UNIVERSITY OF 
 ILUMOIS LIBRARY 
 
 STACKS
 
 CORN AND CURRENCY; '^ 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 THE LAND OWNERS. 
 
 SIR JAMES GRAHAM, BART. 
 
 OF NETHERBY. 
 
 Quippe ubi fas versiim atqiie nefas, tot bclla per orbem, 
 Tam multa? scelenim facies : non ullus aratro 
 Pignus honos ; squalent abductis arva colonis. 
 
 Virgil, Georgia 1, v. 505. 
 
 ** It recjtiires some thought and reflection to discover the principles by which 
 
 we can reconcile reason to experience," 
 
 Hume's Essay on Muncy. 
 
 LONDON : 
 JAMES RIDGWAY, 169, PICCADILLY. 
 
 MDCCCXXVI.
 
 London: 
 printed by t. brettell, rupert street, haymarket.
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 THE LAND OWNERS. 
 
 I AM aware that you will not be inclined to 
 attend to the suggestions which I am about to 
 offer: past errors are admitted with reluctance; 
 measures of precaution, especially if thej be of a 
 decisive character, are slowly adopted against 
 dangers which are not immediate : and the course 
 of legislation is very rarely the result of previous 
 wisdom ; it is rather guided by circumstances, 
 and influenced by the occasion. 
 
 You are disposed, both by prejudice and habit, 
 to await the course of events, and to place implicit 
 reliance on the wisdom of the Government, rather 
 than, by the exercise of your controlling power, 
 to avert the evils which you foresee, or to provide 
 the defences, which your interests require. 
 
 The other productive classes of the community 
 guard their respective interests in a far different 
 manner ; if a measure of Government affect, or 
 
 B
 
 slightly threaten, the manufacturing or commer- 
 cial body, all minor differences are merged in the 
 unanimous opposition which at once is organised : 
 and energy and concert are found equal to coun- 
 terbalance the want of political power. 
 
 But the Land Owners of these realms, while 
 their property is melting away, while their station 
 in society is in danger, while their incumbrances 
 are increasing and their means diminishing, do not 
 "^seek to discover the real causes of the evil, and 
 unite to obtain the proper remedy ; but they dis- 
 sipate their strength in a fruitless struggle of 
 parties. One faction clings to the Government of 
 the day, and blindly supports its prodigal expen- 
 diture, in the hope of sharing its patronage, and 
 of making that provision out of the public purse 
 for dependents, which the hereditary family estates 
 can no longer bear ; while the opposite faction, 
 irritated by disappointment and long exclusion 
 from all participation in Government, is tempted 
 almost to triumph in the ills which their anta- 
 gonists have created, and seeks a vain consolation 
 amidst national misfortunes, in ascribing to the 
 unbroken sway of their adversaries the common 
 ruin which awaits them all. 
 
 But, united, what might not the Landed Interest 
 effect ? The ancient nobility, inheriting strong 
 attachment to the soil which their forefathers 
 transmitted as the shield to the family honours, 
 constitutes still an immense majority in the House
 
 of Lords, notwithstanding the more recent infusion 
 of less noble blood ; in the House of Commons 
 the Landed Proprietors form a phalanx which no 
 minister could resist, if they could be brought to 
 act in concert, and to move on one attainable 
 object. 
 
 Even the Crown itself, whatever its first Minis- 
 ter may declare, must be disposed, in the balance 
 of interests, to throw somewhat more than ** a. 
 feather*" into the scale of land. Commerce and 
 manufactures, with their many great advantages, 
 bring their attendant evils. The friends of liberty 
 regard them with no jealous eye, because they are 
 the creatures of free government, and the parents of 
 free inquiry ; but I can imagine that the spirit 
 which they produce, coupled with the diffusion of 
 wealth and sub-division of property which mark 
 their progress, may cause no inconsiderable alarm 
 even in the highest quarter. The evils to which I 
 allude cannot be mistaken by any one who has com- 
 pared the state of the manufacturing and of the 
 agricultural population. Mr. Peel, himself a minis- 
 ter, and a judge the most competent and impartial 
 on this particular question, declared, in his place in 
 Parliamentf , that " a change had taken place in 
 
 * Lord Liverpool, in his place in the House of Lords, de- 
 clared, that if preponderance were to be given to one interest 
 of the state more than to another, he would cast a feather into 
 the scale in favour of the land. 
 ' t Par. Deb. vol. xli. p. G33.
 
 8 
 
 '* the manners, habits, and feelings of the manufac- 
 '• turing population ; that they were collected in 
 *' immense cities, and differed, in their relation 
 " as regarded landlord and tenant, from the popu- 
 *' latioii of any other district ; when he saw the great 
 *' alternation of prosperity and distress which took 
 " place among them, the constant vicissitudes 
 " to which they were exposed, their impru- 
 '^ dence in times of prosperity, only working for 
 '' two or three days in the week when they had 
 " employment, and devoting the rest to dissipation; 
 " when he recollected all the influence which a 
 " change of fashion, of speculation, or of affairs 
 '* might produce on the state of these individuals, 
 " he could not deny that they were peculiarly open 
 " to the mischievous designs of demagogues." 
 
 The contrast of an agricultural population 
 scattered in hamlets, earning daily bread by daily 
 labour, either possessed of a freehold, and thereby 
 linked with the landlord, or holding as tenantry, 
 and immediately dependent on him, requires no 
 exposition ; peace and health, and sobriety and 
 order, are the happy fruits of rural labour. 
 
 " Hie patiens operum, parvoque assueta juventus, 
 " Sacra Deum, sanctique Patres ; extrema per illos 
 " Justitia exeedens terris vestigia fecit." 
 
 It is impossible to believe, in these latter days, 
 when thrones have fallen, and kings have trembled, 
 that this striking difference in the character of a 
 manufacturing and agricultural population should
 
 not be weighed and understood even in high places : 
 though it may be lightly esteemed by Lord Liver- 
 pool, it cannot fail to give a strong bias to the 
 royal mind in favour of the Land Owner. 
 
 Are there then no limits to the power of the 
 Land Proprietors, if they could be brought to act 
 together, constituting, as they do, a vast majority 
 of both Houses of Parliament, and backed, as 
 they ultimately must be, by all the power of the 
 Crown ? I freely answer, that I know no bound 
 but public opinion; and this is a barrier which 
 they cannot pass. Common interests and common 
 dangers may at last unite them, and lead to the 
 exertion of their combined strength; but eventu- 
 ally it will prove insufficient, unless they enlist on 
 their side the sense of the British public, and the 
 interests of the great body of the people. 
 
 The seat of public opinion is in the nnddle ranks 
 of life — in that numerous class, removed alike from 
 the wants of labour and the cravings of ambition, 
 enjoying the advantages of leisure, and possessing 
 intelligence sufficient for the formation of a sound 
 judgment, neither warped by interest nor obscured 
 by passion. 
 
 Public opinion, thus constituted, cannot be out- 
 raged with impunity ; and hence the established 
 check which we possess over the legislature itself. 
 For be it remembered, there «re measures which 
 Kings, Lords, and Commons, though united, can- 
 not carry. It behoves, therefore, the Land Owners,
 
 10 
 
 not only to act in concert, but so to frame their 
 measures as to combine with their om^tz the interest 
 of the community, and to establish their case on 
 grounds which they can maintain conjointly with 
 the safety and prosperity of the state. 
 
 I do not pretend to have made any new discove- 
 ries ; I wish only to recall to your recollection the 
 statements and the arguments employed by higher 
 authorities, and to bring the whole case at once 
 under your view ; for I believe that much error 
 has been occasioned by the direction of your atten- 
 tion to detached parts of the subject, — at one time 
 to the Corn Laws, at another time to the Currency; 
 whereas, to a right understanding of your situation, 
 these two subjects are indissolubly united, and 
 cannot be discussed apart, without detriment and 
 gross injustice to your cause. 
 
 Since the year 1815, when the prohibition of 
 the importation of foreign corn, excepting at a 
 fixed price, was first substituted for a protecting 
 duty, your constant and avowed object has been 
 to raise the price of agricultural produce in this 
 country greatly above the level of the continental 
 markets ; the obvious efiect of this has also been 
 to raise the rate of wages, and to reduce the rate 
 of profits. By the rise of wages the labourer 
 gains nothing, because, when corn is dear, all 
 the articles of first necessity are also dear. 
 Therefore, though his wages be increased, his 
 real reward is not greater ; but by the diminu-
 
 11 
 
 tion of profits, every class of productive industry 
 is deeply injured*. For on all hands it is allowed, 
 that profits fall as wages rise, and the capital of a 
 nation is but the accumulation of the profits of 
 its inhabitants. Rents, however, are raised by 
 high prices, which force inferior soils into culti- 
 vation ; since the lower the degree of fertility of 
 the worst land in tillage, which yields no rent, but 
 only reimburses the cultivator — the higher on all 
 land of superior quality, is the extra profit beyond 
 the ordinary return of capital, when expended on 
 the worst. This extra profit is rent ; or, in the 
 words of Mr. Mill, " rent increases in proportion 
 *' as the efl^ect of the capital successively bestowed 
 " upon land decreases." High prices, therefore, 
 by increasing rents, benefit the landlords, but 
 they confer no advantage on the labourer ; they 
 are an injury to the productive, and a tax on the 
 unproductive, classes of the community. 
 
 It may be doubted even whether the existing 
 system of prohibition be so entire a benefit to the 
 Land Owner himself, as he would seem to imagine ; 
 for, in the variety of seasons, it is impossible that 
 the land cultivated within these islands can, year 
 by year, from one harvest to another, produce a 
 supply of corn exactly commensurate with the 
 demand. At one time, the prohibitory system is 
 
 • Vide Elements of Political Economy, by Mr. Mill, 
 Cha{). II. § Kent, Wages, Profit.
 
 13 
 
 unjust to the grower ; at another, to the consumer. 
 The grower is injured, when, after an harvest 
 somewhat deficient, the ports are opened by a 
 sudden rise of price, and a large accumulation of 
 foreign corn is poured at once into this country ; 
 bringing on the farmer the losses incident to over- 
 production, and ultimately on the landlord a cor- 
 respondent decline of rent. The consumer is 
 injured, in the interval between the rise of price 
 and the importation of foreign grain ; he is even 
 exposed to the horrors of famine ; for, in propor- 
 tion as the demand for foreign grain is unusual, 
 the supply in case of emergency must be preca- 
 rious. Thus the alternate evils of redundancy 
 and scarcity, unsteady prices and uncertain rents, 
 are the inevitable consequences of the present 
 system of our Corn Laws. 
 
 Farming is thus made both a " gambling and 
 *' a hazardous speculation." No caution can 
 guard against ruinous losses, for no prudence can 
 foresee the chances on which they depend ; whe- 
 ther the price of wheat will rise to 78, when the 
 profit to the farmer would be enormous, or touch 
 the maximum of 80, when, by the opening of the 
 ports and of the granaries of corn in bond, wheat 
 would instantly fall at least 50 per cent, to his 
 entire ruin, is a matter almost entirely of accident, 
 frequently influenced by fraud ; thus the full 
 operation of the present Corn Laws exposes agri- 
 cultural capital to losses rather incident to the
 
 IS 
 
 hazard table than to fair mercantile speculation. 
 Rents also must constantly vary, together with 
 the lowest quality of the soil which the hope of 
 profit may force into cultivation. The Land 
 Owner can never know beforehand what is his 
 real income ; he cannot regulate with certainty 
 his expenditure; with wheat at 70, his farmers 
 pay their rent ; with wheat at 80^ on the opening 
 of the ports, the price falls at once to 40 ; and the 
 rent, calculated on the moderate scale of 56, can- 
 not be paid. Thus revenue from the soil is lite- 
 rally made the sport of wind and of weather. 
 
 The landlord's best customer is the manufac- 
 turer ; but his prosperity depends entirely on high 
 profits, which it is the avowed tendency of high 
 prices to reduce. If corn be dearer in England 
 than elsewhere, wages must be higher ; and if 
 wages be higher, profits must be lower ; thus, 
 our foreign competitors obtain the greatest possi- 
 ble advantage : and if the system become perma- 
 nent, manufacturing employment, except for the 
 home market, must cease in this country ; and 
 surely it is not the interest of any class so to 
 enhance the price of labour and provisions as to 
 secure to the foreigner successful competition, and 
 to choke with obstructions the principal channels 
 of native industry. 
 
 The feeling of the public must be hostile to the 
 present Corn Law — the receivers of rent are a 
 very small body— backed by public opinion, they
 
 14 
 
 are almost omnipotent — in violation of public 
 opinion^ they cannot long retain an exclusive ad- 
 vantage. The contest is fearful ; for on what 
 ground will it be decided ? On the very topic 
 which inflames to madness : that hunger, which 
 breaks through walls, will be arrayed against them, 
 reason will be heard no longer, the barriers of 
 society will be broken down ; and estates, distinc- 
 tions, honors, swept away in one resistless torrent. 
 Let those who seek high prices at all risks remem- 
 ber the words of Tacitus : 
 
 " Vulgus ad magnitudinem heneficiorum aderat: 
 ** stultissimus quisqiie pecuniis mercahatur: apud 
 " sapietiies cassa liabehantur, qiicB neque dari 
 " neque accipi, salvia repid)licd, poterant." 
 
 I admit to the fullest extent, the claim of the 
 Land Owner to a liberal protecting duty, — to such 
 a duty as may amply countervail the peculiar taxes 
 to "which the produce of the soil is subjected in 
 this country. Mr. Ricardo, an unexceptionable 
 authority on this point, declares*, *' That on every 
 " principle of justice, and consistently with the best 
 " interests of the country, the demand of the 
 '' home grower to this extent should be acceded 
 " to ;" for he says, " that a tax affecting him ex- 
 ^'clusively, is in fact a bounty to that amount on 
 ^' the importation of the same commodity from 
 " abroad." Mr. Ricardo also admitsf , '' that all 
 
 * Protection to Agriculture, p. 16. 
 
 ■j" Hansard's Par. Deb. vol. vii. p. 456.
 
 15 
 
 " the tithes fall exclusively' on the ag;ricultural 
 '* interest ;" and * elsewhere he allows, " that 
 " tithes, a portion of the poor rates, and one or 
 " two other taxes, are peculiar to the Growers of 
 " Corn, and tend to raise the price of raw pro- 
 *' duce to an extent equal to these peculiar bur- 
 ** thens." Theaggregateamount of these burthens 
 is very large : it is estimated by Mr. Whitmore+ 
 at eighteen millions annually. The poor rate, 
 county rate, and highway rate, have a decided 
 tendency to increase : the former in proportion to 
 the distress of the labouring classes — the two latter 
 in proportion to the civilized improvement and 
 growing population of the country. New bridges 
 are built, new communications are opened, and the 
 roads are every where placed under management, 
 which consults rather the public convenience than 
 frugal economy. The weight also of the adminis- 
 tration of justice is fixed on the land, and this 
 burthen becomes heavier, as crime increases with a 
 more dense population. Even in this last session 
 of Parliament, individuals have been relieved from 
 the expenses of criminal prosecutions, and the 
 county rates have been made responsible for the 
 prosecutor's bill of costs, not only at the sessions, 
 but also at the assizes. 
 
