the case before-mentioned 
 the pledge of the house owner to the land proprietor, or 
 the land proprietor to the corn factor, or the corn factor
 
 9 
 
 to the coal merchant, is equally valid to the extent of 
 twenty guineas, as the like pledge to any of them from 
 the bullion merchant, supposing all the parties to be 
 equally entitled to good faith. But if they be not so, we 
 shall find, on pursuing the enquiry, that however private 
 injury may result from it, the property of the public does 
 not suffer. If the house owner, for instance, having se- 
 cretly sold his house to the corn factor, should succeed in 
 borrowing twenty guineas from thebuUionist on the pledge 
 of the house, it is very true the buUionist would be most 
 wickedly cheated ; yet, as the house owner cannot have 
 possessed himself of the properties of the corn factor and 
 the bullionist for the purpose of annihilating them, the 
 community would suffer no loss of property, although cre- 
 dit would experience a check. The same results would 
 follow if the corn factor were to draAv a bill upon the coal 
 merchant for twenty guineas, which the coal merchant, in 
 good faith, were to accept, and the bullionist to discount, 
 but before it became due, part of the corn factor's property 
 having passed into the hands of the land owner, the bill 
 should be dishonoured. The bullionist, in this case, would 
 have his remedy against the coal merchant, whose pro- 
 perty must go to make good whatever deficiency there 
 might be in the corn factor's means ; but still the property 
 of the commonwealth would not be diminished. 
 
 From this statement it will be seen that paper money, 
 as a medium for passing property from one to another, is 
 not that mere slip of paper on which a promissory note is 
 written, which any one would fancy to be the case, seeing 
 the popular opinions of the present day ; but that it is the 
 faithful representative of the property and credit of the 
 individual who subscribes it. If his property and credit 
 be of first rate quality, then his bill, on demand, is 
 equal to its own amount in pounds, shillings, and
 
 10 
 
 pence, of jiiiy commodity at the market price ; and, 
 in proportion as the propt^rty and credit of the indivi- 
 dual, so subscribing-, it recedes from the highest stand- 
 ard, just in the stmie proportion his bill is reduced in 
 its marketable value. But who is to determine that value ? 
 Is it possible for any legislative enactment to do it ? Ob- 
 viously not. The man who takes the bill, and gives value 
 for it, must always be the judge, and if he judges unwisely 
 his own property must sufl'er for it, just as it would do if 
 he bought any other conlmodity at a higher rate than the 
 market price. So that the means of judging correctly, 
 and the risk of error, fall exactly in the same place, which 
 is where they ought to fall. 
 
 A bill of exchange after date, though its origin may be 
 very obscure, or even suspicious, becomes of first rate 
 value, subject to the current rate of interest for the 
 time, if it be endorsed by a person of known respectability; 
 but any one who keeps it after it is due acquits the en- 
 dorser, and retains it on the sole responsibility of the 
 drawer, as he would do a bill on demand. 
 
 If, then, it be admitted that all the foregoing parties, under 
 the circumstances stated, are each of them eligible to give 
 currency to a pledge of twenty guineas, or twenty-one 
 pledges, each representing one pound in English money, 
 according to the highest standard of credit; which one 
 pound of English money, at the time given, is equivalent 
 to a quarter of wheat, a ton of coals, &c. or to 5 dwts. 
 3 grains, of standard gold; as this gold is again equivalent, 
 under certain restrictions, to twenty pieces of silver, each 
 piece of the value of twelve pieces of copper;— it fol- 
 lows, that all these parties together are competent, when 
 an emergency requires it, to give currency to 12G pounds 
 worth of English property, which 126 pounds represent 
 a certain quantity of accumulated labour, time, or talent.
 
 11 
 
 in the same maimer that twenty guineas, by common con- 
 sent, are conceived to represent twenty-one pounds worth 
 of accumulated labour, time, or talent; and these 126 
 pounds are, therefore, competent to purchase, at the com- 
 mon rate of wages, their own amount of the labour, time, 
 or talent of mankind, whenever occasion may justify such 
 an employment. 
 
 But although the property and acknowledged integrity 
 of the foregoing parties may entitle them to give existence 
 to 120 pounds worth of credit currency, yet it would be an 
 error to suppose that they would issue their pledges with- 
 out a value in return, rendering them a fair prospect of 
 profit from the transaction. To conceive otherwise would 
 be to suppose that a man of sense and integrity, having 
 500/. in property, might possibly be so impatient to avail 
 himself of the credit to which it would entitle him, as to 
 induce him to buy goods to the amount of his credit, upon 
 the bare expectation of realizing the same amount at a 
 future time, which, in the event of failure, must ultimately 
 be made good out of his own property. 
 
 Unless, then, we believe that men are generally so 
 foolish as to prefer a bird in the bush to one in hand, we 
 must be prepared to admit that an increased quantity of 
 active capital, even in the shape of credit currency, indi- 
 cates the community to be in a thriving state, according 
 to the judgment of those whose property and credit are at 
 stake on the correctness of their opinion. 
 
 Let us now imagine, that in this little community ten 
 pieces of the gold were lost, or, which to the public is 
 much the same thing, were hoarded by the bullionist, this 
 consequence, in ordinary times, would result from it : — 
 The 105 pounds worth of other commodities, being the same 
 in quantity as before, if left to find their own level, would 
 exchange one against the other, and nUo against that
 
 12 
 
 amount ol" Eriglisli credit of the highest order which was 
 equivalent to them, in the same manner as before ; but 
 if the gold must be had of necessity, in tlie same 
 manner that bread must be had, then all those articles, 
 in relation to the remaining quantity of gold, would be, on 
 the average, as two to one. If this abstraction of half the 
 gold took place at a time when there was a scarcity of 
 bread, or during a war, and gold were the only thing which 
 could be made available as money in that part of the world 
 where the bread is wanted, or the war is carried on, then 
 the possessors of all the other property, except corn, must 
 make a sacrifice in the price of their commodities to tempt 
 from the bullionist a sufficiency of gold equal to the neces- 
 sity of the case. But in the absence of such necessity, the 
 community w^ould do very well without the gold till the loss 
 in its quantity was repaired, or re-adjusted, so as to bring 
 it to a fair market price. 
 
 The fact of gold and silver being, except on rare occa- 
 sions, stationary, both in supply and demand, and at the 
 same time in universally high estimation amongst the ge- 
 nerality of mankind, shews a fitness in them for the pur- 
 poses of money beyond any other species of property, but 
 by no means to its exclusion. But that which ought to 
 form a graduated scale for ascertaining the value and re- 
 lative worth of all property, should itself, to be perfect, 
 bear an equal relation to every kind of property, gold and 
 silver included. A credit currency supplies this medium ; 
 and as every species of property represents a certain 
 quantity of labour, time, or talent, entitling it to a return 
 of such a share of the same ingredients, at the current 
 time, in other property, as the decision of a competent 
 judge shall determine to be equitable, so credit of the 
 highest order, by subscribing itself on paper to a given 
 quantity of pounds, shillij)gs, and pence, as the price
 
 13 
 
 detei-miued, guarantees the tnith of the estimate, ami |^i\ es 
 a current valiie to that property. By tliis means the real 
 and relative worth of any kind of property becomes desig- 
 nated and exchanged, as etfectually and truly as by an 
 appeal to a thing accessible as water, and by the use of 
 figures the specific and relative gravity of the various pro- 
 ductions of nature are determined. 
 
 But to return to our hypothesis. We will now suppose 
 that the community, before mentioned, together with the 
 labouring class attendant on it, has proceeded upon this 
 credit system, until, instead of six individuals possessing, 
 property and integrity, entitling them to l*2<j pounds worth 
 of credit of the highest order, they have become twenty 
 millions of people, possessed of property capable of gua- 
 ranteeing the securities of their government to the amount 
 of seven or eigiit hundred millions of pounds ; that the 
 people are willing, and their productive powers able, to 
 pay to the capitalists the annual interest of this debt in a 
 credit currency, far more valualile than that in which a 
 very large proportion of the debt was contracted ; and 
 that they possess surplus property fully sufficient to give 
 energy to an increasing population, whose well directed 
 labours ai*e enriching the country with new buildings, an 
 improved soil, the productions of mechanical ingenuity, and 
 the stores of commerce ; that the manual labour, which 
 mechanism has superseded, is embodying itself in great 
 public works of general or local benefit, as canals, roads, 
 bridges, ffas and water works, &c. ; on the one hand 
 creating the necessaries and conveniences of life, and on 
 the other, diminishing a needless consumption of them in 
 horse labour, affording the people, by these means, oppor- 
 tunities of comfortable subsistence increasing commensu- 
 rately with an increased population. 
 