 It is the boast and the pride of the Land Own 
 
 ♦ Protection to Agriculture, p. 15. 
 f Par. Deb. vol. xiii. p. 263.
 
 16 
 
 ers, that the most important establishments of our 
 polity have been founded on their estates, as on a 
 rock from which they cannot be moved. The 
 ministers of our Established Church derive their 
 revenues from land — the poor, the aged, and the 
 infirm, in aid of their necessities, have a legal 
 claim on land — the injured and the oppressed, who 
 cannot obtain justice for themselves, or punish the 
 wrongdoer at their own expense, cast the burthen 
 also on land : thus religion, charity, and justice 
 have the guarantee of landed property in this 
 country, and are its safeguards in return. All 
 those who value genuine piety, the pure offspring 
 of our Established Church, and who, unprejudiced 
 by the abuse of the poor laws, still venerate their 
 humane origin, and appreciate their utility, when 
 cautiously administered ; all these, (and they form 
 the best part of our community,) will strenuously 
 resist any change of the security, any transfer of 
 the charge from land to funds. The clergy and 
 the land owners, the poor and the proprietors, 
 are co-parceners in the soil ; they must stand or 
 fall together on their existing tenure : they may fall 
 indeed ; but religion, and mercy, and justice, will 
 fall with them ; '^ and they who are buried in these 
 " ruins are happier than they who survive them." 
 
 Equity demands, however, in favour of the 
 landed proprietor, an equivalent for the exclu- 
 sive charges fixed by law on his estate ; that 
 equivalent must be a protecting duty on foreign
 
 17 
 
 corn imported ; the amount of the duty is a fit 
 subject for discussion : but here we are arrested 
 hy the past variations in the value of our cur- 
 rency, and the price which we have first to settle 
 is the price of money ; for it is in)possible to 
 establish a fixed protecting duty with fairness, 
 when the standard of value is itself unfair. 
 
 This appears to me the very core of the whole 
 subject^ the point on which you have committed 
 the most fatal errors. You have fought for high 
 prices, and concurred in measures which render 
 them impossible. You have retained your mono- 
 polj'j but consented to a change in the value of 
 money, \Ahich must destroy its efficacy. The 
 ground which you still endeavour to defend is no 
 longer tenable, and the points, which you have 
 surrendered, ensure your defeat. If I might ven- 
 ture to allude to the conduct of the Landed Interest 
 in this last session of Parliament, I should say, that 
 it affords conclusive evidence of the blindest adhe- 
 rence to the single object of high prices, coupled 
 with an entire misapprehension of the means by 
 which this object might be attained, and of the 
 general principles on which prices must depend. 
 The price of commodities, and of corn amongst the 
 rest, is compounded of two ingredients — of the sup- 
 ply in the market compared with the demand, and 
 also of the value of money ; itself the n)easure of 
 value, liable, however, to great variation, in pro- 
 portion to ill quantity.
 
 18 
 
 The value of money is in the inverse ratio of its 
 quantity ; the supply of commodities remaining 
 the same. 
 
 Increase the quantity of money, prices rise. 
 
 Decrease the quantify of money, prices fall. 
 
 On the other hand, the quantity of money 
 remaining the same. 
 
 Increase the quantity of commodities, prices fall. 
 
 Decrease the quantityof commodities,prices rise. 
 
 Thus a decrease of the quantity of money pro- 
 duces the same effect on the price of a commodity 
 as an increase of the quantity of the commodity 
 itself; if corn be that commodity, an addition to 
 the value of money, such as the diminution of its 
 quantity occasions, insures as effectually a fall in 
 the price of Corn, as the opening of the ports and 
 free importation : in which of the two cases prices 
 would fall lowest, is a simple question of propor- 
 tion between the increased supply of corn and the 
 decreased quantity of money. These truths are 
 elementary, and admitted as axioms ; yet the con- 
 duct of the Landed Interest proceeds on a virtual 
 denial of their validity. The high price of corn 
 being their declared object, they direct their 
 whole strength to the preservation of their mono- 
 poly of the supply, and at the same time contri- 
 bute their support to measures designed to dimi- 
 nish the quantity of money, and to increase its 
 value. Their whole attention is absorbed by one 
 half of the object of price— they look only to the
 
 19 
 
 supply, they disregard the measure of value. By 
 fixing the standard at £.3 lis. \0^d. for an 
 ounce of goldj the price of a quarter of wheat 
 was fixed, on an average of years, at from 40.s. to 
 50s. In a single year of dearth, with the ports 
 still closed against the admission of foreign grain, 
 it is possible that the price may rise to the maxi- 
 mum of 80-s., amidst the suffering and execrations 
 of a starving populace. But in a series of years, 
 since the Legislature has restored the ancient 
 standard of value, wheat also must fall to its 
 ancient price, — to the price which it bore in a 
 currency of the same intrinsic worth. 
 
 The Report of the Corn Committee of 1813 
 establishes the fact, that the highest price of 
 wheat, which, in the century prior to 1792, had 
 taken place for any average period of five years, 
 was 49s. 9d. a quarter ; and this range of price 
 is found at the commencement, as well as at the 
 close, of the century ; that is to say, the price of 
 wheat, with no great average variation, remained 
 uniformly under 50^9. a quarter, from the first com- 
 mencement of the present standard of value until 
 our departure from it. Yet, despising the soundest 
 theory, and neglecting concurrent experience, the 
 Land Owners still strain at an impossibility 
 created by themselves, and vainly hope, under 
 their Corn Laws, to raise the price of wheat, which 
 the return to the ancient standard, with their full 
 approbation, must, of necessity, reduce.
 
 20 
 
 As a body, up to this moment they remain unde- 
 ceived ; for it is well known, that in this last session 
 they bargained with the King's Ministers to sup- 
 port the further contraction of the currency, on 
 condition that the Government did not destroy their 
 monopoly by a repeal of the Corn Laws. It was 
 not possible to make a more imprudent bargain : 
 they conceded a measure which, without collateral 
 safeguards, must prove fatal to their interest ; 
 and they received, as the consideration, on the 
 precarious tenure of one year, the shadow of a 
 benefit^ in fact rendered illusorj'^ by their own 
 concession. 
 
 Even the administration which they trusted has 
 not kept faith with them ; for, within ten days of 
 the rejection of Mr. l'^ hitmore's motion for an 
 inquiry into the Corn Laws, which the Govern- 
 ment resisted with a large majority, Lord Liver- 
 pool introduces a measure at the very close of the 
 session, when all inquiry is impossible, and when 
 popular feeling is most excited, the tendency of 
 which is to subvert the existing Corn Law, and to 
 establish a duty of twelve shillings in its place. 
 It is the insertion of the sharp side of the wedge, 
 to be driven home in the next session. The ad- 
 ministration thus trusted, and so true to the 
 landed interest, would not grant inquiry in 1825, 
 or in April 1826; but in May they rush to legis- 
 lation, when all inquiry is impossible ; in a season 
 of plenty, tranquillity, and peace, they consent to
 
 31 
 
 no alteration : under the ordinary pressure of 
 progressive adversity^ still they consent to no 
 alteration ; but when outrage has commenced, and 
 when mobs are assembled in open insurrection, 
 under the watchword of the Corn Laws, then is 
 the precise moment, without inquiry, to change 
 the law, — to hold up by deeds, if not by words, 
 the Land Owners of this country to a starving 
 population, as the authors of their suffering ; and 
 to yield, as a tribute to intimidation, the boon 
 which they refused to reason. 
 
 Moreover, so far from urging the Government 
 to bring separately under the view of the Legis- 
 lature the questions of Currency and Corn, it was 
 the decided interest of the Land Owners to have 
 insisted on a careful revision of both these subjects 
 conjointly. They are in themselves intimately 
 blended ; it is absurd to talk of price without refer- 
 ence to money ; and it is impossible to alter the 
 quantity of money without affecting prices. Dis- 
 jointed discussion on these two vital points is 
 the precise cause of the dangerous conclusions 
 now sanctioned by Parliament, which threaten 
 with ruin and degradation the whole class of 
 existing proprietors. 
 
 Since the real difficulties of the state, and the 
 present danger of the landed interest, will be found 
 to lurk under this question of the currency, I shall 
 be excused if I endeavour minutely to examine it, 
 and to trace it in detail.
 
 It must be owned, that the subject is in its 
 nature intricate and foreign to the taste of country 
 gentlemen ; but the experience of the last twenty 
 years has tended to throw the strongest light on it, 
 and to reconcile theory with facts. I am certain 
 that before long, the whole question of our cur- 
 rency must be forced on the attention of the 
 Legislature by the Land Owners themselves, if 
 they mean to preserve their estates ; — an accurate 
 knowledge of the whole subject is therefore 
 more important, in proportion as it is difficult 
 and complex. 
 
 Throughout this investigation, two established 
 propositions must be borne in mind, which, on 
 account of their importance, at the risk of repeti- 
 tion, I will restate : The first, in the words of the 
 Bullion Committee of 1810: — " That, by means 
 *' of the increase of quantity, the value of a given 
 *' portion of circulating medium in exchange for 
 " other commodities is lower ; in other words, the 
 money prices of all commodities are raised, and 
 " that of Bullion with the rest." The second is the 
 converse of this proposition, and is equally true ; 
 namely, that by a diminution of quantity of the cir- 
 culating medium, the money prices of all commodi- 
 ties are lower, and th^it of Bullion with the rest. 
 
 The term of the foreign exchanges being favour- 
 able or unfavourable to a country, has been thus 
 defined :-r-the exchange is in favour of a country 
 having money transactions with another, when a
 
 28 
 
 given quantity of gold or silver in the former is 
 convertible for such an amount in the currency of 
 the latter country, as will there be convertible 
 into a greater quantity of gold or silver of the 
 same fineness : if it be convertible into a less 
 quantity, the exchange is said to be against the 
 former country ; if into an equal quantity, the 
 exchange is said to be at par. 
 
 The necessary consequence of an unfavourable 
 exchange would seem to be a drain, on the country 
 "where it exists, of all the precious metals circu- 
 lating within it ; but Mr. Henry Thornton (Vol. 
 xix. p. 900, Par. Deb.) has truly stated, that gold 
 and commodities are exported in the relative pro- 
 portion in which their exportation answers ; and 
 since every diminution of the quantity of gold in 
 one country must produce an augmentation of it 
 in others, the relative value of gold to goods 
 must soon find one general level; and thus gold is 
 received as the common standard of value. 
 
 These premises being admitted, it will be neces- 
 sary, in the first place, to trace the variations of 
 expansion and contraction which have taken place 
 in our currency since the year 1793, and then to 
 demonstrate the effect of these variations in rela- 
 tion, not only to the price of B-ullion, but of Corn,. 
 the regulator of wages and profits ; the general 
 effect also on the price of all articles of first 
 necessity must not be overlooked, for this, in the 
 end, will be found to be the surest test of the
 
 %4 
 
 « 
 
 depreciation of currency ; and a rise in the price of 
 all commodities, of which bullion is one, is the real 
 criterion of excess ; the amount of that rise above 
 the level of a series of former years, is the mea- 
 sure of the quantum of that excess. 
 
 Doctor Adam Smith has remarked, that after 
 the discovery of the abundant mines in America, 
 corn rose to three or four times its former price ; 
 but this change is to be ascribed, not to any rise in 
 the real value of corn, but to a fall in the real 
 value of silver. It may be added, with equal 
 truth, that a great fall in the price of corn, espe- 
 cially if accompanied by a general fall of prices, 
 is a proof of a rise in the real value of the cur- 
 rency, and thus we af rive at a general proposition ; 
 the quantum of the rise of price on commodities 
 generally is the sweasure of the depreciation of the 
 currency ; the quantum of the fall of prices gene- 
 rally is the measure of its increased value. 
 
 Let us look to the facts, and apply them 
 according to this rule. 
 
 I am indebted to Mr. Mushet's most able and 
 laborious work on the Currency, for the detail of 
 almost all the circumstances which serve to illus- 
 trate this important part of the subject, and I can 
 only attempt to reduce to a smaller focus the 
 extensive view which he has taken of it. 
 
 From the period of the restoration of our 
 currency to its standard value in 1697, until 
 the commencement of the French war in 1793,
 
 25 
 
 the price of Bullion never rose materially 
 above the mint price of £.3. 17s. lO^d. per oz. 
 which was the established standard ; and, conse- 
 quently, no depreciation of our currency took 
 place. 
 
 There are only two periods worthy of remark 
 in this long lapse of years. In 1720, the year of 
 the South Sea bubble. Gold rose to £A. Is. 6d. 
 per oz. ; and in 1782, at the close of the American 
 war, to £A. 2s. At both these periods, the cir- 
 culation was excessive: in 1782, the Bank of 
 England had in circulation. Notes to the amount 
 of £.9,160,470. In 1784, the Bank reduced its 
 issues to £.6,100,610; and Gold fell at once to 
 the mint price (vide Mush«t, pages 8 and 9). 
 Thus early, but in vain for posterity, both the 
 cause and the remedy of the depreciation of the 
 standard were clearly made manifest. 
 
 The concurrent effect, also, on the price of 
 wheat is well^jy^rthy of observation; first, the 
 remarkable steadiness of its price throughout the 
 century while the standard was not depreciated ; 
 and, secondly, the immediate rise of its price 
 whenever the circulating medium was in excess. 
 
 During the war of the Revolution, from 1688 to 
 1697, the average price of wheat was £.2. IO.y. 8^/. 
 a quarter*. From 1697 to 1764f, the average 
 
 • Par. Deb. vol. ix. New Series, p. 887. 
 f Report of Corn Committee of 1813, Cobbett's Par. Deb. 
 25th vol. Appendix, p. 59.
 
 d6 
 
 was £.\. \3s. 3d. a quarter; and from 1764 to 
 1794, the average was £.2. 45. 'Id. a quarter. 
 
 Price per Quarter. 
 £. s. d. 
 The average of 5 years, ending 1779, was 2 9 
 Ditto .... 1784,. . 2 5 9i 
 Ditto .... 1789,. .233 
 
 It is to be noticed, in the first place, that the 
 average throughout the centurj never rose higher 
 than the price at its commencement in 1697. 
 The cause of the high price at that precise junc- 
 ture, was the debasement of the coin by clipping, 
 equivalent in effect to the increase of its quantity ; 
 but after the value of the currency had been 
 restored*, neither in peace nor in war, if the 
 average be taken in these alternate periods, did 
 wheat ever rise again to the price of 1696, until 
 1793. It rose, indeed, in the five years ending 
 1784, compared with the five years immediately 
 following and preceding; but this was the period 
 when the standard was considerably depreciated ; 
 when gold rose to £A. 2s. per ounce; and when 
 the issues of the Bank of England were, as I have 
 stated, in comparative excess. 
 