 Let us now imagine that this communitv, in the zenith of
 
 14 
 
 its prosperity, suddenly finds itself subject to a law, the 
 practical nature of uliicli 1)1)1) out of every 1000 were igno- 
 rant of till too late, but one which renders them liable to 
 be compelled, on the instant, to realize all their en- 
 g-ag-ements in gold of a given weight and purity, thus 
 throwing' their property and credit at the feet of those 
 who happen to possess this gold, and who well know 
 how to make the most of it : all which suppositions are 
 realised in the present condition of England. Can we 
 conceive it possible that persons actuated by feelings of 
 strict integrity could be placed in circumstances more 
 distressing? If any thing could heighten their affliction, 
 it must surely be, that— after they had employed their en- 
 terprize and credit in preserving the institutions of civil 
 society from revolution, and were subsequently directing 
 the same powers to the making good their existing obliga- 
 tions by accumulating national wealth, and by giving exist- 
 ence and permanency to the labours of an industrious popu* 
 lation,— they should be told, on lofty authority, that none but 
 base and unworthy motives on their parts, had given exist- 
 ence to the evils under which they were suffering — to those 
 evils which this argument shews are solely attributable to 
 that erroneous law, which gives to gold an improper controul 
 over the value of every other kind of property, a controul 
 capable of annihilating the value of every thing besides itself, 
 and of destroying the foundations of all credit. It matters 
 not whether paper pledges, payable on demand, be for 
 one pound, or for one hundred pounds, they never can 
 exist but at the most imminent peril to the issuers whilst 
 the present cash law remains uncorrected; so long as that 
 is the law, it will not be sufficient that the basis of the cur- 
 rency be irrigated with gold, to use Mr. Canning's phrase, 
 but the currency itself will require to be a stream of gold 
 altogether.
 
 15 
 
 Regarding, on the one hand, the vast and increasing 
 power of that machinery which the commonwealth of Eng- 
 land exhibits, and on the other, the disproportionate bounds 
 to which, under the existing- law, the stream for working 
 it must ever be limited— a restriction the more to be de- 
 precated and dreaded, since we are told, on excellent au- 
 thority, that it is in the power, even of a single individual, 
 not only to controul, but entirely to check the current ;— 
 we may safely pronounce the attainment of that end, by such 
 means, to be impossible. And so long as gold, besides 
 being a commodity itself, is allowed by Act of Parliament 
 to be the sole representative of all other property, we may 
 rest assured, that hoAvever amplified and arranged the credit 
 currency of this kingdom may be, there will ever be this re^ 
 suit ; — either the state will become bankrupt for want of a 
 currency adequate to the discharge of its existing obliga- 
 tions, previous to which all kinds of property will have 
 changed hands ; or the property of those must be the sa- 
 crifice who venture to supply the absence of gold, under 
 the existing law, with pledges secured upon their own 
 estates and credit. 
 
 III. 
 
 The Author of this Pamphlet had his attention especially 
 called to the consideration of the currency question, during 
 the time that the Cash Bill of 1819 was in prospective 
 operation. For a considerable time previous, the produce 
 of our mechanical and agricultural labour had been gra- 
 dually declining in price, in the face of an increasing ex- 
 port trade ; to account for which anomaly, recourse was 
 had to that strange, if not impious, doctrine, that the dis- 
 tress then felt was attributable to an excess in the bounty 
 of Providence. In the mids^t of full stores, but of empty
 
 10 
 
 purses, the labourer was obliged to give up half his wag'es, 
 and the landlord half his rent— tlte rich farmer was becom- 
 ing poor, and the poor one a pauper. AVith abundance of 
 gold in the Bank, the circulating currency was so dimi- 
 nished, and the depreciation of property consequent 
 thereon so great, that instead of the country approaching 
 the heau ideal of a golden currency, it appeared to be on 
 the verge of the golden age — in danger of being left 
 without any currency at all. Nor was the distress con- 
 fined to England, it had extended itself throughout a great 
 part of the world. Yet all these effects might fairly be 
 traced to a necessity which the foregoing Bill had imposed 
 upon the English merchant, of unnaturally forcing the cur- 
 rency of other countries from its long accustomed channels 
 to supply the absence of that which England was annihi- 
 lating. On the one hand we were sacrificing English la- 
 bour to tempt foreigners to buy our goods ; and on the 
 other, we were depriving them of the means of paying for 
 them ; thus manifesting all the wisdom of an imperfect 
 theory— wisdom like that which would put new wine into 
 old bottles. By a partial return to former things, we were 
 vainly attempting to restore a full grown state to its 
 swaddling clothes, and daily generating consequences de- 
 structive alike to individual comfort, national wealth, and 
 universal happiness. 
 
 At that time the Author of this Pamphlet, conceiving 
 that all the practical benefit of a metallic currency might 
 be preserved to the country under the varying circum- 
 stances of peace and war, and that all the then inconve- 
 nience of the existing cash law, and its future evils, might 
 be averted by a plan, both simple and practicable, embo- 
 died his views in the following Address, which was sub- 
 mitted to the consideration of a Public Meeting, and after- 
 wards printed :—
 
 17 
 
 Bakewell, Derhyshire, I4th March, 1823. 
 
 At a Public fleeting held this day at the Rutland Arms Inn, for 
 the purpose of considering the Present State of the Cur- 
 rency of the Kingdom, and the probable Effect upon this 
 Neighbourhood, and the Country at large, when the exist- 
 ing Cash Laws shall come into full operation : — 
 John Barker, Esq. in the Chair: 
 
 A Statement on this subject was read by Mr. James Taylor, 
 which being unanimously approved of by the Meeting, 
 
 It was Resolved— 
 
 That the same be printed at the expense of the ^Meeting, and 
 that Mr. Taylor be requested to transmit a Copy to each of those 
 Gentlemen who were Members of the Bullion Committee, and to 
 such other Noblemen and Gentlemen as may appear to him most 
 likely to take interest in the Question. 
 
 Signed, on Behalf of the Meeting, 
 
 JOHN BARKER, 
 
 Chairman. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Aware of the intricacy of that subject which we are here met 
 to take into consideration, and of the impossibility of doing justice 
 to the enquiry by any verbal representation, I have committed to 
 writing those opinions which I entertain, and which I now beg to 
 submit to the judgment of yourself and the gentlemen present. 
 Local or peculiar circumstances may exempt us who are here, ard 
 many other individuals, from the immediate or fatal pressure of 
 the present times ; but however this may be, I apprehend that 
 only one impression prevails among ourselves, and generally 
 throughout the kingdom, that the country is at present gteatly dis- 
 tressed, and that the inability on the part of the community to ful- 
 fil their pecuniary engagements is daily increasing. It is, I be- 
 lieve, a conviction widely spreading (my own conviction it has long 
 been) that the distress is not attributable to any redundancy of pro- 
 duce in the country, nor to any want of internal trade, or of suffi- 
 ciently extensive commerce; but that it is attributable mainly to 
 the Altered State of the National Currency : and great as I believe 
 the evil arising from this circunistaucc aJready is, I am of opinion, 
 
 B
 
 18 
 
 that our present Cash Laws (when the time shall come for tlicm to 
 be fully acted upon) «re liable to produce far greater inconvenience 
 and distress to the country than it has yet experienced. But I also 
 believe, that those Laws admit of an easy correction, and further 
 conceive, that such correction may be given them as shall perpe- 
 tuate all the benefits of a Metallic Currency, while at the same 
 time it guards us from a great evil which is to be apprehended from 
 the present system. 
 
 The evil to which allusion is here made, and to which I beg to 
 direct the attention of this Meeting, arises from the possibility of 
 the Currency of the Realm, as it now stands, being monopolized by 
 a few monied individuals for private gain. This will appear no 
 unreasonable ground of alarm, when it is recollected, that the ne- 
 cessities of the State alone require that about 50 millions of pounds 
 sterling should annually be collected from the people ; that each of 
 those pounds requires 5 dwts. .3 grains of gold to represent it ; and 
 that estimating the quantity of our gold currency at the utmost 
 extent (which quantity it has cost England many sacrifices, and all 
 the years since the peace to obtain) it would barely be equal to 
 the payment of taxes alone for the half of one year.* When these 
 things are recollected, it will appear not unlikely that a few mo- 
 nied individuals, by employing their capitals in monopolizing the 
 gold, may very soon cause it to bear a premium in relation to 
 notes ; and if that premium were only one penny in the sovereign, 
 it would be sufficient to make the whole of that gold, which ought 
 to be in circulation, immediately become dormant, and not to be 
 bad except as a mercantile commodity, which would, of course, 
 still farther enhance the premium. An universal run upon all the 
 issuers of promissory notes on demand would then be the imme- 
 diate result; for no one would keep a note by him, if be could de- 
 mand a sovereign for it, which sovereign bore a premium over and 
 above the value of the note ; and, by consequence, no banker 
 would be so unwise as to give out his promissory notes for any 
 thing besides sovereigns (and for sovereigns nobody would want 
 them) because, on the morrow, he might be required to give a 
 
 * The total amouut of gold coined at the Mint from 17G0 to 1809, a period 
 of 50 years, was only 66,21 1,774/. ; and of silver for the same period, 03,419/. 
 But all this gold has now disappeared. Yet even this was not much morp 
 than t'qual to one Year's Taxes.
 