 From these facts, two inferences may be drawn : 
 — that, in a long series of years, the price of bread 
 corn is the sure test of the variations of the 
 standard of value ; and that a depreciation of -the 
 
 * Vide Par. Deb. vol. ix. p. ^87.
 
 currency operates on the price of corn more 
 directly and powerfully than war, than peace, or 
 any other circumstance, excepting always, Jbr 
 short periods , the demand and the supply. 
 
 Here also I must avail myself of an observation 
 made by Mr. Canning, in his unrivalled speech 
 on Mr. Vansittart's resolutions, in 1811, where 
 he proves the overissue of paper to produce, from 
 the same cause, the same effect a? the clipping of 
 the coin. I must use the words of Mr. Canning ; for 
 it is impossible to do justice to any argument which 
 he has employed, in any language not his own. 
 
 *' In 1698, a period of war, the deterioration of 
 *' our silver,thenour standard coin — in I773,a time 
 " of peace, the deterioration of our gold coin, were 
 *' indicated alike by the long continued unfavoura- 
 *' bleness of the foreign exchanges. In both cases, 
 " the reformation of the coin remedied the evil. 
 " The coin had then ceased to contain, and the 
 " paper has now ceased to represent, the quantity 
 " of precious metal implied by its denomination. 
 " Foreign countries estimated the coin then as they 
 '' do the paper now — not by what it was called, but 
 " by what it would exchange for, in these coramo- 
 " dities, gold and silver, which are, by the consent 
 " and practice of mankind, the common measure of 
 " all marketable value." 
 
 Thus prices and the foreign exchanges indicate, 
 simultaneously and equally, the real value of the 
 currency ; whether it be coin debased by clipping.
 
 28 
 
 or paper by over issue ; or coin enhanced by rec- 
 tification, or paper by the contraction of its 
 amount. 
 
 It is a curious fact, that the operations of the 
 Bank of England commenced with thefirst creation 
 of a paper currency, and with the existence of 
 national debt. The crisis in 1697, when the de- 
 based coin was restored to its full value, is the 
 date to which these three transactions may be 
 referred : they were the expedients of the day, by 
 which the exigencies of the state were met, and the 
 deficiency of the restored currency supplied. 
 
 Mr. Pitt, when he introduced his bold measure 
 of the Bank restriction, which rendered the paper 
 of the Bank of England no longer convertible into 
 cash on demand, and imposed no limit on its issues 
 beyond the will of the Government, or the caprice 
 of the Directors, declared, with prophetic warning, 
 *'' that if the country be once surcharged with 
 '^ paper, it would have as ruinous effects as would 
 " be produced by lessening the quantity of the 
 " paper circulation ; a sudden diminution of the 
 " paper currency would prove the most violent 
 " shock which the trade and credit of this country 
 *' could receive." 
 
 Notwithstanding this sound prediction from 
 the author of the measure, his successors, who 
 profess to tread in his steps, and to venerate his 
 
 * Hansard's Par. Deb. vol. xxxiii. p. 71.
 
 29 
 
 name, have despised the warning, have rejected 
 the admonition, and applied the power precisely 
 in the two modes which Mr. Pitt thought most 
 dangerous. " The country has been surcharged 
 " with paper ;" — there has been a "^sudden dimi- 
 " Dution of the currency/' not once, but repeatedly; 
 and, exactly as Mr. Pitt foretold, each violent 
 change, in either direction, has shaken to their 
 foundations " the trade and credit of the country." 
 It would be tedious to attempt a detail of the 
 course pursued by the Bank of England in each 
 year, with the effect produced by the increase or 
 decrease of their issues on the rate of the ex- 
 changes, and the price of commodities ; but 
 " since Corn," as Mr. Horner contended*, " is the 
 *' permanent standard of all value ; the precious 
 " metals being the practical measure — bread corn 
 " the real measure," — an opinion in which Mr. 
 Locke also joins, who saysf , " that Wheat is the 
 " fittest measure to judge of the altered value of 
 " things in any long tract of time," I shall con- 
 tent myself by presenting the reader with a table, 
 marking the amount of the Bank of England 
 paper in circulation in the months of either Janu- 
 ary or February in each year, from 1792 to 1809, 
 together with the average price of wheat per 
 quarter in England and Wales during the same 
 period. 
 
 » 
 • Vide vol. ix. pp. 909, 910, Par. Deb. New Series. 
 
 ■\ Letter to Lord Somers.
 
 so 
 
 TABLE I. 
 
 DATE. 
 
 Amount of Bank 
 
 of Knglaiul Notes 
 
 iu circulation. 
 
 Averagt' Price 
 
 of Wheat 
 per Quarter. 
 
 1792 February .... 
 
 1793 Ditto 
 
 1794 Ditto 
 
 1795 Ditto 
 
 1796 Ditto 
 
 1797 Ditto 
 
 £. 
 
 11,149,809 
 11,428,381 
 10,697,924 
 13,539,163 
 10,909,694 
 8,601,964 
 
 s. 
 43 
 49 
 61 
 71 
 76 
 52 
 
 (Report of Committee in the House of Commons, on the Bank resuming 
 cash payments, in 1819.) 
 
 1798 
 
 1799 
 
 1800* 
 
 1801* 
 
 1802 
 
 1803 
 
 1804 
 
 1805 
 
 1806 
 
 1807 
 
 1808 
 
 1809 
 
 Jan. to June, inclusive 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto •. 
 
 Ditto 
 
 Ditto 
 
 12,954,685 
 13,374,874 
 15,009,457 
 16,134,249 
 16,284,052 
 15,967,094 
 17,623,680 
 17,271,429 
 16,941,887 
 16,724,368 
 16,953,787 
 18,214,026 
 
 50 
 69 
 105 
 120 
 67 
 56 
 59 
 87 
 77 
 73 
 79 
 94 
 
 * These two years were years of dearth. 
 
 N.B. Mr. Mushet has traced, with his accustomed ac- 
 -euracy, the effect of the issues of the Bank on the price of 
 Stocks throughout this same period ; and the result of a rise 
 ^nd fall exactly corresponds, like the price of wheat, with 
 the increase and decrease of the issues. 
 
 From the comparison of the issues of the Bank 
 with the correspondent average of the price of 
 wheat throughout this long series, it will appear 
 that an increase of issue has, with wonderful pre-
 
 31 
 
 cision, created a rise of price, — not always indeed 
 in the same year, but more generally in the one 
 immediately succeeding ; and a decrease of the 
 issue has produced, in like manner, a correlative 
 decline. The effect of increase is illustrated by 
 the years 1803, 1804, and 1805, in which the 
 harvests were good, and the produce abundant; 
 {vide JopVm on Currency, Appendix, No, 14); and 
 in which the rise of price cannot therefore be 
 attributed to a deficiency of supply. 1800 and 
 1801 were years of dearth, and prices rose far 
 above the level of the augmentation of the currency, 
 clearly indicating an inadequate supply of the 
 commodity. The effect of the decrease of the 
 issues is illustrated by the fall of price in the years 
 1797 and 1798; and the fact, that a steady price 
 is the sure consequence of a currency uniformly 
 full, and neither increased nor diminished, is 
 established in the most striking manner, by a com- 
 parison of the price of wheat, and of the issues of 
 the Bank, in the years 1806, 1807, and 1808. 
 
 The issues of the Bank of England form, how- 
 ever, only a part of the paper currency of the 
 nation ; and here we open a most important view. 
 
 In the words of the Bullion Report of 1810*, 
 *' the paper of the country banks is a super- 
 " structure raised on the foundation of the paper 
 " of the Bank of England ; the foundation being 
 ** enlarged, the superstructure admits of a pro- 
 " portionate extension ; and the excess of the 
 
 • Par. Deb. vol. xvii. p. 254, Appendix.
 
 32 
 
 " Bank of England paper will produce its effect 
 " on prices, not merely in the ratio of its owii 
 ** increase, but in a much higher proportion." 
 And, again, the converse is also true ; for a con- 
 traction of the issues of the Bank of England 
 produces always a proportionate diminution of 
 country bank paper, and a reduction of prices 
 far greater than commensurate with the decrease 
 of the issues of the Bank of England. Though the 
 effect produced on prices by the conjoint opera- 
 tion, both of the Bank of England and of the 
 country banks, were not in proportion to the in- 
 crease or decrease of the issues of either, taken 
 separately ; yet it might be imagined that, as 
 between each other, some fixed proportion must 
 exist in the amount of their outstanding paper. 
 The fact, however, is otherwise; for, in periods of 
 excess*, the issues of the country bankers have 
 greatly exceeded the rate of increase by the Bank 
 of England ; and, in periods of contraction, 
 the diminution has been more violent and unli- 
 mited. 
 
 This is a result most dangerous to the safety 
 of the Bank of England, and fatal to the at- 
 tainment of steady prices : it is dangerous to the 
 Bank, because, though unable to control the issues 
 of the country bankers, it is responsible with its 
 gold, when the exchanges are turned in con- 
 sequence of the general excess of the currency, 
 
 * Vide Mushet, pp. ^7, 28.
 
 33 
 
 and bullion becomes an article in demand for ex- 
 portation. Steady prices are impossible, because, 
 without a check on excess, it is the interest of the 
 issuers of paper to push their profits to the utmost 
 verge, and to increase the circulation until the 
 exchanges actually turn, when the Bank of 
 England, in self-defence, contracts its currency, 
 and ultimately forces a contraction of the country 
 paper also; and then commences a rapid and ruin- 
 ous fall of price, succeeded in its turn by a recur- 
 ring rise : the country is thus exposed to perpe- 
 tual oscillation between hollow prosperity and 
 real calamity, whereby uncertainty is introduced 
 into the value of all property, and a spirit of 
 gambling and of fraudulent speculation into the 
 ordinary transactions of domestic life. 
 
 I shall now offer a second Table to the reader, 
 showing the issues of the Bank of England*, 
 the issues of the country banksf, the average 
 price of wheat;};, and the average price of gold 
 bullion ; together with the difference^ per cent, 
 between the market and mint price, from the year 
 1809 to the year 1819. I have also added the|| 
 amount of the loans contracted for in each year, 
 made up to the 5th of January next following. 
 
 * Report of the Lords' Committee in 1819. 
 
 f Sedgwick's Tables, No. 2 of Mushet's Appendix. 
 
 I Joplin's Table, No. 10, Appendix. 
 § Edinburgh Review, p. 410. 
 
 II Annual Parliamentary Accounts.
 
 34 
 
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 85 
 
 It appears, from this Table, that the issues of the 
 Bank of England influence ultimately the gross 
 amount of country bank paper^ though they fail 
 to regulate the rate of variation : the increase of 
 the one produces an increase of the other — the 
 decrease of the one produces a decrease of the 
 other; but the ratio is different, and the fluctua- 
 tion not simultaneous. It proves, also, that corn 
 is, in its price, more immediately susceptible of a 
 change of the value of currency than bullion itself; 
 for, in the Table, the only contradiction to this 
 assertion would seem to be, the discrepancy in 
 1812 between the rise in the price of wheat and 
 the diminution of the gross amount of the cur- 
 rency in that year ; but the harvest in 1811 was 
 generally defective, and yielded three eighths less 
 than an average (Vide Joplin, No. 14, Appendix). 
 In like manner, the low price of 1814 is to be 
 accounted for by the harvest of 1813, which was 
 more than an average. But the years in this 
 period, which are really worthy of notice, arc 
 1815 and 1816. 
 
 The Battle of Waterloo having terminated the 
 war, and peace having been re-established on solid 
 grounds, in 1815, the Government was anxious 
 to redeem the pledge which limited the Bank 
 restriction of 1797 to the duration of the war, and 
 they contemplated a return to cash payments. Both 
 the Bank of England, and the country banks, 
 prepared for the change by a large reduction of
 
 36 
 
 their issues. Mr. Lloyd, in his evidence before the 
 Committee in 1819, stated that the circulation of 
 the country was at its highest in 1813 and 1814, 
 but that it was reduced nearly one-half in 1816 
 and 1817 ; gold fell almost to the mint price, 
 wheat to 64 shillings a quarter ; and such a scene 
 both of agricultural and commercial distress 
 ensued, as this unhappy country had at that time 
 never witnessed. The total number of bankrupt- 
 cies in 1815 were 1,285; in 1816,2,029, an increase 
 in one year of 55 per cent. ; and I repeat the con- 
 viction of competent judges, when I assert, that the 
 losses sustained by individuals in this year coun- 
 terbalanced all the profits of all the bankers during 
 the war. 
 
 But the Government which at that time ruled 
 our destinies, had compassion on the sufferings of 
 the community. They sickened at the sight of the 
 ruin which their measure, though not executed, 
 and only contemplated, had created. They saw 
 30 per cent, added in 1 8 months to the value of 
 money, and a proportionate increase to the burthen 
 of taxation, and of every other fixed incumbrance. 
 They knew that it was intolerable ; they were 
 merciful ; they were disinterested : regardless of 
 the increased value of their own salaries, they felt 
 for the debtors, the tax payers, the great body of 
 the people ; and preferred their interests to the 
 profits of the creditors, the tax eaters, " the blood 
 suckers" of Lord Chatham, They thought whole-
 
 37 
 
 some food and constant employment better for the 
 people than wholesome currency and hunger, 
 amidst landlords without rents, and manufacturers 
 without profits. They turned aside, therefore, 
 from the '' stern path of duty *;" they relented for 
 a time, and renewed the Bank Restriction Act ; 
 with an increase of the circulating medium, pros- 
 perity returned. 
 
 The bankruptcies in 1818 were 1036 : in 1817, 
 there had been 1575, — a decrease within the year 
 nearly equal to 33 per cent. 
 
 I cannot fail also to remark the immense sum 
 added to the debt during the period of the great 
 depreciation of the currency ; according to the 
 measure of the ancient standard, which was then 
 suspended, we generally borrowed about 15^. in 
 the pound ; and with our return to that standard, 
 we are now required to pay the entire 20^. The 
 letter of the bond, and the pound of flesh, are 
 claimed by the creditor. 
 
 The Government, however, again vacillated in 
 their policy; theory gained ground asexperiencewas 
 forgotten ; the capitalist and the economist ruled 
 the day ; and an administration, more connected 
 with annuities than with land, possessed of few 
 acres, and haunted by general principles, intro- 
 duced, in 1819, a measure which will render that 
 
 * This is the expression always used by Lord Liverpool 
 when he viearnt to be firm, and before circumstances induce 
 him to waver.
 
 38 
 
 year memorable in the history of our misfortunes, if 
 it be not the real date of our decline. 
 
 The Government, in the course of the year pre- 
 cedins:, had resolved to return to cash payments : 
 and with this view it had reduced its debt to the 
 Bank of England, and thereby diminished the 
 paper circulation, both of the Bank itself, and also 
 of the country banks. The approximation of the 
 price of gold to the mint price, in 1819, was 
 effected by these means. Moreover, no less an 
 amount than seven millions of gold coin had, at the 
 \instigation of the Government with a view to this 
 measure, been poured into the market at the 
 standard price by the Bank of England ; and this 
 operation was in progress at the time when the 
 committee on Mr. Peel's Bill assembled. An arti- 
 ficial reduction in the price of gold was the con- 
 sequence : and the Committee, and even the 
 Legislature, were thus betraved into the error of 
 estimating the extent of the depreciation of the 
 paper by the current price of gold. Hence they 
 adopted the fallacy, that the paper money was then 
 only four or five per cent, below the value of the 
 ancient standard which they sought to restore. 
 They formed their judgment of the value of money 
 at that time, not from the price of commodities 
 generally, but from the price of a single commo- 
 dity — of gold, with which the Government had 
 been tampering, for the express purpose of forcing 
 down its value. Mr. Attwood puts the argument
 
 39 
 
 with full force, when he asks, whether the corn 
 market, at the period of the highest prices, and of 
 the greatest depreciation of paper, would not have 
 experienced a sudden decline, if corn to the 
 amount of seven millions sterling had been forced 
 to a sale for a particular purpose, at 40^. a quarter ? 
 and whether it would have been a just conclusion, 
 under such circumstances, that no depreciation of 
 paper, no general rise of prices existed, because 
 at that moment it was not indicated by the price 
 of corn ? 
 
 Mr. Ricardo, agreatauthoritjj contended, indeed, 
 that the price of gold was the true index of depre- 
 ciation, but he varied in the application of his own 
 test ; for in 1819 he contended, that 3 per cent, 
 was the full amount of the depreciation ; whereas, 
 before his lamented death in 1823, he admitted his 
 original error, and confessed that the bill of 1819* 
 had raised the value of the currency at least 10 
 per cent. But, with that candour, which charac- 
 terises superior genius, he has elsewhere admitted 
 the imperfect nature of the data on which this 
 last calculation is founded ; for he says, in a 
 speech delivered in Parliamentf , ^' that he had 
 *' computed the whole rise in the value of money, 
 " since Mr. Peel's Act in 1819, at 10 per cent. 
 ' ' He confessed that he had very little ground for 
 '\forming any correct opinion on the subject, 
 
 * Par. Deb. vol. ix. p. S52. 
 •f- Par. Deb. vol. ccxi. p. 947.
 
 40 
 
 " By comparing money ivith its standard value, we 
 *^ had certain means of judging of its depreciation; 
 " but he knew of none hy which we were able to 
 " ascertain with certainty alterations in real or 
 " absolute value." And again, in his* Protection 
 to Agriculture, he makes a similar admission, 
 and remarks, '' That it is a question exceedingly 
 " difficult to determine, what the effect has been 
 '• on the value of gold, and consequently on the 
 *' value of money, produced by the purchases of 
 '' bullion made by the Bank. When two com- 
 '' modities vary, it is impossible to be certain 
 " whether one has risen, or the other fallen ; there 
 " are no means of approximating even to the know- 
 ^' ledge of the fact, but by a careful comparison 
 " of the value of the two commodities with the 
 " value of many other commodities'' 
 
 A departure from this last rule, thus established 
 on Mr. Ricardo's own authority, was the real 
 cause of the errors committed in 1819 ; the value 
 of money was compared with the value of gold 
 alone, without any reference to the value of other 
 commodities : and most unfortunately it so hap- 
 pens, that gold, the single commodity selected, 
 must, of necessity, prove the most faulty measure 
 by which the general rise or fall of prices can be 
 estimated. The reason has been stated by Mr. 
 Attwood, and has as yet received no answerf . 
 
 • Page 30. 
 
 •f Par. Deb, vol. vii. p. 386.
 
 41 
 
 " In a rise of prices^ occasioned by the exclusive 
 " use of paper money, the great demand for bul- 
 *' lion, that of circulation, ceases at once. The 
 *' bullion market then receives supplies from the 
 " quarter whence previously its principal detnand 
 " originated. In the same manner, when a metal 
 " standard is again resorted to, a new demand for 
 '• gold at once takes place precisely at that mo- 
 *' ment when, in consequence of a contraction in 
 '' the general demand of money, a reduced demand 
 *' exists for all other commodities ; gold bullion, 
 " consequently, is of all commodities the last and 
 " the least to rise, in a general rise of prices occa- 
 '' sioned by the depreciation of paper money ; 
 " and the last and the least to fall, in a general 
 " fall of prices occasioned by the restoration of 
 *' that depreciation." 
 
 Mr. Malthus, also, in his Treatise on Popula- 
 tion, expressly states, that the alterations in the 
 \alue of money are to be computed from the 
 average price of agricultural produce, the wages 
 of labour, and the general price of commodities. 
 
 Nay, Mr. Peel himself, the author of the mea- 
 sure, stated in terms*, '' that depreciation was to 
 ** be estimated, not alone bv the difference between 
 '' paper and gold, but in combination with the 
 '* extent of co-existent credit currency/' 
 
 Experience also proves, that the price of bullion 
 
 • Par. Deb. vol. vii. p. 886.
 
 42 
 
 is a false criterion of the quantum of deprecia- 
 tion ; for the late Lord Liverpool estimates the 
 depreciation of the coin bj clipping in King 
 William's reign at eighty per cent. ; and the ad- 
 vance in the price of gold was only forty per cent, 
 —of silver, twenty-five. Thus each metal gave an 
 erroneous, but a different indication of the extent 
 of the debasement. Moreover, previous to 1819, 
 the long exclusion of gold from the circulation of 
 this country must have increased its quantity, and 
 therefore diminished its value, in every other part 
 of Europe. There was a period of four years, 
 during the war, in which no sale or purchase of 
 gold bullion could be ascertained in England. 
 
 Even Mr. Horner, in his Bullion Report of 
 1810, says, *' It may be doubted whether, since the 
 '" new system of Bank of England payments has 
 " been fully established, gold has in truth con- 
 " tinued to be our measure of value ; and whe- 
 " ther we have any other, standard prices than 
 " that circulating medium issued primarily by 
 ** the Bank of England, and in a secondary 
 *' manner by the Country Banks, the variations of 
 **■ which, in relative value, may be as indefinite as 
 " the possible excess of that circulating medium." 
 Mr. Baring*, also, as well as Mr. Ellicef , who 
 unite, in a singular degree, the soundest theory 
 with the greatest practical experience, protest 
 
 • Par. Deb. vol. ix. p. 899. 
 f Par. Deb. v6l. vii. p. 534.
 
 43 
 
 against the doctrine of the price of gold alone 
 being the measure of the extent of depreciation ; 
 for they contend, that, in 1819, the precious metals 
 themselves were depreciated, in consequence of 
 an unlimited issue of paper, which had forced all 
 the gold and siWer from England into the market 
 of the world. 
 
 Thus argument and authority combine to prove 
 the fallacy, under shelter of which, in 1819, the 
 Bill for the resumption of cash payments passed. 
 Mr. Ricaido at first estimated the value added to 
 money by the restoration of the ancient standard, 
 at three per cent. ; after experience, in 1822, he 
 admitted it to have been iO; while Mr. Attwood 
 and Mr. Elhce rate it at near 50, and Mr. Baring 
 from 25 to 30 ; and when we come to trace the 
 effect of the measure, in its full operation, I 
 think it will be evident on which side the truth 
 preponderates. 
 
 But not only were the supporters of the mea- 
 sure avowedly wrong in the calculations on which 
 it was founded, but Mr. Peel, its author, neither 
 propounded nor foresaw its necessary and extensive 
 consequences. An alteration in the value of 
 money involves, of necessity, a co-extensive 
 change of contracts. If that change had, in 
 reality, been but three per cent., in the pursuit of a 
 great legislative object, a partial inconvenience to 
 this limited extent might have been overlooked ;
 
 44 
 
 but the known integritj of Mr. Peel makes it 
 clear, that he contemplated no heavy addition to 
 existing incumbrances : for, neither in his Re- 
 port nor in his speeches, did he once allude to a 
 tax, a debt, a salary, or a pension ; and he rested 
 the merits of his case on the examples of Queen 
 Elizabeth's reign, when no public debt was in 
 existence, and of King William's, when four mil- 
 lions were the full amount of the whole debt, and 
 the interest on it £.200,000 a year. Moreover, 
 at that period there existed no standard which had 
 been previously debased by an act of the Legisla- 
 ture itself. Mr. Peel relied implicitly on the 
 wrong datum of 3 per cent, being the full extent of 
 the depreciation as indicated by the price of bul- 
 lion ; a price which he and his colleagues had, 
 by their own measures, artificially reduced ; and 
 having first deceived himself, he succeeded in mis- 
 leading the Legislature ; for, by use of examples 
 which were not applicable, and by the oversight of 
 the most important considerations, he carried the 
 restoration of the ancient standard of value, with- 
 out any adjustment of contracts made in a debased 
 currency, or provision for the increased incum- 
 brance of all debts, taxes, and annuities. 
 
 It was strange, also, when reliance was placed 
 on historical examples, under circumstances totally 
 dissimilar, that the course pursued by other coun- 
 
 * Par. Deb. vol. ix. p. 956.
 
 45 
 
 tries, in a state of affairs identically the same, 
 should have been entirely overlooked ; for in 
 France, after the abolition of the assignats and 
 mandats, and the re-establishment of a metallic 
 currency, the Government ascertained the value 
 of the louis-d'or, as compared with assignats, at 
 different periods ; and in this simple manner, on 
 reference to the given market price of the louis- 
 d'or, at any given time, contracts were reduced 
 to their real value ; and more recently, when the 
 French Government altered the value of its 
 money to the extent of five per cent, only, it pro- 
 vided by law for a corresponding adjustment of 
 all debts. The United States of America, also, 
 when, in the last extremity of their struggle for 
 independence, they resorted to a depreciation of 
 their currency, guarded against the fatal effects of 
 their own measure by enacting that no bargain or 
 contract for land should be valid, if on a credit of 
 longer term than three days. In the example of 
 France we find retributive justice ; in the example 
 of America prospective wisdom : but in vain shall 
 we seek to discover the slightest vestige of either 
 virtue in the British enactments of 1797 and 1819. 
 Hei-e by law we depreciated the currency, and by 
 a solemn resolution of the House of Commons, 
 denied the fact of depreciation. Here by law we 
 raised the value of money, and instead of avowing 
 our purpose, and preparing for its effects, we mys- 
 tified the intention, and were blind to the result.
 
 46 
 
 But the Act of 1819, which professed onlj to 
 restore the ancient standard of England, did, in 
 fact, considerably more ; until 1793, silver was a 
 legal tender by weight, and to any amount, at 
 5s. 2cl. per ounce ; gold was not paramount, but 
 concurrent with it. Mr. Peel's Bill made gold 
 alone our standard : the market price of silver is 
 somewhat less than the mint price, and its con- 
 junction with gold as a standard, such as it was 
 until 1793, would at once have effected a depre- 
 ciation approaching to five per cent. ; would have 
 enabled us to remit taxes to the extent of two 
 millions and a half; and would have raised money 
 prices exactly in the same proportion. Thus, not 
 satisfied with a return to the ancient standard, 
 regardless of all the difficulties, we even ventured 
 to raise its value. 
 
 It will be necessary here, once again, to recur 
 to facts, and to show the immediate effect of this 
 measure on the issues of the Bank of England, 
 and of the country banks, — on the average price of 
 wheat, and on the advances of the Bank of 
 England to the Government ; for it is through 
 the medium of the latter transaction, that the 
 Government can at once controul the entire 
 amount of paper in circulation ; by repayment of 
 advances to the Bank, the Government diminishes 
 its issues; by an enlargement of the loan, it neces- 
 sarily increases them ; for we have already proved, 
 that the circulation of the country banks is influ-
 
 4t 
 
 enced by that of the Bank of England ; the paper 
 of both must circulate together at par; and con- 
 sequently, since quantity governs value, the re- 
 duction of the amount of one entails the necessity 
 of the reduction of the other : by watching, 
 therefore, the balances between the Government 
 and the Bank of England, we can ascertain the 
 movement of that mysterious hand which, placed 
 on a resistless lever, can raise or depress, at will, 
 the value of all property, and, the price of all 
 commodities.
 
 48 
 
 e ^ S «! 
 
 flj £ g fi, 
 
 C oj re ta 
 
 a 
 
 
 Ph 
 
 00 
 
 
 1-H 
 
 o 
 
 CO 
 
 o 
 
 T-H 
 
 rn 
 
 
 (Ti 
 
 _cj 
 
 
 
 
 
 "l- 
 
 ^ 
 
 f- 
 
 re * " 2 u 
 
 o a c o re 
 
 re , r ~ ^*- 
 
 ^ © > =* ® 
 
 W5 
 
 
 1- O u 
 
 '^ s 
 
 00" 
 
 re a 
 M .2 
 
 
 GO l^ 
 
 »J^ I— 1 
 
 eo 10 
 
 10 l^ 
 
 00 
 
 --H 
 
 05 CO 
 
 i^ 1-H 
 
 OJ ^ 
 
 CO CO 
 
 «o CO 
 
 t>- 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cl> GO t^ 
 ^ 05 Oi 
 
 00 C5< 
 
 o< c^ 
 
 co oi 
 
 ©< Ci 
 
 oi 00 
 
 Vf5 t^ 
 
 10 
 
 Ci 
 
 lO CO 
 
 Ci i>. 
 
 
 
 
 
 XO -* 
 
 CO CO 
 
 CO C5 
 
 t^ t^ 
 
 C^ G^ 
 
 Oi c^ 
 
 C3^ i-H 
 
 I— ( I— I 
 
 O) 
 
 (U 
 
 -Q 
 
 00 j5 
 r-H h-5 
 
 PM 
 
 s 
 Co ^< c o 
 
 -S f^ rH l-s 
 
 ►-5 
 
 o 
 
 S 2 
 
 ^ 
 
 2 3 £3
 
 49 
 
 I humbly conceive, that this table is of real im- 
 portance ; it contains the "prima mali labes," 
 and marks a wonderful coincidence between the 
 contraction of the currency and the fall in the 
 price of wheat, exactly corresponding; also with 
 similar measures, and a similar result, in the years 
 1815 and 1816. The circulation of the country 
 banks was reduced 76 per cent, between the years 
 1819 and 1822; and the reduction of the entire 
 currency cannot be estimated at less than 50 per 
 cent, on the whole ; and yet, shall it be gravely 
 contended, that Mr. Ricardo was right, and that 
 prices only fell in the proportion of the fall of the 
 market price of gold to the mint price? The fact 
 is, that the price, not only of corn, but of commo- 
 dities generally, began to fall in 1819, and gradu- 
 ally settled down in proportion to the contraction 
 of the currency, until the year 1822. The dis- 
 tress, the failures, the general embarrassment, 
 which ensued, proceeding from the same cause 
 which produced the crisis in 1816, were again 
 removed by precisely the same remedy, which 
 then proved successful. Contraction of the cur- 
 rency had created the evil in both cases ; in both 
 cases also its expansion terminated it. But the 
 Government in the latter period adhered more 
 pertinaciously to their grand experiment. During 
 three years they remained firm to their purpose; 
 the bitter fruit of the system was tasted by all 
 classes — I am in error, when I say by all ; for
 
 50 
 
 amidst the ruin of the farmer and the manufac- 
 turer, the distress of landlords, and the insurrec- 
 tions of a populace without bread and without 
 employment, one class flourished and was trium- 
 phant ; the annuitant and the tax eater rejoiced 
 in the increased value of money ; in the sacrifice 
 of productive industry to unproductive wealth, 
 in the victory of the drones over the bees. 
 