 10 
 
 sovereign for each note, whicli sovereign it would cost him a pre- 
 mium to obtain. With a currency thus contracted, tlie price of 
 every commodity, whether house, land, food, or clothing, must of 
 necessity be proportionally contracted. Under the present cash 
 laws, therefore, it is not only very possible that a monopoly of the 
 currency may take place ; but, when the speculative character of 
 our countrymen, and the immense capitals %vhich many of them are 
 able to command, are duly considered, I apprehend that a monopoly 
 of the cuiTcncy must be considered a very probable occurrence 
 And if a monopoly of any one of the necessaries of life be an evil 
 greatly to be deprecated, how great will be the evil of a monopoly 
 of that, to which power is given to controul all the necessaries and 
 comforts of life. I am aware it may be said, that when things 
 come to this pass, recourse may be had to another Bank Restric- 
 tion Act. True ; but before this could be done, many individuals 
 would be ruined, and others greatly injured ; and when this remedy 
 •was at length obtained, it would find, and leave us, sufifering 
 under tiie mortification of knowing, that the experience of 1797 
 had been entirely lost upon us. The currency would again be de- 
 preciated (to use the popular term) — would again require to be re- 
 stored, — and, finally, would be forced to be put upon that footing, 
 on which, I humbly conceive, it is in the power of the British Par- 
 liament to establish it now and for all future time. 
 
 The evil which may be dreaded from the present Cash Laws, 
 and which is here set forth, is, I apprehend, not properly attribut- 
 able to the circumstance of Bank notes being payable in gold on 
 demand, but to a defect in the principle by which their payment in 
 gold is governed. The present system, instead of providing for a 
 relation to subsist betwixt gold and Bank paper, is capable, as it 
 has been shewn, of excluding paper from circulation as effectually 
 as gold was excluded from circulation under the Bank Restriction 
 Act ; and the baneful operation of this defective principle would, 
 I apprehend, be still felt, though perhaps more remotely, if 5/. in- 
 stead of '3l. 17s. lOd. per oz. were fixed as the unalterable price 
 at which Bank notes should be payable in gold, or if silver were 
 taken as the measure instead of gold. Either of these remedies 
 would diminish the value of English money, without correcting the 
 defect to which I have adverted ; and, therefore, effectual relief 
 cannot be expected from either of them. But as the market price 
 of gold is now brought upon a level with the Mint price, it h 
 
 b2 -
 
 20 
 
 respectfully suggested that the following simple expedient might 
 at this time be adopted, with credit to the country, and advantage 
 to the community at large, since it would perpetuate the benefit of 
 cash payments, while it would avert the evil which attaches to the 
 present system. The expedient which I propose, and which I 
 should desire to see suggested to the consideration of Parlia- 
 ment, is — 
 
 1st. — That Bank of England notes be made a legal tender for 
 all payments of the value of one pound and upwards. 
 
 2dly. — That the Bank.be required to pay their notes, on demand, 
 in gold, at the market price. And in order to ascertain the mar- 
 ket price,— 
 
 3dly. — That the Bank be required to give periodical notice of 
 the price at which they would sell their notes for gold, or give gold 
 for their notes, or receive gold in payment for the various securities 
 lying in their hands. Such notice to continue in force till the 
 stated period for its renewal. 
 
 And 4thly. — I conceive it would be found beneficial to all the 
 parties interested, that the present Mint price should be the mini- 
 mum to which the market price shall at any time descend. — So 
 that foreigners, as well as Englishmen, might always calculate 
 with certainty upon a sovereign, or 5 dn ts. 3 grains of standard 
 gold, being, at least, adequate to the payment of one pound 
 English. 
 
 The effect of the first of these propositions, in conjunction with 
 the second, would be to preserve an unity in the character of Eng- 
 lish money, so that when a contract was made between individuals, 
 it might remain unaffected by foreign exchanges. For want of 
 this regulation, at the commencement of the present peace, num- 
 bers were ruined, almost instantaneously, themselves scarcely 
 knowing how it happened ; and for want of this regulation lat- 
 terly, capitalists have not ventured to put their money into circula- 
 tion in the way of trade, because every succeeding month, since 
 1819, has shewn them, that, owing to the gradually increasing 
 scarcity of active money, the profits of trade have not been propor- 
 tionate to the increased value of the money employed : — the fact 
 being notorious, that in the face of a fair demand for goods, the 
 English prices of them have been continually diminishing. 
 
 The 2d proposition, whilst it would for ever, and under all cir- 
 cumstances, secure to the country the power of converting paper
 
 21 
 
 into specie, would at tlie same time secure us from the evil of a 
 monopolized currencj'. 
 
 Under the terms of the 3d proposition, it may be presumed, that 
 our merchants, foreign bankers, and bullion dealers, would consti- 
 tute an adequate counterpoise to the privilege granted to the Bank, 
 of England, so as on the one hand to prevent bullion being raised 
 above its value, and on the other hand to preserve it from a depres- 
 sion below its value. B}' this means, I apprehend, the same rela- 
 tion would be established betw een the English and foreign currency, 
 as does already subsist between English and foreign funds. And 
 for all our domestic purposes, the pound English would be repre- 
 sented by the one pound note ; any variation in the foreign value 
 of which, would leave its English value unaffected, because the 
 one pound note would still hold the same relation to all English 
 contracts which it did before. 
 
 By the 4th proposition, I apprehend that a comparative steadi- 
 ness in the European value ofEnglishmoney might be obtained, and 
 the present relation betwixt gold and silver be preserved, thereby 
 tending essentially to secure to us the value and possession of our 
 silver currency. This proposition may be deemed the more worthy 
 of consideration, when it is recollected how extensively this change 
 in our money laws would supersede the necessity of employing the 
 precious metals. For by this change, the only purpose for which 
 they would be essentially required (except in small payments below 
 the value of a pound), would be that of discharging the balances 
 of our foreign trade, and for this purpose a very small portion 
 would suffice of that large quantity, which is at present ohlir/ed to 
 lie dormant in the hands of bankers ; consequently, a very great 
 portion would be left upon the market ; the effect of which would 
 be like the discovery of another Peru: and but for some legal pro- 
 tection, the tendency of this would be to depress the precious 
 metals, save in the time of war or famine, below Mint prices ; but 
 with a legal protection to the extent of our present Mint prices, 
 and with our national credit and trade, it would, in the absence of 
 war or dearth, or some unnatural call for the export of bullion, be 
 the interest of the Bank of England, and of all bankers, to pay iu 
 specie to a considerable extent; and under that protection, it could 
 not be against the interests of the community to receive it to an 
 equal extent ; whilst any tendency there might be in the precious 
 metals to decline below Mint prices, would be as well balanced by
 
 22 
 
 an increase in the nominal price of commodities, as it could be by 
 an increase in the weight of the sovereign. By this means, the 
 country would become naturally stored with a rich and almost re- 
 dundant currency, the accumulation of which would be to England 
 like well stored granaries against the time of dearth, and a most 
 useful preparative for the calamity of war. Thus, we should have 
 an abundant, but not a depreciated currency. The landlord — the 
 merchant — the tradesman — the farmer — the mechanic and the la- 
 bourer, would all directly partake of the benefit ; and if the pre- 
 amble of this representation be true, the fundholder also would 
 participate therein, inasmuch as a monopoly of the currency must 
 depress the value of all public securities. Each would be able to 
 realize a remunerating price for his commodity and his labour, 
 and yet his money might be expected fully to maintain its pre- 
 sent character for weight and purity. 
 
 Throughout this representation, I have endeavoured to keep in 
 view the probable action of that all pervading principle, self-in- 
 terest : First, by shewing how its individual operation, under the 
 present laws, is capable of producing the greatest inconvenience 
 to the community at large ; and, Secondly, by shewing how the 
 present laws might at this time be so corrected, as that this prin- 
 ciple would be all that could be required to put in action a system 
 of currency, which would promote the universal benefit of my fel- 
 low-countrymen. If I am permitted. Sir, to obtain your sanction, 
 and the sanction of this meeting, to the views here set forth, I shall 
 feel myself most happy in the hope that they are not visionary nor 
 impracticable. 
 
 JAMES TAYLOR. 
 
 This Address was immediately circulated in the manner 
 recommended by the Meeting ; but it obtained no atten- 
 tion from those who had power to render its suggestions 
 available. 
 
 In the mean time the fatal tendency of so restricted a 
 currency, as that which the prospective operation of the 
 Bill of 1819 occasioned, became so severely felt, that a 
 law was adopted, characteristic of that glorious uncertainty 
 so exulted in by lawyers, which postponed the crisis, by
 
 23 
 
 giving the commercial, the farming', and the banking in- 
 terests of the kingdom the choice of ruin, either with, 
 or without a credit currency. The Bank of England, and 
 tlie issuers of local notes, apparently unconscious of the 
 danger to v/hich they were exposed, and of the canker which 
 still rankled at the core of the English money system, did 
 not scruple to lend their notes payable on demand, for 
 bills of exchange and other valid securities payable 
 in time ; and presently the distress of the country was 
 to all appearance gone. The increase of the national 
 currency requisite for the payment of the national revenue, 
 and for the free interchange of all commodities at a remu- 
 nerating price, was thus supplied by bankers at the risk of 
 their own credit and fortunes. The labourer and mecha- 
 nic obtained their just wages without difficulty— produce 
 realized its English value in English money — rents became 
 well paid, and the encouraging cry of national prosperity 
 was presently heard in the Treasury. 
 