 It is strange that the Landed Interest did not 
 then clearly perceive the total inadequacy of the 
 protection of the Corn Laws against a ruinous 
 fall of price occasioned by a great decrease of the 
 circulating medium. For protection could do no 
 more than give absolute monopoly, and the com- 
 mand of the supply, which they then enjoyed. 
 The crops of 1818, 1819, 1820, and 1821, had 
 been no more than an average* ; yet prices gradu- 
 ally fell from 83 to 43 a quarter ; and, the fur- 
 ther they receded from the opening of the ports, 
 the lower they became ; the universal complaint 
 of the petitioners from the agricultural districts, 
 in 1822, was their inability to paj' either rents or 
 taxes, while wheat continued as it then was, 
 under bOs. a quarter. Yet, for 150 years prior to 
 1793, 50s. was rather more than the average 
 price; and while gold is at £.3. 17s. lO^d. an 
 ounce, that wheat on an average, in a series of 
 years, must be under 50^. is as certain as the 
 revolution of the planets round the sun. 
 
 * Vide Joplin's Appendix, No. 14.
 
 51 
 
 The wavering policy of the Government in this 
 second crisis of 1822^ would also be remarkable, 
 had we not been accustomed to witness their com- 
 pliances, where vacillation is n)0st dangerous, 
 equalled only by their obstinacy, where concession 
 is most important. On the 15th of February of 
 that year, Mr. Huskisson, in his place, addresses 
 the House and says*, " If we are unable to rescue 
 " many Qf the victims from the ruin which depre- 
 " ciation, guaranteed by law, has brought on 
 *' them ; at least, let it be a warning never to be 
 '' forgotten against any future tampering vi'ith the 
 '* standard value of the currency." On April 2i)th^ 
 in two short months after this solemn declaration, 
 f Lord Londonderry, then the colleague of Mr. 
 Huskisson, introduces his measures intended for 
 the relief of the agricultural interest ; and he 
 dwells on the extension of the currency of the 
 Bank of England, and the consequent increase of 
 the country bank paper, as a principal source of 
 mitigation of the distress ; adniitting distinctly 
 the contraction of the currency caused by Mr. 
 Peel's Bill to have occasioned the fall in the price 
 of agricultural produce ; and in this very speech 
 he gives notice of the introduction of the Small 
 Note Act. 
 
 The avowed purpose of this Act was a fresh 
 tampering with the currency — a modification of 
 the Bill of 1S19; and its object, in which for a 
 
 * Vol. vi. p. 2.52. f Vol. vii. p. 157.
 
 52 
 
 time it succeeded, was an increase of the circula- 
 tion. Bj the Act of 1819;, all bankers were bound 
 to pay cash on demand for their notes, and to dis- 
 continue the issue of paper for any sum under five 
 poundsj after the year 1824. The inevitable con- 
 sequence of this impending necessity was a great 
 contraction of the paper, both of the Bank of En- 
 gland, and of the country banks, as evinced in the 
 last table ; the removal of this necessity was 
 calculated to act in an opposite direction, and to 
 produce the opposite effect of a very large increase. 
 To render this result more certain, the Government 
 applied even a new stimulus to circulation; they 
 abolished one of the principal safeguards which 
 existed even under the Restriction Act from 1797 
 to 1811, against the dangerous abuse of an un- 
 limited paper currency. 
 
 On the stoppage of cash payments by the Bank 
 of England in 1797, the 15th of George III. was 
 repealed, which prohibited the issue of bank notes 
 under <£.5, and private bankers were permitted to 
 circulate one and two pound notes : but every 
 holder of such notes was empowered to demand 
 payment in specie ; and in case of refusal for a 
 space of seven days, any magistrate was authorised 
 to levy the amount by distress on the goods of the 
 banker so refusing. This summary process was a 
 decided check on over issues. But in 1822, when 
 the Small Note Act was introduced, no clause of 
 this nature was inserted ; and a large majority.
 
 53 
 
 influenced by ministers, has since decided against 
 the re-establishment of this most effective and salu- 
 tary security, by which a redundant circulation 
 might have been averted. 
 
 The result at once answered the intention and 
 expectation of the Government ; and in spite of 
 Mr. Huskisson's warning, balanced indeed by his 
 own wavering, this second crisis of 1822 was 
 averted bv a second tampering with the currency, 
 and by its forced enlargement, just as the first crisis 
 in 1816 had been postponed by the adoption of 
 the same means. 
 
 But the mischief and horror of this sjstem 
 is, that it only mitigates the symptoms, without 
 eradicating the disease; it is an opiate, the 
 effect of which must in its nature be transitory, 
 and the convulsion always returns with increased 
 violence, and more fatal prognostics. Mark well 
 its effects from 1822 up to the present moment; 
 without the re-enactment of the Bank Restriction, 
 the Bank of England remains liable to pay its 
 notes in gold of standard weight and fineness; in 
 self defence, therefore, it must suddenly contract its 
 issues, from the moment that the exchanges begin 
 to turn. It is also worthy of remark, that since 
 the passing of Mr. Peel's Act, the market price of 
 gold has ceased to be any measure whatever of 
 depreciation ; for, as Mr. Tooke observes*, it 
 
 * Tooke on the State of Currency, p. 03. 
 £
 
 54 
 
 cannot now exceed the mint price, ** since, as long 
 " as the Bank is solvent, so long will coin be de- 
 " manded from the Bank, in preference to buying 
 '' bullion at the smallest advance on the mint 
 '' price of £.3. 17s. 10^^." The legal disqualifi- 
 cation of the coin for export, which has now 
 ceased, alone admitted of bullion being sold above 
 the mint price previous to 1797. 
 
 The only indications of excessive issues now 
 remaining are, the rate of the exchanges, and the 
 rise of prices in general ; of bread corn in parti- 
 cular, denominated, even by Mr. Horner himself, 
 the paramount standard of all value.
 
 55 
 
 TABLE IV. 
 
 < 
 > 
 
 verage amount of Bank 
 of England Notes in 
 Circnlatiou. (Mushet, 
 p. 141.) 
 
 dvances of Bank to Go- 
 vernment. (Parliamen- 
 tary Papers.) 
 
 mount of Country Bank 
 Notes in Circulation. 
 (Sedgwick's Table.) 
 (Mushet's Appendix, 
 No. 2.) 
 
 cr Centage of increase 
 of Country Bank Notes 
 compared with the year 
 preceding. 
 
 13 
 
 o 
 a> 
 
 'C 
 
 o. 
 
 V 
 
 fcfl 
 
 C3 
 
 tm 
 
 > 
 
 < 
 
 rices of the following 
 Articles (in bond), in 
 theirproperorder. Cot- 
 ton (Bowed) Georgia. 
 Iron Jiritisli, Tobacco 
 Virg. Ord. and Sugar. 
 (Tooke's Appendix, F.) 
 
 
 < 
 
 < 
 
 < 
 
 Ph 
 
 
 &i 
 
 
 £. 
 
 £. 
 
 £. 
 
 per cent. 
 
 *. 
 
 £. s. d. 
 
 1822 
 
 17,772,717 
 
 14,188,200 
 
 8,067,260 
 
 
 43 
 
 
 ( lOi 
 
 1823 
 
 • 18,603,302 
 
 15,319,316 
 
 8,798,277 
 
 9 
 
 51 
 
 1 7 
 i 3^ 
 C 1 18 2\ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 r 9| 
 
 1824 
 
 20,110,314 
 
 15,884,468 
 
 10,604,172 
 
 20A 
 
 62 
 
 1 11 
 ) 5i 
 ( 1 14 5i 
 
 C 1 6i 
 
 1825 
 
 19,092,095 
 
 19,679,288 
 
 14,147,211 
 
 33-^ 
 
 68 
 
 )]3 
 ) 61 
 C '' 5 2 
 
 
 (6th AprU) 
 
 (26th Feb.) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 18,261,100 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 (26th Aug.) 
 
 
 

 
 56 
 
 And here, once again, I have had recourse to 
 a Table (No. 4), which shows the average amount 
 of Bank of England notes in circulation, the state 
 of the advances from the Bank to the Govern- 
 ment, the amount of country bank notes in circu- 
 lation, the per centage of their annual increase, 
 the average price of wheat, and the highest prices 
 of cotton, iron, sugar, and tobacco, in the years 
 1823, 1824, and 1825. 
 
 From July 1822, to April 1825, the increase 
 to the general amount of the currency was 
 rapid and immense; and the expansion of the 
 country bank paper far exceeded the propor- 
 tion of the addition to the issues of the Bank 
 of England ; although this latter corporation 
 forced out its notes by every possible means, 
 however contrary to all sound principles of bank- 
 ing, by loans on mortgage, by loans on stock, by 
 the purchase of the dead weight annuity, by ad- 
 vances to Government to pay oflf dissentients on 
 conversion of the five per cents, into four, and by 
 a loan of two millions, at two and a half per cent., 
 to the East India Company*. Prices continued to 
 rise, notwithstanding an increase of supply ; the 
 crop of 1824 was superior, yet wheat became 
 dearer; importations from the colonies were im- 
 
 * It has been conjectured by Mr. Tooke, that the whole 
 amount of the circulating medium, on the average of four 
 months, ending April 1825, was little, if at all, short of 50 
 per cent, above what it had been in the corresponding period 
 of 1823. (Tooke on Currency, p. 53,)
 
 61 
 
 raense, jet sugar and tobacco rose in price ; fresh 
 capital was every month added to the iron trade, 
 yet the price of iron was doubled. The extension 
 of circulation had produced its usual effect of an 
 extension of credit abroad, and of an increased 
 foreign demand for our manufactures. But, in 
 August 1824, the foreign exchanges became unfa- 
 vourable, and continued so throughout the year 
 1825. The demand of gold at the Bank of 
 England for exportation was considerable ; and on 
 the 5th of January, 1825, gold, to the amount of 
 £.4,417,092, had been exported. In April the 
 Directors became alarmed ; and by a sale of ex- 
 chequer bills, in the course of three months, 
 to the amount of £.670,000, withdrew from 
 circulation three and a half per cent, of their 
 whole issues*. Money became scarce ; the ex- 
 changes improved, but credit failed. The 
 country bankers, deprived of accommodation in 
 London, greatly contracted their issues ; or, from 
 inability to meet their engagements, became insol- 
 vent. Confidence was every where destioyed ; 
 one-eighth of the English country banks were 
 ruined, and six of the London banks stopped pay- 
 ment. Terror prevailed ; credit was at an end ; a 
 contraction of the entire currency, ten times more 
 sudden than its extension, was the consequence. 
 Its increase had been progressive for two years ; its 
 annihilation was the work of a few weeks. 
 
 * Mushet on Currency, pp. 173, 174.
 
 58 
 
 And here we will pause for a moment, to con- 
 template the conduct of the Bank of England in 
 this great emergency. 
 
 In 1797, when the Government of this country 
 first began to identify itself with the Bank of 
 England, Mr Fox remarked*, with rare sagacity 
 and early foresight, " that the Bank Directors 
 " ought to do nothing inconsistent with the in- 
 " terests of the proprietors for whom they act. 
 " When theij consider the public interest, instead 
 " of that of the proprietors, they depart from their 
 " proper sphere. Let the functions of the Bank 
 *' and of the Parliament be kept distinct, and they 
 ** are both exercised to the public advantage. Let 
 *' the Directors pursue their private interests, and 
 '* attend to their own concerns ; let Parliament 
 " and ministers devote their attention to public 
 *' measures : this is an arrangement which suits 
 *' better with their respective objects, and con- 
 '^ duces best to their common ends; instead of 
 " that union of duties in which every thing is 
 '' confounded, and that distraction of pursuits in 
 " which every thing is destroyed." 
 
 This advice has been long forgotten, but the 
 warning has been verified. The power of in- 
 creasing and of diminishing at will the currency 
 of the country, which never has been entrusted to 
 the responsible ministers of the crown, is now 
 vested in persons not responsible to the Legislature 
 
 * Vol. xxxiii. p. 44, Par. Deb.
 
 59 
 
 or to the public, on whom the only possible check 
 must be their interest or their discretion. 
 
 The discretion of the Directors may be estimated 
 by the wisdom of their measures in 1824, and in 
 the beginning of 1825; when, notwithstanding 
 the fall of the exchanges, and the existence of a 
 rash spirit of speculation, clearly generated by a 
 redundant paper currency, they despised every 
 warning, and increased their paper issues to the 
 extent of eight per cent., as compared with 1823. 
 The drain of treasure from their coffers compelled 
 them at last to reduce the amount of their out- 
 standing paper, to the extent of three and a half 
 per cent., by the sale of exchequer bills. This 
 contraction caused a run on the country banks, 
 and a general alarm ; when, instead of increased 
 liberality for a short period in their discounts, 
 which might have arrested the panic, and allowed 
 the general contraction to be gradual, in the early 
 part of November last, they actually refused to 
 discount, in the ordinary course of trade, the 
 acceptances of some of the bankers of the best 
 established credit in the city. Fuel was thus 
 added to the flame : the Bank became alarmed 
 for its own safety : the rush for gold had com- 
 menced. Having created the evil, they sought 
 to repair it ; and the same men who, in No- 
 vember, refused discount on approved security, 
 in December added, with prodigality, eight mil- 
 lions to their issues.
 
 60 
 
 So much for their discretion. How stands their 
 interest ? It is directly at variance with that of 
 the public. Attention to the profits of the body 
 of proprietors is their first duty; and it must be 
 their obvious policy, as it has been their constant 
 practice, to push the circulation of their notes to 
 the utmost verge of safety, and suddenly to con- 
 tract it on the first warning of danger. The con- 
 traction of the issues in November was dictated 
 by a regard to their own interests ; the sudden 
 enlargement in December was forced by the con- 
 trolling power of the Government : the conflict 
 of such opposite principles produced unsteady 
 management ; and the mischievous consequences, 
 which flow from such conduct, shake even the 
 stability of the State itself. In the words of Lord 
 Grenville, " the utility of the Bank depends on 
 " its being kept distinct from the Government." 
 
 The efl^ects of this last convulsion have assumed 
 the appearance of a sickness unto death : and the 
 symptoms of 1816, and of 1820, 1821, and 1822, 
 have all returned in an aggravated shape. Prices 
 have fallen generally, and to a degree even then 
 unknown. With a contraction of our currency, a 
 demand for gold from abroad has arisen ; money 
 has become scarce, and prices, therefore, lower 
 among our foreign customers : the demand^ for 
 exports from hence is, therefore, proportionably 
 diminished : there is a glut in our markets : com- 
 merce is stagnated, manufactures suspended ;
 
 61 
 
 masters are without money, and men without 
 employment ; and ruin and insurrection stalk 
 throughout the land. 
 
 The price of wheat, which in the early part of 
 the present year fell 20 per cent., has lately risen, 
 and is now about 60s. a quarter ; but the very 
 fact of its rising in spite of diminished consump- 
 tion, while all other articles of first necessity are 
 cheaper, is an indisputable proof, that the cause 
 must be an inadequate supply. The stocks 
 of grain are low, the ports are closed, and 
 the produce of the last harvest, which was 
 rather below an average, came into use early, 
 and is considerably exhausted ; but let not the 
 landed interest vainly imagine that, secure under 
 the shelter of the Corn Laws, they can escape the 
 pelting of this pitiless storm. The same effects 
 nnust ever flow from the same causes : they have 
 the experience of 1816, and of 1822: the ap- 
 proach to the ancient standard in the one case, 
 brought ruin to their door ; in the other, its 
 complete restoration would have ground them to 
 powder, had not the Government relaxed its prin- 
 ciple, introduced the Small Note Act, augmented 
 the circulation, and thus raised the price of wheat 
 from 43s. in 1822, to 68s. in 1825. 
 
 But the prospective repeal of the Small Note 
 Act in this last session, — of that measure whereby 
 Lord Londonderry staved off the evil day, and 
 avowedly rescued the Land Owners from their fate, 
 coupled with the contraction of the currency now
 
 62 
 
 existing, and the precautions taken against its 
 future enlargement, inevitably tend^to give full 
 effect to Mr. Peel's Act of 1819, to render per- 
 manent the prices of 182^, and to bring back 
 the precise difficulties, and the same glaring in- 
 justice, which were then experienced. 
 
 The film, which now blinds the Land Owners 
 to the glaring light, in which their dangers are 
 visible, is, I apprehend, the existing price of farm 
 produce : but I have proved the fallacy of this 
 criterion, when it is remembered, that the two 
 ingredients which constitute price, are the value 
 of money, and the supply compared with the 
 demand. Money has greatly increased in value 
 within the last six months; the price of commo- 
 dities generally has fallen ; yet the price of wheat 
 continues almost unchanged : the demand noto- 
 riously is declining ; the supply must therefore be 
 deficient : and with confidence I repeat the asser- 
 tion, that the law, which fixes the standard of 
 value at £.3. lis. lO^d. and compels payment of 
 paper in specie on demand, establishes also bOs. a 
 quarter as the average maximum for wheat in a 
 series of years. I appeal to an entire century for 
 the proof, — from 1697 to 1793; for it is shown, 
 by the Eton College Tables*, that, for 150 years 
 prior to 1793, the average price of wheat, calcu- 
 lated in periods of 10 years, was about 5 Is. a 
 quarter. 
 
 * Par. Deb. vol. vii. p. 1602.
 
 63 
 
 With the same standard we must have the same 
 price; there is no escape from the dilemma: and 
 if the Land Owners would preserve their estates, 
 either the standard must be adjusted to their in- 
 cumbrances, or their incumbrances to the standard. 
 I have already spoken with perfect freedom of the 
 existing Corn Laws ; their effect on the price of 
 corn is now absolutely nugatory, excepting in 
 years of inadequate supply ; the?t their burthen 
 becomes intolerable to the consumer, and fatal 
 to the prosperity of the manufacturer. Public 
 opinion is strongly opposed to them ; in their 
 present shape, and with the present standard, 
 they may create famine ; they certainly estrange 
 the hearts of the people from the ancient pos- 
 sessors of the soil ; they are liable to be swept 
 away by force in a year of scarcity ; and im- 
 portation without protection may be established 
 on their ruins ; but on an average of years, 
 while Mr. Peel's Act remains unaltered, the mo- 
 nopoly, which they give, must be abortive in 
 raising prices. 
 
 Let me implore, therefore, the Land Owners 
 to abandon the futile attempt of artificially main- 
 taining high prices under the ancient standard ; 
 let them make a timely compromise with the 
 public, and take an ample, but fair, protecting 
 duty, with open ports, on the adnjission of foreign 
 corn ; a duty, equivalent to the burthens imposed 
 on the producers of corn in this country, to which 
 the consumers of corn arc not equally liable : and
 
 64 
 
 on the same principles, a drawback on exporta- 
 tion may be obtained. This concession will win 
 back the kindly feelings of the people ; and let 
 not the Land Owners lose this great advantage, — 
 let them rivet the gratitude of the community to 
 their cause ; let them exert all their power, and 
 insist on the revision of Mr. Peel's Act of 1819, — 
 an act no less fatal to the Land Owner than to 
 the payer of taxes, — an act now about to come into 
 full operation, — an act which, from its first intro- 
 duction, goaded the people to insurrection ; and 
 the returning influence of which has not failed 
 to produce the same alarming consequences. 
 Here the Land Owners may, with safety, make 
 their stand : the position is impregnable ; the 
 payers of taxes, the productive classes, are ready to 
 defend it : substantial justice is on our side ; and 
 who are they that are against us ? — the Annui- 
 tants^ the Fundholders, and the Economists ; a 
 body which the Land Owners, if true to them- 
 selves, and in concert with the people, cannot fail 
 to defeat. 
 
 It would be wise then carefully to review the 
 real effects of the measure of 1819, as bearing on 
 the Land Owner, the debtor, and the tax payer, 
 the classes which comprise the great bulk of the 
 community : and let us not be deluded by the 
 supposition, that the crisis is passed ; for it is only 
 in fact now commencing ; it was warded off in 
 1822; it is made inevitable by the repeal of the 
 Small Note Act, and by the destruction of the
 
 65 
 
 country bank paper ; the impossibility will soon 
 appear of fulfilling contracts in an increased mea- 
 sure of value, which were made in a depreciated 
 currency ; and of paying the same amount of taxes 
 out of the diminished profits of reduced capital. 
 
 An ounce of gold, from 1697 to 1793, would 
 have exchanged for a quarter and a half of wheat. 
 The average price of wheat, from 1797 to 1816, 
 was, for the whole period, 8 Is. lOd. ; and an 
 ounce of gold would only have exchanged for one 
 quarter of wheat. From the depreciation of 
 money, grain thus became of double value; and 
 the rental of land rose in an equal proportion. 
 But incumbrances were doubled also ; taxes were 
 quadrupled, and the situation of the Land Owner 
 was not really improved. But what is his state 
 now ? His rental is reduced, his fixed payments 
 remain the same ; and after an allowance for the 
 management of landed property, necessarily ex- 
 pensive, the w^^^ income of a Land Owner without 
 debt is always far below his nominal rental. But 
 the same nominal amount of money has a signifi- 
 cation now diflferent from that which it bore 
 during the long periods of depreciation ; during 
 those times, in which heavy taxes were imposed, the 
 civil list augmented, increased allowances granted 
 to all the public servants, and the whole expendi- 
 ture of the Government settled with a view to 
 this depreciation. So likewise in private life, 
 every mortgage was entered into, every jointure
 
 66 
 
 fixed, every portion for younger children estab- 
 lishedj with reference to this same depreciation. 
 More than all, an enormous sura was borrowed 
 by the nation, equal in amount to one half of our 
 mountain of debt, for every pound of which we 
 received about 15s., and are now required to pay 
 20s. The restoration of the standard has falsi- 
 fied all accounts. It gives the property of the 
 debtor to the creditor — of the Land Owner, to 
 those who have charges on his estate : it is a sure, 
 but a disguised method, by which all debts and all 
 taxes are increased ; confusion is its consequence 
 in all the relations of society ; for the nation is 
 unable to bear low prices and high taxes joined ; 
 " The taxes of the late war, combined with the 
 *' prices that preceded it ; the taxation of the paper 
 '' standard; the prices of the metal standard ; an 
 '^ amount of taxes, which could not have been 
 *' imposed in a bullion currency, a state of prices 
 *' which could not co-exist with large issues of 
 '' paper*." 
 
 Our present peace expenditure, in real money 
 value, is more than equal to the expenditure in 
 any average year of the last war. By the Fi- 
 nance Accounts of 1825 the sum raised within 
 the year^ ending 5th January, was £.52,803,300. 
 
 * I am indebted to Mr. Attwood's admirable speech on 
 Mr. Western's motion in 1823, not only for this sentence, but 
 for many of the strongest arguments which I have used on 
 this branch of the subject.
 
 67 
 
 The nominal amount of Taxes in 1813, an ex- 
 pensive year of the most expensive war, vt'as 
 £.81,745,000*. The average price of gold that 
 jear vj^as £.5. 6s. 2d.-\ per ounce, 36-^}^ per cent, 
 more than the Mint price : and this being the 
 admitted measure of depreciation at that time, 
 £.81,745,000 in the paper currency of 1813 is 
 only equal to £.52,236,000 in the metallic cur- 
 rency of 1825. Thus the taxation of 1824 was 
 in real value somewhat heavier than the taxation 
 of 1813. 
 
 The depreciation during the war has been esti- 
 mated by none at less than one-fourth, — by many, 
 and on the best grounds, at nearly one-half. Co 
 that from one-fourth, at the lowest, to one-half, 
 at the highest, the money value of every man's 
 property has been changed ; and contracts for 
 near a quarter of a century were founded on a 
 measure of value, depreciated to this extent. 
 But the public never obtain justice : they raised 
 pensions and salaries to meet this debasement to 
 its full amount; yet, on the restoration of the 
 standard, no correspondent reduction has taken 
 place. The salaries of the Judges were even 
 augmented last year : the Superannuation Act only 
 charges 10 per cent, on the salaries of official 
 men ; and the pay of the soldier, which, in 1 792 
 was %d, a-day, still remains at 1 3c?. This is the 
 
 • Vide Hansard's Par. Deb. vol. xiii. p. 14, Appendix. 
 •j" Edinburgh Review, No. Ixxii. p. 411.
 
 68 
 
 class to which the Bullion Committee alluded in^ 
 1810, when it foretold, " that there were public 
 *' servants, whose pay, if once raised, in conse- 
 " quence of depreciation, might not be so conve- 
 *' niently reduced to its former rate, even after 
 *' money shall have recovered its value," It is not 
 always easy to deal with armed men ; but there 
 are other servants of the Crown, some of whom 
 are the authors of these measures, whose salaries 
 have been increased ; and shall they be found 
 among the few who profit at the expense of the 
 community by this portentous change ? Every 
 rise in the value of money is an advance exactly 
 equal on all pay derived from the revenue, and 
 on all taxes borne by the people. 
 
 Already Mr. Peel's Bill has occasioned an im- 
 mense transfer of property : it has conferred 
 on the fundholder a benefit, to the extent of 
 the depreciation of the money which he ad- 
 vanced ; in many cases this is equal to 35 per 
 cent. But this rise of the fundlord is ef- 
 fected by ruin of the landlord. Estates, which 
 have been held from generation to generation in 
 the same family, are rapidly changing owners; 
 and as the country gentleman retires, the fund- 
 holder advances. The Government may view 
 the change with indifference ; the Treasury may 
 continue to receive its taxes ; bu^ it is hard that 
 the landed gentry should be driven from their 
 hereditary possessions for the sake of a bonus to
 
 69 
 
 the fundholder, to which he is hy no means 
 entitled. Both the nobility and gentry must fall 
 from their high estate under the operation of 
 this Act : their reduced rental njust be absorbed 
 in the necessary outgoings and fixed charges on 
 their property, and nothing ^vill be left to sustain 
 the dignity of their rank and station. 
 
 Whether v/e regard private debts, or public 
 burthens, the effects of the measure of 1819 have 
 been to enact, that for every less sum owing a 
 greater shall be paid : prices falling, but pecu- 
 niary engagements remaining undiminished, the 
 fanner has no profit, the landlord no rent, the 
 manufacturer no customer, the labourer no em- 
 ployment ; a revolution of property, and a de- 
 rangement of the whole frame of society, must 
 necessarily ensue. This effect was produced in 
 1S22 ; it was counteracted by the Small-Note Act 
 of that year, and with its prospective repeal the 
 same evil has reappeared. 
 
 It has been remarked by Mr. Hume, in his 
 Essay on Money, that the interval between a 
 decrease of the circulating medium and the ad- 
 justment of prices to a lower level, is always per- 
 nicious, in a peculiar degree, to industry. " The 
 " workman has not the same employment, though 
 " he pays the same price for every thing in the 
 *' market ; the farmer cannot dispose of his corn 
 " or cattle, though he must pay the same rent to 
 " his landlord ; the poverty, beggary, and sloth 
 
 F
 
 to 
 
 '' which must ensue are easily foreseen." Indus- 
 try, during this decline, is without employment, 
 and even labour without its just reward. 
 
 The price of provisions and the wages of la- 
 bour ultimately adjust themselves ; and the con- 
 dition of the labourer would then be the same as 
 it was before the diminution of the quantity of 
 money took place, if no tax existed on the neces- 
 saries of life. But in this country the articles of 
 most extensive consumption, such as tea, malt, 
 sugar, and tobacco, are taxed very heavily ; and 
 where taxation is mingled largely, the price can- 
 not fall materially ; the articles may cease to be 
 consumed, but they cannot become cheap. 
 
 Where taxes of this nature exist, the effect of 
 raising the value of money is essentially to de- 
 grade and to embitter the condition of the la- 
 bourer*. '' The wages of labour sink to the price 
 '* of corn; but the taxes remain, and must be 
 " paid out of diminished earnings." There can 
 be no doubt, that pauperism is the necessary effect 
 of heavy taxation : even during the increase of the 
 quantity of money (a period favourable to in- 
 dustry), the weight of taxation has exceeded the 
 effect of depreciation, and the comforts of the 
 working classes have diminished. In proportion 
 to the increase of the population, less malt, less 
 sugar, less tea, and less tobacco, were consumed 
 even in the prosperous year 1825, than in the 
 • Par. Deb. vol. vii. p. 1628.
 
 71 
 
 yea.TS immediately previous to 1793: and not- 
 withstanding the iryiproved management of the 
 poor rates under select vestries, the gross amount 
 is higher attliis moment than in 1814, — higher in 
 a restored, than in a depreciated currency ; and 
 the poor rates of England, which, at the com- 
 mencement of the reign of George III. amounted 
 only to £.600,000 per annum, average at this 
 moment six millions annually. 
 
 It is to 18^2 that we must look for the future 
 state of affairs under the operation of Mr. Peel's 
 Act ; it was not even then in full force, — it was 
 reserved for the measures of the last Session, 
 passed with the entire concurrence of the country 
 gentlemen, to establish it, as it exists at the pre- 
 sent moment — absolutely triumphant. 
 