 This prosperous state continued however only so long 
 as the value of the sovereign abroad remained a degree 
 lower than the amount of English credit to which it was 
 designed to be equivalent. When that ceased, the export 
 of money became more profitable than the export of goods, 
 and the Bank of England were then freely called on for 
 sovereigns in exchange for their notes. The Bank Direc- 
 tors in self-defence were in consequence obliged to dimin- 
 ish their issues, till their notes on demand should be so 
 scarce in relation to bills of exchange after date, as that 
 the Bank could equally well afford to give gold for the 
 bills they discounted as bank notes. The like policy was 
 progressively forced upon the issuers of local notes ; and 
 persons who were holders of money generally felt it their 
 interest, like the holders of goods upon a rising market, to 
 make it still more scarce. Hence arose a contraction of
 
 24 
 
 individual credit as Avell as of the national currency, and 
 each became alternately cause and effect, till at last no 
 property, except gold, could protect the possessors even of 
 large estates and valuable securities from actual bankruptcy, 
 if it so happened that they were, as bankers generally are, 
 under obligations to pay considerable sums of money on 
 demand. Nor was this the only mischief. A panic arose 
 which so much deteriorated the money value of the most 
 unexceptionable securities, as in some cases to bring about 
 the ultimate insolvency of the parties from that cause alone. 
 For instance, a banker having deposits accumulating in his 
 hands during the time that the 3 per cents, were gradually 
 rising from 85 to 95, invests those deposits in that stock at 
 the average of 90, conceiving this to be a very secure way 
 of employing the money, but is called upon to repay the 
 money peremptorily when the same stock has fallen to 75 ; 
 now he who before the panic might fairly have considered 
 himself worth 100,000/. has need only to have banking 
 transactions to the amount of 900,000Z. to become 50,000/. 
 worse than nothing, and that without the least charge of 
 mismanagement or bad debts. 
 
 If the plan suggested in the preceding address had 
 been acted upon, it is more than probable that all this evil 
 would not have had existence. In the first place, the quan- 
 tity of gold would have been increasing in the country and 
 especially in the coffers of the Bank, during the time that 
 the market price of gold had a tendency to be below the 
 mint value. The price current of gold shews that this 
 state of the bullion market existed for some time prior to the 
 reverse, and duly taken advantage of by the Bank Direct- 
 ors, would have put them in possession of the means of 
 entirely checking, or, at least, of greatly controuling the 
 opposite tendency when it had manifested itself. In the 
 next place, if the Bank Directors had overlooked their
 
 25 
 
 duty to the establisliment, and for a while had contirnied 
 to increase tlieir issues beyond the point v/hich tlie relative 
 amount of gold in their posses.ion warranted; if this 
 profusion of currency had continued to make oold for some 
 time of too little value at home, and this had tempted the 
 owners of gold, and the foreign loan contractors, to engage 
 in numberless transactions al>road, whereby not only the 
 spare gold of the nation was carried off, but that which 
 ought to be held in hand as a necessary reserve had also 
 been encroached upon ; if, in consequence, the sovereign 
 had a tendency to exceed its usual relative value to the 
 Bank note, in such a degree as to make it desirable to 
 regain possession of that gold which had been over-ex- 
 ported :— the remedy to this state of things would have 
 been inmiediately at hand, in the Bank offering both to 
 take and pay gold at a somewhat higher rate. By this 
 means gold, as essentially as by an vmnatural and forced 
 contraction of Bank issues, would immediately have be- 
 come sufficiently valuable to induce foreign bankers and 
 merchants to send it back in a degree suited to the wants 
 of the country, whilst the Bank note, continuing to be the 
 fair representative, to its own amount, of all our home en- 
 gagements, would have preserved them from violation. 
 
 It is an error to suppose, that the Bank proprietors 
 would be gainers by a reduction in the value of their notes. 
 This would be true if the Bank merely received gold for 
 notes, and vice versa, having no surplus capital em- 
 ployed; then, to issue their notes in the relation of 77s. 
 lO^d. to the ounce of gold, and to receive them back at 
 the rate of 80s. to the ounce, would obviously lea'e them a 
 profit ; but, when it is recollected that the Bank trans- 
 actions are chiefly between notes on demand and bills 
 after date, and that the Bank proprietors have a consider- 
 able capital engaged over and above their issues, to em-
 
 26 
 
 ploy which they must at all times have much more owing" 
 to them than they owe, it will be clear, then, that any 
 measure which reduces the general value of money, must 
 take off a proportionate amount from the balances of their 
 accounts, and be a decided loss to the establishment. 
 Their temptation is rather to increase the general value 
 of money, by an undue contraction, than to diminish it, 
 and this is an evil far more to be dreaded by the commu- 
 nity, during its operation, than the opposite ; but from this 
 the public would always be effectually secured by the pre- 
 sent Mint price of gold being retained as the viinimum, 
 whilst, on the other hand, as that gold which had been 
 over-exported, through the supposed negligence of the 
 Bank Directors, would have to be regained by an advance 
 in the price of gold, and as the loss attendant upon this 
 remedy would fall primarily and chiefly upon the Bank 
 establislmient, the public would have the best possible se- 
 curity that due vigilance on the part of the Directors would 
 be exercised to guard against over-issues. Thus the Bank, 
 when relieved from that unfair competition with the bul- 
 lionists and the foreign market, to which it is now liable, 
 would require no other stimulant or restraint than its own 
 interest to cause it to act wisely for the national welfare, 
 under whatever circumstances the nation might be placed 
 from war, famine, or a gold monopoly. 
 
 It has been the more needful to shew the steady bearing 
 which the proposed cash regulations would have, and might 
 have had, upon the value of English money in its relation 
 to foreign engagements and to the produce of our national 
 labour, because there are persons, who, without due inquiry 
 into the subject, fancy at first sight that a contrary effect 
 would be the result ; and then, assuming the inability of 
 mankind in general to estimate the varying value of money, 
 they would reject the proposed alterations without further
 
 27 
 
 consideration. The arguments already adduced arc calcu- 
 lated to remove this objection at its foundation ; but even 
 the second part of it, namely, the incompetency of the ge- 
 nerality of men to estimate the varying value of money, is 
 founded on a mistaken conception of the ability of people 
 in common life. The fact is directly contrary ; for there is 
 no dealer, from the first rate merchant down to the farmer s 
 servant in the market, who is not continually obliged to 
 act upon it, and to receive more or less for his commodity 
 in proportion as money is more or less plentiful. The pre- 
 sent cash system, which in the course of the last few months 
 has permitted ready money to vary as much as 20 or 25 
 per cent, in relation to the highest order of credit, and to 
 every kind of property, has amply called into action this 
 general power of the mind to determine the relative value 
 of commodities to each other and to the increased value of 
 money. To this it is owing that, without reference to the 
 gross stock on hand, the farmer is now content to take 
 twenty-five shillings per tod for his wool, which before the 
 late panic he refused thirty-five shillings for, and a reduced 
 price for his beef and mutton at that season of the year 
 when the supply invariably is declining ; whilst the manu- 
 facturer, the tradesman, and the working classes, participa- 
 ting in the like necessity, have acted on the same princi- 
 ple of diminished prices, articles of luxury generally falling 
 in value first, and those of more need gradually follow- 
 ing them. To determine the relative worth of commodities 
 to each other, and all of them to the increased value of 
 money, would seem to require the exercise of calculations 
 and arguments beyond the power of the most abstruse politi- 
 cal economist to describe, yet so instinctively do these argu- 
 ments and calculations pass through the minds of the buyer 
 and seller, that the commonest people engaged in sut^h
 
 28 
 
 transactions generally get at a correct conclusion without 
 feeling- the least difficulty. 
 
 But though men can adjust the transactions of to-day ac- 
 cording to the altered value of money, they cannot regulate 
 those of yesterday or to-morroAv hy it, and hence it is that 
 many respectable individuals are compelled to forego their 
 pecuniary engagements ; others dare not or cannot pursue 
 their manufacturing and mercantile concerns ; and multi- 
 tudes of useful mechanics and labourers are in consequence 
 thrown upon the parish for an unprofitable subsistence, the 
 produce of whose labour might otherwise be contributing 
 to their own comforts and the riches of the country. 
 These consequences have invariably ensued whenever the 
 value of the currency of England has been violently eleva- 
 ted by any attempts to bring its amount within the limits of 
 a metallic representation. Three times since the termina- 
 tion of the late war has this effect been experienced— the 
 two former from the anticipation, and the present from the 
 existence and natural action, of that law which makes gold 
 exclusively valuable. Its uniform recurrence bears testi- 
 mony to the truth that the present system of currency is 
 totally incompatible with any system of credit, however 
 trust- worthy the parties may be ; and that if it be persisted 
 in, England must bid adieu to her commercial prosperity. 
 A golden currency, like the golden image of former days, 
 must have supreme worship paid to it ; and the fulfilment of 
 prophecy may be looked for in a sense that Christians little 
 dream of: " In those days it shall come to pass that ten men 
 " shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even 
 " shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, 
 " we will go with you, for we have heard that God is with 
 •' you." Zech. viii. 20. Then may that portion of this 
 ancient and distinguished race, who, unlike their great pro-
 
 29 
 
 genltor in the case of Isaac, still firmly adhere to the first 
 voice from Heaven to the excUision of every subsequent 
 call, and have in consequ&nce as a nation so long endured 
 the sacrifice which Isaac escaped— then, indeed, may they 
 have it in their power to shew to mankind that spirit of 
 benevolence and love, which for so many ages has not been 
 exercised towards them. The fulfilment of this prophecy 
 may be regarded as a natural consequence of that legisla- 
 tive wisdom which, on the one hand, prevents the Jew from 
 investing his superfluous wealth in the soil, whilst it makes 
 all the states of Europe, on the other, so eager to lay hold 
 of his skirts as a bullionist. 
 