 Mark what was the evidence of Mr. Hanning 
 before the Agricultural Committee of that year. 
 He was speaking of the county of Somerset, the 
 garden of England, and describing the condition 
 of the lower orders in that district, at that parti- 
 cular time; and his account is in unison with the 
 evidence given from other quarters with regard 
 to the condition generally of the labouring poor. 
 He says, " the small farmers and tradesmen are 
 " reduced to a scale of living little better than 
 " the labourers used to enjoy ; and the labourers 
 '* are now reduced to the necessity of living in a 
 " great degree on potatoes. In better times they 
 " were in the habit of consuming a certain quan-
 
 72 
 
 " tity of animal food, of bacon, or of cheese, 
 " which thej do not eat npw ; unquestionably 
 '^ within the last two years their condition is de- 
 " teriorated." This then is the sure effect, in 
 England, of low wages and high taxes ; but hear 
 the result in Ireland as detailed by Mr. Nolan, in 
 his evidence before the same Committee, a sum- 
 mary of which is thus powerfully conveyed in 
 the words of Mr. Attwood : — " In Ireland, distress 
 " is greatest when provisions are cheapest ; then 
 '' we see famine without dearth ; hunger amidst 
 '' superabundance of provisions ; farmers without 
 '' a market ; labourers without the means of 
 '' purchase. It was the fall of prices in which 
 *^ famine originated : that fall prevented the 
 " tenant from paying his rent ; then came the 
 " inferior landlord, bound by contract to the 
 " superior landlord, and consequently unable to 
 '' make any abatement. The ground landlord 
 *' himself, bound by debts and engagements, all 
 " founded on a state of high rents and high 
 '' prices, is equally unable to consent to a reduc- 
 *' tion. Then the miserable stock of the miserable 
 '* tenantry is seized ; then the labourer is left des- 
 *' titute without employment, and then ensues a 
 '* scene of famine and despair, of tumult and of 
 *' bloodshed, suppressed by military force." 
 
 I will not pursue further this branch of the 
 subject, nor drive home the application, which is 
 obvious, of so painful a recital to the existing
 
 73 
 
 state of our manufacturing population ; it is 
 enough for me to have shown, both from theory 
 and repeated experience, that sudden contractions 
 of the currency, with a fall of . wages, and with- 
 out a diminution of taxation, cannot fail to pro- 
 duce anarchy and want throughout the working 
 classes of our community. 
 
 It is impossible to perpetuate in this country any 
 legislative enactment, the tendency of which is to 
 degrade and to impoverish the labouring classes ; 
 yet such is the decided effect both of our present 
 Corn Laws, and of Mr. Peel's Act of 1819, unac- 
 companied by an adjustment of contracts, or ade- 
 quate reduction of indirect taxes. The paramount 
 duty of every Government is attention to the 
 interests of the community, of which the labourers 
 must form the great njajority ; the right of pro- 
 perty itself is instituted for the good, not of the 
 few who possess wealth and honours, but of the 
 many who have them not; if the majority be 
 deeply injured, the public peace is in danger ; if 
 the majority want food, private property becomes 
 a nuisance. 
 
 Nor are the fatal effects of the sudden contrac- 
 tion of the currency peculiar to our time or 
 country ; for in France, under Louis XIV, 
 when the currency had been depreciated 27 per 
 cent., and when an attempt was made to restore 
 its value by reducing its amount, we find that the
 
 74 
 
 remedy was worse than the disease ; that universal 
 distress was the consequence ; that all pecuniary 
 contracts which had been previously made*, were 
 raised one-third against the party who had to pay 
 the money ; that the restoration of full value was 
 a death blow to the debtor ; that the people were 
 reduced to despair by the efforts of the Govern- 
 ment to draw all the monies to themselves ; and 
 that there was scarcely a proprietor of land who 
 did not see his patrimony melt away, without pos- 
 sessing the slightest means of prevention. 
 
 This is the present fate of the Land Owners of 
 this country ; they are striving in vaiii against 
 engagements which they cannot meet. Creditors 
 in general receive an undue proportion of earnings; 
 and a sure, but destructive revolution, is in pro- 
 gress, by which, if it be not arrested, the ancient 
 aristocracy of these realms must ultimately be 
 sacrificed to creditors and annuitants. 
 
 The inconsistency of Mr. Huskisson on these 
 subjects has been most flagrant: in 1815, when 
 the Corn Laws were under discussion, we find him 
 asserting, that corn in England must, and ought 
 to be dear, as long as the country had to pay the 
 existing taxes ; that there could be no rent, if 
 corn were not of a high price ; and that it was 
 
 * Lord John Russell, vol. vi. p. 575. Par. Deb. New 
 Series.
 
 75 
 
 the dutv of Parliament to uphold the landlord. I 
 have already shown, that, allowance being made for 
 the altered value of the currency, the present load 
 of taxation, notwithstanding its nominal decrease, 
 is, in real value, quite as oppressive as the imposts 
 of 1815. The labours of Mr. Huskisson are now, 
 however, directed, not to the remission of taxes, 
 not to the curtailment of expenditure, but to the 
 raising of the same revenue by better fiscal regu- 
 lations, and to the maintenance of the expenses of 
 the Government on a scale annually increasing ; 
 while he receives an augmentation of his nominal 
 salary, he is bent even on enhancing the real value 
 of money ; and, having ceased to regard the for- 
 tunes of the Land Owner, he forgets his own 
 maxim, that corn must not be cheap, and taxes 
 heavy, at the same time. 
 
 Affain, in I S'; 3, "Mr. Huskisson admitted, 
 *' that great injur?/ was sustained hy those landed 
 *^ proprietors whose prc^pertirs were burthened by 
 ''acts over which they had no controul, and 
 " also by persons who had mortgaged one estate 
 " to purcha-e another. For their misfortunes 
 ** there seems to be no remedy. The parties so 
 " situated were bound to abide the consequence of 
 " such a speculation." To this class he was 
 bound in justice to have added persons who had 
 mortgaged a part of their estate to improve the 
 cultivation of the whole ; and then, I verily be- 
 lieve that nine-tenths of the Land Owners of this
 
 76 
 
 United Empire, peers as well as commoners, are 
 included in this description. 
 
 In the session of 1794-5, on the motion of Sir 
 John Sinclair, in the House of Commons,, '*^ It was 
 " resolved unanimously, to promote the improve- 
 '*■ ment of the waste and unproductive lands of the 
 " country, as a most essential puhlic advantage." 
 
 This unanimous resolution stands unrepealed. 
 So does the resolution of 181 1^ — the eternal 
 monument of Mr. Vansittart's fame, — a vote 
 in which a large majority declared, that the 
 one-pound note at that time was worth twenty 
 shillings ; that things unequal in value in the raar- 
 ketj were equal in public estimation. On the 
 faith of these resolutionsj to which Parliament 
 remains pledged, stimulated by the false abundance 
 of capital, and fearing nothing from a depreciation 
 so solemnly denied, the Land Owners expended 
 immense sums in the improvement of waste land, 
 and burthened their estates for a purpose which 
 the Legislature declared to be ^' of essential pub- 
 lic advantage :" and shall this same Legislature 
 now bid the owners of the soil abide the conse- 
 quences of theirspeculation, — a speculation fostered 
 by Parliament, and by Parliament made ruinous ? 
 Is the day arrived, when a minister of the crown 
 can contemplate with complacency the destruction 
 of an entire class, and that class the Land Owners 
 of these realms ? For I protest, that the number 
 of proprietors, with estates unencumbered, forms
 
 77 
 
 so small a minorftv, as to make Mr. Huskisson's 
 description, for all practical purposes, a designa- 
 tion of the whole body. 
 
 Yet this is the gentleman who in the same year 
 asserted, that " if he could believe there was the 
 " slightest foundation for the fear that the restored 
 " value of the currency would ruin the aristocracy, 
 " and tear them from their paternal estates, the evil 
 " was of so grave a nature, that he would be pre- 
 *■' pared to seek a remedy at whatever risk." No 
 doubt the aristocracy is an object of tender care to 
 this gentleman ; but they amply deserve what 
 they will suffer, if they trust their interests io his 
 keeping. 
 
 The third resolution carried by Mr. Vansittart 
 in 181 1, stands on the journals of the House of 
 Commons, a public record ; and it avers, " that 
 '' the promissory notes of the Bank of England 
 *' have hitherto been, and are at this time, held in 
 " public estimation to be equivalent to the 
 '' legal coin of the realm, and generally accepted 
 '• as such in all pecuniary transactions, to which 
 " such coin is lawfully applicable." Both Lord 
 Castlereagh, and also Mr. Perceval, who then was 
 prime minister, gloried so triumphantly in the un- 
 limited issue of paper, that Mr. Canning observed 
 at the time, in his admirable reply, that in the 
 view of the supporters of Mr. Vansittart's resolu- 
 tion (who were by the way a very large majority), 
 " the Bank restriction had become the staple
 
 78 
 
 " resource of our pecuniary system ; that it was 
 " avowed as the standing policy of the state ; to 
 *' be prized as an invention longdesired^ and now 
 " happily found, for supplying boundless exertion 
 *' with inexhaustible and unexhausting finances." 
 Mr. Perceval even went the full length of con- 
 tending, that a reduction of the paper currency 
 would change the value of existing contracts, and 
 would throw into confusion every pecuniary trans- 
 action, from the rent of the landlord down to the 
 wages of the peasant and artisan ; upon which 
 Mi". Canning exclaims, *' Good God ! What is 
 *' this but to say, that the system of irredeemable 
 '' paper currency must continue for ever f" Mr. 
 Tierney, also, on the same occasion observes, ''that 
 " an unlimited issue of paper had at first been 
 " proposed as a measure of lecessity — now it was 
 " supported as a system of public advantage." 
 Sir Francis Burdett also forcibly applied to the 
 paper system, as then established, the inscription 
 on the gates of Dante's hell, which bids all those 
 who enter, leave the hope of return behind ; and 
 he foretold, most distinctly, the impossibility of 
 returning to a sound state of the currency, with- 
 out these collateral safeguards, the whole of which 
 were omitted in 1819 ; and he foresaw, even in 
 181 1, the inability of the country to pay in sound 
 coin, of standard value, the large pensions and 
 salaries existing at that time, together with the 
 pay of the army and navy, and the interest of the
 
 19 
 
 debt, swollen (o its present enormous magnitude ; 
 the whole of which were established with the view 
 to a progressive state of depreciation. 
 
 Yetj notwithstanding these warnings, and the 
 admissions of the Government, not founded in 
 error, but accurate in the extreme, that a diminu- 
 tion of the currency would occasion a fall of 
 prices, to the entire subversion of existing con- 
 tracts, ''the convulsion of public credit, and the 
 '' probable interruption of national industry*," 
 Mr. Vansittart's resolution, negativing deprecia- 
 tion, was carried, and is unrepealed. 
 
 If such then were the approved merits of the 
 paper system, and such the danger of a return to 
 a metallic currency, announced by a leading 
 minister of the crown, and backed by a solemn 
 decision of the House of Commons ; and if, by 
 repeated acts of the Legislature, the resumption of 
 cash payments was postponed, as it were, indefi- 
 nitely, even long after the conclusion of the war, 
 the limit once assigned ; who can with justice 
 blame the Land Owner, when, relying on the 
 pledged opinion of the Government, sanctioned by 
 Parliament itself, he did not anticipate the return 
 to a metallic currency, but fearlessly continued to 
 buy, sell, mortgage, portion, jointure, and con- 
 tract^ in an inconvertible paper currency, which 
 
 • These were the very words used by the late Lord Lon- 
 donderry.
 
 80 
 
 he was justified in considering permanent, and 
 which the House of Commons had declared not to 
 be depreciated ? 
 
 The Land Owner was thus beguiled into bor- 
 rowing to an amount on which he never wouW 
 have ventured, could he have foreseen the fall of 
 the price of wheat to 43^. a quarter ; and this 
 was the average of the year 1822. 
 
 In 1812, the year after the resolution of the 
 House of Commons which negatived the depre- 
 ciation of bank paper, the average price of wheat 
 was 125s. a quarter. A prudent Land Owner 
 might then reasonably have calculated on a pro- 
 bable fall from 125 to 70 or SO, after the return 
 of peace ; but notwithstanding the false denial 
 contained in Mr. Vansittart's resolution, the cur- 
 rency at that very moment was depreciated 30 per 
 cent. ; and, acting under the delusion practised 
 on him by Parliament, the Land Owner never ad- 
 verted, in the valuation of his property, to this 
 appalling circumstance, but borrowed and pro- 
 vided for his wife and children, estimating the one- 
 pound note to be worth 20s. when in reality it was 
 worth but 14s. : but now, either he or his heir is 
 compelled to pay the debt, or to satisfy the settle- 
 ment, not in a currency depreciated SO per cent, but 
 in coin restored to the ancient standard value. The 
 proprietor dying, or coming to a new settlement 
 by deed with his eldest son, at any period between 
 1809 and 1814, may have charged his property to
 
 81 
 
 the extent of one half of the then rental, leaving, 
 as he imagined, a large income for his heir in the 
 residue of the rent. The natural fall of prices, 
 after the transition from war to peace, might have 
 reduced his income to a considerable extent; vet, 
 all articles of general consumption falling propor- 
 tionally, the heir in possession might be able to 
 maintain his place in society. But in addition to 
 this natural fall, comes the artificial one, arising 
 from the Bill of 1819, which, by decreasing the 
 quantity of money, lowers the price of wheat, and 
 by restoring the standard, adds to the value of 
 money. The decline of price bears down with it 
 the rental : the restored value of monev adds to 
 the fixed incumbrances ; and thus the nett income 
 may be merged in the rent charge upon it, and 
 the unhappy owner be either destitute, or depen- 
 dant on the good will of his creditors and relations. 
 Cases of this nature are not imaginary ; they are 
 to be met with at every turn, in every part of the 
 country. Their hardship of course will vary in 
 degree, according to the period of the deprecia- 
 tion when the fixed incumbrances were imposed. 
 
 I will suppose a case of the head of a family 
 dying in 1813, and leaving a rental of £.5,000 a 
 year to his eldest son, with a jointure to his widow 
 of £.1,000 a year, and a rent charge in the shape 
 of annuities to younger children, to the extent of 
 £.1,500 a year more. The father had made his
 
 will in 1792, and under that will had assigned to 
 his widow i^.50O a _year, and to- his ^'ounger chil- 
 dren an annuity of £.750 ; but the rental of the 
 property was then only £.3,000 per annum : with 
 the depreciation of the war the rental rose, before 
 IS 1 3, to £.5,000 a year; and the proprietor, revoke 
 inghis former will in the year of his death, doubled 
 his wife's jointure,, and the annuities of his younger 
 children. The mint price of gold that year was 
 £.5. lOi'. per ounce ; and consequently the depre- 
 ciation of paper 41 per cent. Nothing could be 
 more fair than this increase to the family burthens, 
 at the time when it was made^ and according to 
 the rate of the then existing prices ; but the change 
 has proved ruinous to the heir ; the Legislature 
 itself has defrauded him ; the depreciation by 
 which his father was deceived in 1813, is now not 
 only avowed, but remedied, by Act of Parliament ; 
 the annuitants on his estate enjoy their double 
 incomes, and pay their half prices ; he receives his 
 half rental, and pays the double annuity. What 
 then is the alternative which presents itself? 
 Either he must drag out a degraded existence oa 
 his paternal estate, exercising no more the hospi- 
 tality of his ancestors, but gleaning from his 
 tenantry their earnings or their savings, himself the 
 hated steward of the annuitant and mortgagee ; 
 or, unlike the country gentleman of England in 
 ao happier day« be must leave his native home^
 
 8:^ 
 
 become a wanderer abroad, or a jobber, a share 
 dealer, a placeman in the metropolis. He may 
 sell his estate indeed, but 
 
 ■ " Jlvt pervenimus, advena nostri, 
 
 " Quod nunquam veriti sumus, ut possessor agelli 
 " Diceret, haec mea sunt, veteres migrate coloni ?" 
 