 Such are the consequences which in the course of things 
 may be anticipated from the present system of currency ; 
 and a remedy in the course of things may also be anticipa- 
 ted, in a deficiency of food and manufactured goods, the 
 natural re-action of the fashionable opinion, that national 
 distress may be caused by over production. The people 
 tired of an ineffectual struggle to obtain a suitable compen- 
 sation for their labour, under a law which makes gold the 
 sole purchaser of their labour and at the same time the sole 
 judge of its value, will at length become as unproductive 
 in labour, and a3 productive in population, as their supe- 
 riors could wish ; and the stock of food and clothing 
 gradually receding in supply as the demand increases, both 
 principles will operate together, till the fulfilment of 
 another prophecy reveals the consequence : " A man shall 
 " take hold of his brother, of the house of his father, 
 " saying. Thou hast clothing, be thou our ruler, and let 
 " this ruin be under thy hand : In that day shall he swear, 
 " saying, I will not be an healer ; for in my house is neither 
 " bread nor clothing : make me not a ruler of the people." 
 Isaiah iii, 6, 7. When things are arrived at this pitch there 
 is no fear that the real worthlessness of 2:old will not then
 
 be acknowledged. But the people of England if loft to 
 tliemselves are not generally disposed to over-value gold ; 
 the fact of its being so moderate in quantity among them 
 is no inconsiderable proof that they care but little about 
 it, so long as they can find a medium of exchange for their 
 commodities, their labour, &c. If gold had been deemed 
 really necessary, a larger portion of the labour and machi- 
 nery of England would ere this have been applied to the 
 obtaining of it. But why, it may be asked, should the en- 
 ergies of the people be determined to its attainment ? 
 There is nothing of beauty in it equal to a fine painting, 
 or of skill comparable to a piece of ingenious sculpture, or 
 of usefulness beyond iron, or of science equal to an original 
 and well written work. If then the people in the expen- 
 diture of their superfluous wealth give preference to these 
 and the like things beyond gold, according to the degree 
 of talent, time, and labour bestowed upon them, why 
 should they be told, and by act of parliament be compelled 
 to believe, that gold is and for ever shall be the only thing 
 valtiahle "i 
 
 The national experience of England since the peace is 
 such as to shew, that great and violent fluctuations in the 
 value of commodities, or of money, although they may 
 give rapid and immense fortunes to a few individuals, are 
 really and greatly detrimental to the best interests of the 
 community. The welfare of the people greatly depends 
 upon a steady uniformity of value, keeping pace with that 
 permanent increase in the currency, which a growing po- 
 pulation, and the progressive increase of active capital, re- 
 quire. But uniformity of value depends on uniformity of 
 the currency, and the uniformity of the currency not on 
 its being always the same in amount, but in its always 
 varying in a degree exactly suited to the transactions of 
 (he (lay. As the vegetulivc sap at the spring tide of the
 
 31 
 
 year flows up to the pitch of exuberance and fruition, and, 
 the object attained for which it was supplied, again retires 
 to be again poured forth at a fit season, with increased 
 powers, through wider ramifications ; so a perfect currency 
 will expand in proportion to the number and magnitude 
 of the works to be accomplished, and when those works 
 are completed, then it will gradually relapse into the state 
 of dormant capital, till an increased population, and the 
 attainment of new comforts, again call it into existence. 
 
 IV. 
 
 But there is still another point of view in which this 
 question demands consideration. Every one is aware that 
 a man who has realised 20/., and who puts it out on in- 
 terest at the rate of 5/. per cent, per annum, will, at the 
 end of twenty years, be possessed of 40/. without any 
 further addition from his own labour, and without com- 
 pound interest : that if he makes a further investment of 
 the second 20/., upon the like terms, he will, in like man- 
 ner, at the expiration of forty years, find himself possessed 
 of 80/. If he should then leave this property to some one 
 capable of maintaining himself by his own labour, and pru- 
 dent enough to let the capital accumulate, it is obvious 
 that a third twenty years would see it 160/, a fourth 320/., 
 and that a repetition of the same operation for forty years 
 more would make the amount, first 640/., and then 1280/. 
 This is a simple straight- forward process, which the present 
 condition of thousands of families testifies to be natural, 
 practical, and common. 
 
 Now a nation is but a family of a larger size, and its 
 progressive growth in wealth, in relation to the other na- 
 fions of the earth, is but like that of one family to another ;
 
 yet, for want oC due re<>ard to these considerations, and to 
 the progressive increase of capital arising from the mere 
 interest of money, great errors in political calcuhitions 
 have frequently been made. One writer of considerable 
 notoriety, Paine, in his pamphlet on the Decline and Fall 
 of the English System of Finance, published in the year 
 179b', having discovered, upon a reference to the wars 
 Avhich had taken ])lace since the time that the national debt 
 of England was first contracted, that each succeeding war 
 had generally left the debt about half as much again as it 
 was at the commencement of the Avar, assumes that this 
 will continue to be the case ; and taking it for granted that 
 the supply of means must have a limit, he predicts, with 
 an appearance of arithmetical certainty, the downfall of 
 the funded system of England, at no very distant period 
 from that time. True enough, the war then pending, and 
 the one which immediately succeeded it, proved confirm- 
 atory of his opinion as to the addition they would make to 
 the debt. But if this writer had paid due regard to the 
 increase of capital arising from the mere accretion of its 
 own interest, he would have seen that it was such as abun- 
 dently to keep pace with the growth of the debt, even in 
 the steady and natural manner above stated. For, taking 
 the debt at sixteen millions, in the year 1700, (which I 
 suppose to be somewhere about the truth) its own natural 
 increase would make it in 
 
 17^0 £32,000,000 
 
 1740 64,000,000 
 
 17G0 128,000,000 
 
 1780 250,000,000 
 
 1800 512,000,000 
 
 1820 1,024,000,000. 
 
 It did so happen that wars succeeded each other with 
 such rapidity during this tmie, as to cause the government
 
 30 
 
 to keep reborrowing the interest almost as soon as it was 
 created ; and, by the consequent expenditure of it, a new 
 stimulus was g-iven to industry, ingenuity, and enterprize, 
 to discover and render available new means for the in- 
 creased production of food and clothing, and of all the 
 other real riches of life : — but had it not been so — had not 
 the state reborrowed the money after it was produced, 
 there can be no doubt that when once the nest egg had 
 been made productive, the increase would have found im- 
 provable employment, though probably not in so obvious 
 a manner as under the fostering wings of a prosperous 
 government.* 
 
 * Mr. Tooke, in liis Conaideiations on the Currency, after rccona- 
 mending the abdlition of small notes, speaks of the gold which 
 would be necessary to supply their place in the following terms:— 
 " Assuming, as I think I may, most confidently, that eight millions 
 " of gold is the utmost that would be requisite for the purpose, it 
 " can only be an apprehension ^magnified by the bigotry of self- 
 " interest, which could lead to the supposition, that such a sum, 
 ** taken from the whole amount of the metals in the world, v. ould 
 " produce any sensible intlaence on bullion prices." 
 
 Whatever might be the effect on bullion prices, it may not be 
 unworthy of consideration, that eight millions, if employed in fo- 
 reign loans, would, on the principle above-stated of the re-invest- 
 ment of the interest every twenty years, produce (his nation, in 140 
 years, a sum more than adequate to the discharge of our present 
 national debt. Is not the loss of this capital, in that space of time, 
 an evil to be avoided ? In a second edition, Mr. Tooke, noticing 
 the reduction which had been made in the amount of small notes, 
 says, that probably five or six millions of gold would now be suffi- 
 cient for the purpose ; but with what consequence has this dimi- 
 nution in the amount of the small notes been attended?— evidently 
 with a reduction in the money value of labour, and of all commo- 
 dities for which a small note circulation is required. Exactly as 
 labour and its produce continue to decline in price, so a less quan- 
 tity of gold will, of course, be necessary ; but it is obvious that the 
 difference must always be compensated by a sacrifice of the in- 
 terests of the productive classes in an equal degree. 
 
 C
 
 34 
 
 If due attention bo paid to this means of increase, it 
 will be seen, that, at the present time, from this source 
 alone, about 30,000,000 ought annually to be added to the 
 gross amount of our national capital. It has been ob- 
 served, that during the war this accumulation was conti- 
 nually re-absorbed by the government : since the war, the 
 parties accustomed to invest their savings, and to re-invest 
 their dividends, in the funds, unacquainted with any other 
 employment for it, have continued to re-purchase the se- 
 curities they already possessed at an advauced price, 
 thereby increasing, for the time, the specific value of the 
 debt. But this can and ought to be only a partial and 
 temporary diversion of the current springing out of this 
 ever active source. The dividends must be paid ; the pay- 
 ment will annually increase the aggregate quantity of 
 capital ; and we may trust to the good sense of those 
 to whom it is paid, that the capital, once created, will be 
 preserved from annihilation. 
 
 With this principle of increase in full action, it is not, 
 in the nature of things, possible to represent our accumu- 
 lations by a gold currency. It is sufficient that they con- 
 sist of things equally valuable with gold. It is immaterial 
 to the equity of a transaction whether a person be paid 
 twenty guineas in gold, or with the title to a house for 
 which, in a free market, he can immediately receive twenty 
 guineas, or with a promissory note which he can at his 
 pleasure convert into that quantity of gold, or into any 
 commodity of equally marketable value, and with the good 
 credit of which he is equally well satisfied, so that he re- 
 tains it with as much confidence as if it were gold, although 
 he knows that if he err in his judgment his own property 
 must bear the loss. 
 
 It would have been perfectly consistent in Mr. Paine, 
 or his disciples, to doiy the productive increase of the 
 funded debt, on some such plea as that a nation was very
 
 35 
 
 different to a family, and for the truth of this objection to 
 have appealed to the tribunal of ridicule ; but for a pro- 
 fessed unbeliever, the faith which he displayed in his then 
 newly discovered ratio is a little out of character, when it 
 leads him to declare :— " Supposing the present govern- 
 " ment of England to continue, and to go on as it has 
 " gone on since the funding system began, I would not 
 ** give 20 shillings for 100 pounds in the funds to be paid 
 *' twenty years hence. I do not speak this predictively ; 
 " I produce the data upon which that belief is founded ; 
 ** and which data it is every body's interest to know, who 
 " have any thing to do with the funds, or who are going 
 *' to bequeath property to their descendants to be paid at 
 '* a future day." The government did continue, and the 
 system went on, till it even exceeded Mr. Paiue's most 
 sanguine anticipations. The result speaks for itself. This 
 strong conviction of his being right, viewed in connection 
 with the basis on which it was built,— viz. the accidental 
 occurrence of the two things together,— calls to one's 
 recollection the humorous story told by Latimer, of 
 Tenterden church steeple being the cause of the Good- 
 win Sands, and shews how nearly allied infidelity is to 
 credulity. 
 
 Those, however, who profess to believe in the sound- 
 ness of our system of finance, must, to be consistent with 
 themselves, admit the foregoing principle of the increase 
 of capital to be truly stated ; but that they have lost sight 
 of its consequences is sufficiently apparent, by the pre- 
 sent attempts to compass those consequences with a me- 
 tallic currency. 
 
 The lawgiver of the Jews well knew the incompatibility 
 of a credit system with a currency exclusively metallic, he 
 therefore ordained that debts on simple pledges should be 
 secured only till the going down of the sun ; for bond debts 
 
 c 2
 
 3G 
 
 he provided a release every seventh year; and a year of 
 jubilee, at the expiration of every forty- nine years, was made 
 to restore a man to his original inheritance without a fee. 
 To receive interest from a Jew was forbidden, and in the 
 15th Psalm, the second king- of the Jews makes it the ground 
 of excommunication from the Holy Hill. But under a 
 credit system it is not only justifiable, but commendable, 
 to take increase ; since we have the authority of the last 
 king of the Jews for casting- him into outer darkness, a 
 darkness^more fearful than that of mere ignorance, who, 
 neglecting this source of improvement, hid his talent in 
 the earth. 
 
 That the principle of an actual increase of national 
 (capital from the interest thereof, is lost sight of by those 
 who yet maintain the stability of the fund from w hich the 
 accumulation arises, is further apparent from another cir- 
 cumstance. England could, and did, expend on the moun- 
 tains of Spain and Portugal, on the wilds of the north, and 
 on the plains of France, Germany, and the Netherlands, 
 hundreds of millions for the preservation of civil govern- 
 ment, during which time stock-brokers and others obtained 
 fortunes by trafficking in English loans, in the same manner 
 that share-brokers, &c. have recently done, or attempted 
 to do, in public companies and foreign loans ; yet, with 
 this experience fresh in recollection, the public are now 
 told, that the investment of a few millions in foreign loans, 
 and the expenditure of a few more in Avorks conducive to 
 general or local advantage, which investment and expen- 
 diture altogether amount to not more than half a year's 
 interest of the national debt, are the sole causes of the 
 present distress ; and that the folly and cupidity of those 
 engaged in this expenditure and investment are such, 
 that the present sufterers, whether connected or not with 
 those speculations at the outset, deserve punishment
 
 37 
 
 ivithout benefit of ministers : when these conflicting cir- 
 cumstances are duly weighed, it is very apparent that the 
 increase of our national capital, from the source now under 
 consideration, is forgotten. 
 
 Again, if the people had not begun to adopt the above 
 modes of investing or expending money, let us ask, how 
 would the present evils have been thereby avoided ? It 
 ought not to be expected that the parties accustomed to in- 
 vest in government securities would continue to re-purchase 
 their own securities at a higher and a higher price, affording 
 to the borrower the opportunity of continuing to reduce the 
 interest of those securities from 4 to 3, from 3 to 2, and from 
 2 to 1 per cent., as they had already done from 5 to 4, till 
 the interest being annihilated, the annihilation of the prin- 
 cipal should follow as a natural consequence. If they did 
 this, then, indeed, would they deserve to suffer the conse- 
 quence of their own folly. But money lenders are toler- 
 able calculators, and if they could not have invested their 
 surplus money in the funds with a f^xir prospect of profit, 
 and had been debarred by the wisdom of Parliament from 
 embarking in joint stock companies, (manufacturing, trado 
 and farming being already carried far enough,) they would 
 doubtless have suffered it to accumulate in their own 
 hands, until a free and profitable employment of it should 
 have been attainable. Bsit the absorption of the currency 
 hence arising must soon nave exceeded the power or the 
 fitness of gold to' supply ; and the absence of credit could 
 by no means have prevented, though, without doubt, 
 it would have hastened the distress. At such a crisis, 
 the expenditure, or permanent investment, of the 16 or 
 17 millions before alluded to, would have been esteemed 
 a measure not only blameless, but highly commendable ; 
 and ere this the public would have been convinced of the 
 jfiipolicy of discouraging the expenditure of money, espe-
 
 38 
 
 cially if it were employed on works of general or locaV 
 utility. 
 
 In the absence of confidence it would have been obvi- 
 ously impossible for gold to supply the demand upon the 
 currency, which the above absorption would have created, 
 unless an immense increase in the native supply of gold 
 be assumed, which increase is opposed by fact, and if as- 
 sumed would be in direct subversion of the argument of 
 those who maintain that gold ought to be the only currency, 
 because it is at all times nearly unalterable in quantity. 
 The currency, however, which gold could not supply was 
 supplied by public credit. The validity of banker's pledges 
 was acknowledged, and bankers, many of them unconsci- 
 ous of the fatal consequences to which they were subjected 
 by a law, which in its final result limits the representation of 
 value solely to gold, did suffer their own funds and reputa- 
 tion to constitute as it were the reservoir, and their pledges 
 to be the medium of exchange, for this accumulation of un- 
 employed capital, the owners of which were very ready 
 to avail themselves of the conveniency. If this ar- 
 rangement had been allowed to subsist under an equita- 
 ble money law, no public harm could have resulted from it. 
 The accumulation by degress would have found its way 
 into active employment, either with or without parliamen- 
 tary encouragement, and the proceeds would have come 
 forth from the reservoir quite as valuable as they went in, 
 and to all useful purposes equally valuable with gold. But 
 under the existing law, when the avarice of some and the 
 apprehension of others had excited the desire to realize at 
 once all their golden eggs, it is not to be wondered at that 
 the source should so nearly have failed altogether. When 
 bankers are blamed by the partizans of our funding system 
 for having caused that evil, which, in fact, their issues and 
 their credit alone have for some time past been the means
 
 31) 
 
 of averting, and under equitable regulations would alto- 
 g-ether have prevented — that evil to which the property and 
 credit of bankers have been the first and chief sacrifice — 
 it becomes further manifest, that the natural growth of cap- 
 ital from its own stock Is disregarded ; or else, that an im- 
 mensity in the native supply of gold is assumed, which, if it 
 existed, would soon make gold itself comparatively worth- 
 less, and altogether useless as money. 
 
 From these arguments, and from the experience of the 
 last few months it may be seen that, under the present cash 
 law of England, the currency can exist in safety only in a 
 metallic shape ; and to encourage the idea, that a credit 
 currency may continue to circulate under that cash law, is 
 but to give a deceitful covering to a pit capable of swallow- 
 ing up the best interests of Britain. 
 
 The question at issue betwixt the advocates of a metal- 
 lic currency and the advocates of a credit system, will be 
 found finally to resolve itself into this :— Shall gold, when 
 its value against other things is put to the test, submit to 
 receive its estimation from the common opinion of mankind ? 
 or shall that common opinion, when the value of the real ne- 
 cessaries and comforts of life are put to the test, submit to 
 receive all its ideas of value from gold? But the wisdom of 
 nature ordains that the less shall always submit itself to 
 the greater, and the law of nature declares that the power 
 which confers rank or value is greater than that which re- 
 ceives it. If it be true then that gold does originally de- 
 rive its value from common opinion, and not common 
 opinion its notions of value from gold, the question is at 
 once determined.
 
 40 
 
 Were we to leave out of our consideration the ques- 
 tion, whence the money value of commodities original- 
 ly emanates, in this kingdom, whether it is first derived 
 from the metropolis or from the country, the following ar- 
 gument would appear specious, and unless contradicted by 
 the fact might be esteemed conclusive. In London the 
 rents, taxes, and provisions are so high, together with all 
 other things, in relation to the same articles in the remote 
 parts of the country, that persons of independent fortune, 
 manufacturers, tradesmen, mechanics, and labourers in 
 those distant parts can maintain their station in life for one- 
 third of the expence which it costs in London ; therefore, 
 it may be inferred that London will by degrees become de- 
 populated and lose its trade. But the determination of the 
 money value proceeding from the town and not from the 
 country, and country-prices always following those of the 
 metropolis in the scale of elevation, the same degree of re- 
 lative value is still preserved throughout the kingdom, which 
 explains away the argument, and leaves the conclusion and 
 the fact agreeing together. 
 
 From inattention to the question whence the money 
 value of commodities is derived, with respect to the world at 
 large, a similar error is committed v/hen the cases of paper 
 money in France and in America, notwithstanding the ex- 
 perience we have had during the late war, are still adduced 
 in argument to prove, that a result must follow from the 
 credit system of England similar to that which has been 
 witnessed in France and America. The cause of that sys- 
 tem failing as it did, in the two latter countries, and of its 
 not failing in England under circumstances the most try- 
 ing, viz. under the Bank Restriction Act, will be found to 
 consist in this, that the commercial importance of England, 
 and the high character her people possessed for wealth and 
 credit, enabled her by means of her pound sterling, even
 
 41 
 
 when its connection with gold was quite cut off, still to de- 
 termine the money value of commodities for the whole 
 world, whilst France and America had to appeal to the 
 world. Doubtless the importance of this truth also is over- 
 looked, when England attempts to give gold a power supe- 
 rior to herself, and one quite adequate to the task of anni- 
 hilating her own credit. 
 
 A clear view of the order in which the money value of 
 commodities is originated and communicated would, under 
 a free money system, reconcile the conflicting opinions re- 
 lative to the corn laws, and cause them speedily to be 
 superseded. If money were allowed to findTits own level 
 betwixt England and the continent, as freely as it does 
 betwixt London and the remoter parts of England, the pre^ 
 cedence for wealth and credit which England possesses, 
 would enable her to give to Europe the money value of 
 commodities, in the same manner as the metropolis of Eng- 
 land is enabled to give it to the remoter parts of the em- 
 pire ; and thus a tendency to equalization in value, betwixt 
 England and the continent, might be looked for, which 
 would cause land and the value of produce, on the conti- 
 nent, gradually to rise in their money value, in relation to 
 the same things in England, just in proportion as those 
 lands and that produce were favourably or unfavourably 
 situated for intercourse with England. But increased 
 foreign prices for the produce of British industry and 
 talent must first precede, and then accompany, the ad- 
 vanced price of corn on the continent ; because it can only 
 be by access to the high prices of the English market that the 
 price of corn abroad is to be elevated ; and this would take 
 place precisely in the same manner as the increased means 
 of those who reside in London first gives the impetus to, and 
 then sustains, the advance of prices in England. By this 
 course the whole system of commerce would, in time, be-
 
 4a 
 
 come adjusted to such a scale of prices as could not (ail to 
 remunerate the labourer, and enable every honest man in 
 Europe to fulfil his obligations with credit and comfort ; 
 and by this means the money value of labour and of com- 
 modities in themselves, and in their relation to each other, 
 would be as effectually sustained, and as fairly appor- 
 tioned, as by an arbitrary return to the state of population 
 and the condition of things as they existed a century ago; 
 with this remarkable difterence, that the former mode of 
 equalization is in the course of nature and practicable, the 
 latter is contrary to nature and totally impracticable. 
 
 But increased prices cannot, under any commercial re" 
 gulations, be sustained without an increased or a more ac- 
 tive currency. Now a currency to be efficient to the well 
 being of society, should be free and uncontroulable as the 
 blood which circulates through the human frame, which, 
 though it flows from the heart, is derived from the whole 
 system, and with unconscious volition, passing freely to the 
 remotest extremities, is again restored, and again remitted, 
 with reciprocal advantage, growing with our growth, and 
 giving increased strength and activity to every member, 
 whilst stagnation in any part is as death to the whole. It 
 is obvious that gold can never fulfil this idea of a currency, 
 liable as it continually is, and ever must be, to be dammed 
 up in a multitude of little stagnate pools, always the more 
 closely pent iu by selfishness, in proportion as the common 
 weal requires it to be circulated. A useful, powerful, and 
 uncontroulable currency is no more capable of being repre- 
 sented by gold, than the Thames river is capable of being 
 represented by the Serpentine. But an efficient currency, 
 fulfilling all that can be conceived under the foregoing 
 elucidation, is at once to be had in a credit currency, upon 
 the plan proposed in the preceding Address, the principle 
 of self-iuterest giving it that universal, uniform and bene-
 
 ficial action, which the principle of life gives to the blood, 
 and almost with equal unconsciousness ; whilst the con- 
 vertibility of the currency into gold, and gold into it, at 
 all times, and under all circumstances, at the market price, 
 according to the official quotation, would continually de- 
 monstrate the exact value of English currency throughout 
 the world, and ultimately simplify that complicated system 
 by which the rate of exchange is at present governed. 
 
 If the currency were placed upon this footing, the pre- 
 sent evils would in an instant be arrested : bills of ex- 
 change would cease to be subject to an unfair contest with 
 bullion. All property would immediately have assigned 
 to it in the market a natural value, co-equal with gold, 
 calculated upon the actual cost of labour, time, and talent 
 employed in its production. A currency of this kind, backed 
 with substantial property, a species of wealth far more va- 
 luable in reality than gold, would immediately spring up, 
 equal to the task of steadily and for ever working that im- 
 mense machinery, which the money transactions of Eng- 
 land and of the world presents, leaving the present trou- 
 bles an existence only in the recollection. 
 
 Since it is advanced prices, preceded by increased de- 
 mands for the products of labour and talent, which must 
 bring an extra amount of dormant capital into active cir- 
 culation ; so, before the currency can be in excess, em- 
 ployment, and the average rate of wages, must be in 
 excess. When, therefore, labourers and mechanics, ma- 
 nufacturers, tradesmen, and merchants, farmers and land 
 proprietors, professional men, public officers, and mhiis- 
 ters of state, are agreed, that they all get too well paid for 
 their labour, and when the workhouse shall be inhabited 
 by the idle and profligate only— when parochial and pri- 
 vate charity shall be needed by those alone who are really 
 unfortunate— when the widows, the children, and the aged
 
 44 
 
 of the productive classes are, tliroujjli the Instrumentality 
 of the Savings Banks, become fundholders, instead of 
 paupers, and by that means reap their legitimate share of 
 the fruits of that industry which, by the supposed excess 
 of food and clothing, is admitted to exist, and to which 
 share, if the workman be worthy of his hire, it must be 
 admitted, they are entitled as of right, and not as of cha- 
 rity— when, in the absence of war, famine, or a gold mo- 
 nopoly, the value of first rate English credit, in relation to 
 gold, is uniformly below the present Mint regulations— 
 when all these things exist and occur together, then it will 
 be quite soon enough hy law to compel individuals, who 
 have credit enough to issue promissory notes, not to give 
 a pound's worth of that credit for less than its equivalent, 
 and also to compel those who have labour, or the produce 
 of labour to dispose of, not to give too much of that labour, 
 &c. for a pound's worth of credit. But before that time, it 
 is hoped, human wisdom will have discovered, how perfectly 
 nugatory all those efforts must be, which attempt to super- 
 sede individual prudence by Acts of Parliament. 
 
 In conclusion, the measures wUich according to these 
 arguments are alone wanting to make England as prosper- 
 ous as in a time of general peace she ought to be, and to en- 
 able her to circulate the blessings of Providence through 
 all the nations of the earth, are simply these :— First, to 
 adopt the market price principle as that upon which credit 
 and gold shall be exchangeable for each other, and then to 
 remove as far as possible every obstacle to the free expen- 
 diture or investment of capital, whether in public or private 
 undertakings. These measures are obviously within the 
 reach of the British Legislature ; and though recent mea- 
 sures have been adopted, and opinions broached, calculated 
 to discourage the expectation of these measures being put 
 in practice, yet happily for the welfare of mankind, the
 
 45 
 
 proud consistency of tho Medes and Persians is no longer 
 that insurmountable obstacle which it formerly was to the 
 adoption of plans, which in themselves are positively good. 
 The truth of the maxim that a wise man changes his 
 opinion often, but a fool never, is now admitted even in 
 senates ; and, therefore, it may be hoped, that the same 
 authority which for 22 years denied to gold the common 
 privilege of a market price, and which now gives that 
 privilege to it exclusively, may ultimately adjust these ex- 
 treme variations to the line of equity and the centre of 
 truth. 
 
 When this is done, and the people of England are left 
 to manage their own afl'airs, each according to his own 
 common sense, unshackled by needless laws, and safe from 
 a money monopoly, the industry, skill, and enterprize of 
 Englishmen may be expected to do that justice to their 
 country, which, in defiance of many obstacles, they 
 have so long continued to do. The balance of their 
 foreign trade may be expected to draw to England 
 an ample sufficiency of the precious metals for the use of 
 the merchant and manufacturer, and for all the pur- 
 poses for which a metallic currency is really desirable. 
 The accumulation of their capital, no longer required by 
 the necessities of the state, may be expected to find its 
 way into a multitude of public and private works, affording 
 during their progress employment for those, whose labour 
 in other things may have been superseded by machinery; 
 these works, when completed, becoming themselves the 
 source of increased national comfort and profit; which pro- 
 fits, in process of time, will again find their way into the 
 creation of new benefits. Neither will investments in 
 foreign loans, it is to be hoped, be disregarded, the interest 
 of which will continually administer increase to the gross
 
 46 
 
 capital of the nation, and draw from the ncip^h!)ouring' 
 states a willing- contribution to the expences of the late 
 war ; whilst our capital being expended amongst them will 
 serve to advance their prices, the better enabling them 
 to purchase the luxuries which we can supply, and to ren- 
 der to their respective states the means of returning our 
 loans with increase. Like the vapour, which under the 
 Divine Economy is exhaled from the earth, and returning 
 again in fruitful showers becomes the cause of fresh be- 
 nefits, so may money, under wise regulations, become 
 both offspring and parent ; and judiciously and actively 
 employed, this mammon of unrighteous may be made to 
 diffuse through the mass of mankind increasing comfort, 
 till in the end it becomes a bond of union amongst indi- 
 viduals and states, and a means of preserving to the 
 world the inestimable blessings of peace. 
 
 It may not be unworthy of remark, that if the plan con- 
 tained in this pamphlet should be adopted, the objects of 
 different writers would be attained, even when their opi- 
 nions appear to be at direct variance with each other.-— 
 Thus the writer in the Edinburgh Review (Mr. M'Culloch, 
 probably), who argues upon the assumption that the in- 
 terest on capital is always governed by the profits of trade, 
 and Mr. Tooke, who denies this assertion, affirming that it 
 proceeds from the erroneous supposition that an increase in 
 kind is equivalent to an increase in money— would both find, 
 that by the system of currency here proposed, a system which 
 possesses all the equity of payment in kind, with all the 
 convenience of payment in money, their confiicting notions 
 will be reconciled. 
 
 When Mr. Ricardo proposed to remedy our national 
 distress, on a former occasion of the scarcity of money, by 
 requiring every man to surrender a certain portion of
 
 47 
 
 his property in part payment of the national debt, which 
 proposition, if acted upon, it was successfully contended 
 by others, would leave the means in the same relation 
 the end they were in at present, by reducing, in the same 
 degree, the money value of all property; and when, to ob- 
 viate the objection, it was next proposed to reduce the 
 debt at the expence of the fundholder, by means which 
 would effectually preclude the nation from ever borrowing 
 another loan the difficulties to be encountered were 
 considered insuperable :— but by the plan now recommend- 
 ed, relief would be afforded in an equal degree, and no 
 objection could be urged against the equity of the proceed- 
 ing from any quarter. 
 
 Again, Mr. Owen, aware of the ample means which the 
 productive classes possess of obtaining for themselves more 
 than enough of the necessaries of life, were it not for the 
 power which the bullionist possesses over the money 
 value of property, suggested his Moravian-like scheme for 
 bettering the condition of the poor. But the plan here 
 proposed, making every kind of property the basis of mo- 
 ney equally with gold, would, by taking the monopoly of 
 the currency out of the hands of the money dealer, leave 
 mankind in the enjoyment of the fruits of their own labour, 
 as securely as under Mr. Owen's plan, without encumber- 
 ing society with that personal restraint which must for ever 
 prevent his system from being carried into extensive 
 practice. 
 
 To enter into a more enlarged discussion of the various 
 views of different w riters, and to shew how well they would 
 in all important particulars, be found to assimilate with those 
 taken in the preceding pages, would be foreign to the pur- 
 pose of this brief notice of the subject— neither would it 
 be possible even then to anticipate every question which
 
 48 
 
 might arise in the mind of the Reader : nevcrtlieless, so 
 anxious is the Author for the truth to be ascertained, and 
 so convinced is he of the soundness of those principles on 
 ■which his phm is founded, that he will be happy to pro- 
 mote further inquiry, if it be thought necessary, into 
 the subject ; and though he cannot pledge himself to 
 reply to every opponent, he will undertake to remove 
 whatever objections may be brought against his system, 
 by tiiose who are honestly desirous of giving it their candid 
 consideration.
 
 49 
 
 •^* The following Paragraphs, from the Times paper of the 24th 
 and 26th instant, form no inappropriate commentary on the pre- 
 ceding pages. The first serves to shew in what state the country 
 is at the present moment, when the expedients of the Government 
 have had time to operate. The latter proves how the Rate of Ex- 
 change may be in favour of England without any abatement of her 
 commercial distress. 
 
 THE MONEY-MARKET. 
 
 ' From the C\ix.-^-April 24, 1826. 
 
 The accounts received on Saturday from the manufacturing dis- 
 tricts indicate no abatement, but rather an increase to that intensity 
 of distress which has so long existed. The non-appearance of any 
 symptoms of improvement to a state of things so truly painful, 
 forces the subject on the attention of practical and experienced men 
 in the city, among whom it begins to excite the most lively alarm 
 for the consequences. If they were able to perceive any remedy 
 at hand, or could bring themselves to look on the evil merely as a 
 temporary one, the end would be waited for M'ith patience ; but 
 that is at present unfortunately not the case. In commercial af- 
 fairs generally, there appears no prospect of relief. Importation 
 to an immense extent is still going on, particularly from the more 
 distant parts of the world, where the knowledge of our distress had 
 not reached. Prices of every kind sink lower, and merchants of 
 small capital are reduced nearly to a state of ruin. Even the nation 
 derives no benefit from this excess of importation, while consump- 
 tion is so severely checked, as a large proportion of the goods im- 
 ported are bonded, to wait for more favourable times. Though the 
 evil perhaps is beyond the power of the Government or of the Le- 
 gislature to alleviate, a general wish certainly prevails among the 
 merchants in the city that a Parliamentary inquiry should take 
 place, before the session terminates, into the nature and extent cf 
 the calamity, and that Parliament, in fact, should not separate, till 
 some remedy is attempted, or the evil finds it own cure. 
 
 From the City. — April 25, 1826. 
 The accounts of yesterday from the north of Germany are curi- 
 
 D
 
 50 
 
 OU8, from the lijjht they throw on the nature of the business with 
 that part of Europe which is at present carried on by English mer- 
 chants. To escape from the consequences of that depression 
 which has so long continued in colonial produce, and which ren- 
 dered sales in London not only injurious but extremely difficult to 
 be accomplished at all, applications hare been made to foreign 
 houses to allow consignments to them, in the hope of obtaining a 
 better return for the merchandise in Antwerp, Hamburgh, and 
 other places. This the foreign merchant has been willing enough 
 in general to consent to, but not without receiving full permission 
 to bring his consignments to market at his own pleasure, that he 
 might be secure at least to the extent of his advances upon them. 
 Business of this description, in the glutted state of the English 
 market, having once found an opening, began to increase to a far 
 greater extent than the foreign markets could provide for, and 
 they have consequently been reduced to the same or to a worse 
 condition. To whatever point, therefore, the merchant has direct- 
 ed his views, he has encountered of late nothing but disappoint- 
 ments and losses. A little reflection on this state of things will 
 also perhaps serve to explain the causes which have brought about 
 a state of the foreign exchanges so favourable to this country ; and 
 liow fallacious any general reasoning founded on them must be, 
 to prove that our foreign trade is in a prosperous situation. Low 
 as the markets have fallen, England in fact can neither export nor 
 import without loss. 
 
 J. Drurj, Printer, 3, Park Terrace, Camden Town.
 
 f 
 
 li