 This would be considered only as a transfer of 
 property ; but what agony of mind does that 
 word convey ? The snapping of a chain, linked 
 perhaps by centuries ; the destruction of the 
 dearest local attachments, the dissolution of the 
 earliest friendships, the violation of the purest 
 feelings of the heart. Politicians and philoso- 
 phers may talk coldly of the transfer of old family 
 estates, of throwing immense tracts of the inferior 
 soil out of cultivation, of burying for ever the 
 immense capital expended on it, and of the trans- 
 fusion of an agricultural into a manufacturing 
 population ; but let them remember the ties which 
 must be broken, the villages which must be de- 
 serted, the gardens to be laid desolate, the second 
 nature of habits which must be altered, the hearts 
 which must sink, and the hands which may 
 rebel, under trials such as these : — let them pause 
 before they commence the experiment. Let 
 them hearken to the warning voice of Mr. 
 Brougham, himself a giant in their ranks, who, 
 when contemplating this very change, which had 
 been termed the ruin of the landed interest, with 
 equal truth and eloquence observes, that it is not
 
 84 
 
 meant that " the proprietors would be destroyed, 
 " that the land would become sterile, or sink in the 
 " sea, and the owners be exterminated. No : 
 '' what is to be understood by the ruin of a great 
 " class, and by the destruction of the most com- 
 " manding interest in the country, is shortly this : 
 " a great change of property ; much individual 
 " misery ; the whole relations of the class de- 
 *' stroyed, or the relations of that class to the rest 
 " of society, and of its members to each other. 
 " Such may be called the destruction of a class ; 
 *' when it happens to a community, it becomes 
 '' the destruction of a state." 
 
 Every man, of any degree of authority, has ad- 
 mitted distinctly that he under-rated, in 1819, 
 the pressure which the return to the ancient 
 standard would occasion ; and so little was the 
 effect of Mr. Peel's Bill understood, that, in the 
 very session of Parliament in which it passed, 
 three millions of new taxes were imposed, although 
 10 per cent, was admitted by Mr. Ricardo to 
 have been added to the previous burthen, and ex- 
 perience has since demonstrated that the real addi- 
 tion approached much nearer to 40. And shall 
 the Land Owners of this United Kingdom tamely 
 acquiesce in the operation of a measure, the 
 nature of which was not understood even by those 
 who advocated it, but the eflfect of which has 
 proved more burthensome than its supporters 
 contemplated, or the nation can bear ? Let me
 
 85 
 
 entreat them to depart from their usual course of 
 awaiting the event: a great and an immediate 
 effort is necessary to burst the cord now drawn so 
 tight around them ; — if they hesitate, they will be 
 entangled in such complicated difficulties, that 
 resistance and escape will soon be alike impossible. 
 
 The major part of the jointures and portions, 
 fixed previous to 1797, must have now expired ; 
 and the settlements which are at present in opera- 
 tion, have, in most cases, been framed on the 
 scale of high prices, and of a depreciated currency. 
 The reduction of the landlord's rent since the 
 passing of Mr. Peel's Act, in 1819, has been, on 
 the average, at least thirty per cent. ; the addition 
 to the debts, the mortgages, the settled incum- 
 brances on his property, is equal to the increased 
 value of money, which, with Mr. Baring, I am 
 disposed to estimate at thirty per cent, or even 
 with Mr. Attwood, at a higher rate. Mr. Peel's 
 Bill never would have passed if these effects 
 had been foreseen. 
 
 At that time, it would have been infinitely 
 more just to have established a new standard of 
 value. Whether we regard the tremendous public 
 debt contracted, the pay of public servants in- 
 creased, and the taxes consequently imposed, in 
 the twenty-two years of uninterrupted depreciation ; 
 or whether we contemplate the extensive private 
 engagements formed within that period and 
 remaining now to be fulfilled, we can only arrive 
 at the conclusion, that the Bill of 1819 was 
 
 G
 
 86 
 
 founded on error, and that injustice is its conse- 
 quence. 
 
 The holders of Stock, created prior to 1797, 
 must be very few ; and they who sold out during 
 the war, and invested their depreciated capital in 
 land or trade, are now receiving the full measure 
 of injustice ; depreciation defrauded them as pub- 
 lic creditors ; the restoration of the standard now 
 oppresses them as tax-payers and public debtors. 
 
 But the ancient landlord's position is still more 
 hopeless : in addition to the public burthens, he is 
 required to meet with a reduced rental an in- 
 creased charge : ruin must be his fate : his tenants 
 and his labourers will sink with him ; the former 
 from the weight of their fixed engagements ; the 
 latter from want of employment, and a fall of 
 wages greater than the reduction of taxation. In 
 such a state of affairs we must come to a tenantry 
 without capital or loao*, and to a population 
 eking out existence by potatoes. 
 
 Every landlord who grants a lease, delivers 
 over his valuable property for a term of years, 
 relying on the confident assurance, which the laws 
 confirm, that he shall be permitted to receive 
 the stipulated equivalent in value throughout the 
 duration of the term. Any alteration in the 
 value of the currency destroys the equity of the 
 agreement ; if it be an act of the Legislature, the 
 injustice is accomplished by an ex 'post facto law. 
 No reasonable man, be he landlord, or be he 
 tenant, can place his dependence on the faith of
 
 87 
 
 contracts which the caprice of the Government, 
 or the fleeting interests of the Bank of England, 
 may render ruinous or advantageous, contrary to 
 the just intention of the contracting parties. A 
 lease is now a gambling policy of insurance on 
 the value of the currency for a given period, 
 and, in fact, the loss eventually and invariably 
 falls on the landlord ; for if, during the currency 
 of the lease, the coin be depreciated, the tenant 
 adheres to his bargain, and derives the entire 
 profit; if the value of the currency be re- 
 stored, then, as we have lately seen in 1821 and 
 1822, the strict letter of the lease is of no avail 
 to the landlord : the tenant becomes insolvent, 
 and the contract is abrogated ; or the force of 
 public opinion, in this country more powerful 
 than law, compels the landlord to reduce the 
 rent to the full amount of the altered value of 
 money ; and every such alteration, therefore, is cer- 
 tain loss to him. It is not here my purpose to 
 enlarge on the advantages which flow from leases 
 for a term of years ; the high honour and fair 
 dealing of the old hereditary English landlord, 
 in happier times, may have superseded their ne- 
 cessity; but in these mercantile days of heavy 
 losses and immense profits, whilst almost every 
 man, to retain his station in society, is driven to 
 shifts and to expedients, it is impossible to ex- 
 pect that great capital should be invested in the 
 improved cultivation of the soil, unless the pro- 
 fits of such speculation be secured for a stated
 
 88 
 
 period; and the returns from land being slow, 
 that period must be distant. During the term, 
 the tenant reaps the profit, — at the expiration of 
 it, the landlord receives back his property, im- 
 proved in value ; yet, after the recent and dread- 
 ful lessons of legislative injustice which have 
 marked the frequent tampering with our currency, 
 land must be occupied from year to year. Land- 
 lords will fear to assign their property for a 
 larger term ; no man will buy, no man will sell, 
 DO man will improve land, until, after a solemn 
 revision, the whole system of our currency and of 
 our Corn Laws has been placed on a solid ground, 
 affording fixed security of future value. 
 
 The fall, also, in the nominal value of wages, 
 without a reduction of taxes, degrades, as I have 
 shown, the situation of the labourer, whether he 
 be agricultural or manufacturing ; for money earn 
 ings are diminished by the restored value of cur- 
 rency, while money burthens are proportionally 
 increased. And I have proved, that no diminu- 
 tion of taxation has taken place, since 1819, at 
 all equal to counterbalance the weight added to 
 the load by the increased value of money. 
 
 What, then, must happen on the recurrence of 
 war ? Either the debt must be obliterated, or an 
 unlimited issue of paper must be resumed ; and, 
 amidst all the horrors of the French revolution, 
 the assignats are the beacon most to be avoided, 
 Would it not then be wise to avert this alterna- 
 tive. Self-preservation is the first law of states, at
 
 well as of individuals—the unalienable right of 
 everj coramunity. An invasion is threatened ; 
 febeFlion rages ; the burthen of taxation becomes 
 intolerable ; the means of safety are in the hands 
 ef the Government : the njoney provided for the 
 quarterly dividend is lying in the Exchequer ; and 
 then, in the prophetic words of Mr. Hume, 
 *' Necessity calls, fear urges, reason exhorts, 
 ** compassion alone exclaims : — the money will be 
 " seized for the current service, perhaps under 
 *' solemn protestations of being immediately re- 
 *' placed. But no more'is requisite. The whole 
 " fabric, already tottering, falls to the ground, 
 *' and buries thousands in its ruins. This may 
 " be called the natural death of public credit ; for 
 " to this period it tends as naturally as an animat 
 '' body to its dissolution and destruction." The 
 interest, therefore, of the creditor must urge him to 
 compound with the debtor before he drive him to 
 desperation. To-day, while it is called to-day, 
 fie may obtain reasonable terms and secure his 
 property in peace; but a little while, and the 
 opportunity will be gone. " The public is a 
 '* debtor, whom no man, and no body of men, 
 " can oblige to pay. Present necessity forces 
 ** states into measures against their interests ; and 
 " the interest of preserving credit, the only in- 
 *' terest binding on the public debtor, may easily 
 ** be over-balanced by the amount of the debt 
 '' and by a difficult emergency." 
 At the close of the war, when prices began to
 
 90 
 
 fall, in consequence of the contraction of the cur- 
 rency of the Bank of England, Mr. Malthus 
 avowed his opinion, tliat great injustice would be 
 consummated, if the national debt were not ad- 
 justed according to these prices, as by a standard. 
 His words are of such importance, and embrace 
 so fully Ihe doctrines for which I venture to con- 
 tend, that I may, perhaps, be excused for quoting 
 them at length : '' If the price of corn were to 
 *' fall to 50.*^. a quarter, and labour and other 
 '' commodities nearly in proportion, there can be 
 " no doubt that the stock bolder would be bene- 
 " fited unfairly at the expense of the industrious 
 '" classes of society. During the 20 years, begin- 
 '^ ning with 1791, and ending with 1813, 
 " the average price of wheat was about 83s. ; 
 '' during lOyears, ending with 1813, 92s.; and 
 " during the last five years of this same 20, the 
 *^ price was 108s. In the course of these 20 
 " years. Government borrowed near 500 millions 
 " of real capital, exclusive of the sinking fund, at 
 ^' the rate of about 5 per cent, interest. But if 
 '' corn shall fall to 50s. a quarter, and other com- 
 *' modities in proportion, instead of an interest 
 '' of 5 per cent., the Government will really pay 
 '' an interest of 7, 8, and 9, and for the last 200 
 " oiiilions, of 10 per cent. 
 
 " This must be paid by the industrious classes 
 *' of society, and by the landlords ; that is, by all 
 " those whose nominal incomes vary with the 
 *^ variations in the measure of value; and if we
 
 91 
 
 *' completely succeed in the reduction of the price 
 " of corn and labour, this increased interest must 
 *' be paid in future from a revenue of about half 
 " the nominal value of the national income in 
 '' 1813. If we consider with what an increased 
 " weight the taxes on tea, sugar, malt, soap, 
 *' candles, &c. would in this case bear on the 
 *' labouring classes of society ; and what propor- 
 '*■ tion of their income all the active industrious 
 " middle orders of the State, as well as the 
 " higher orders, must pay, in assessed taxes and 
 " the various articles of custom and excise, the 
 " pressure will appear to be absolutely intolerable. 
 *' Indeed, if the measure of value were really to 
 *' fall as we have supposed, there is great reason 
 *' to fear that the country would be absolutely 
 " unable to continue the 'payment of the present 
 " interest of the national debt.'''' The case which 
 Mr. Malthus here supposes, is now actually 
 realised. Corn, the measure of value, to which 
 he refers, fell in 1822 to 405. a quarter, and this 
 was a scale of reduction lower even than he con- 
 templated. I have endeavoured to prove, that this 
 was the inevitable consequence of Mr. Peel's Act 
 of 1819; that the subsequent rise of price arose 
 only from the enlargement of currency occasioned 
 by the Small Note Act, passed in 1822 ; that the 
 repeal of this last measure, and the full operation 
 of Mr, Peel's enactment, must of necessity bring 
 back the prices of 1822 ; that the opinion of a
 
 93 
 
 deficient supply, recently confirmed by the asser- 
 tionsof theGovernment, alone has prevented the fall 
 to this scak at the present nooment ; and that^ the 
 value of money being the same, the price of wheat 
 must on an average, and permanently, be the 
 same, as it remained in this country from 1688 to 
 1792; this average price I have proved, on con- 
 clusive evidence, to be 50s. a quarter ; but the 
 substitution of gold alone, for gold and silver 
 conjointly, has raised the standard even still higher 
 than it was fixed in the reign of King William ; 
 and of course the natural tendency of price will 
 be to sink to a still lower level — 45s. a quarter, 
 therefore, under the system of money now sought 
 to be established, must be our maximum in a, long 
 series of years. All the reasoning of Mr. Malthus 
 raay be applied, then, with truth, to the existing 
 state of affairs; and we are on the very eve of that 
 juncture, " When we shall be absolutely unable 
 " to continue the payment of the present interest 
 *' of the national debt." 
 
 The parliamentary pledge so frequently given, 
 and at last so fatally redeemed, of returning to 
 cash payments at the end of the war, was broken 
 at the peace of Amiens by Lord Sidmouth, not- 
 withstanding the entreaty of the Bank Directors, 
 to be allowed at that time to resume their pay- 
 ments in specie ; and though the war ended in 
 1815, no step was taken towards the resumption 
 of cash payments till 1819; but Mr. Vansittart's
 
 93 
 
 resoIutioQ of 181 1^ which stands unrepealed on 
 the journals^ must be held to be a legislative 
 assurance^ still in full force, that no debtor would 
 be required to pay more than he had contracted 
 for during the war, or more than he had received. 
 
 The resolution, unrepealed, must be allowed at 
 least to balance the enactment so often broken ; 
 and when Mr. Peel passed his bill in 1819, he did 
 not venture to touch Mr. Vansittart's resolution : 
 the Land Owner was not, therefore, conscious of 
 the real nature of the bargain which he made ; it 
 was obtained under false pretences ; it was adopted 
 in delusion ; and equity forbids (whatever cre- 
 ditors may have suffered during the war), that 
 debtors should be permanently oppressed by the 
 effects of the restoration of the standard, which a 
 false resolution of the House of Commons de- 
 clares never to have varied. 
 
 It is not attempted to deny, that some injustice 
 luust be the result of any effort to remedy the 
 existing evil ; but when the currency of a country 
 has once been depreciated by the acts of its Legis- 
 lature, perfect justice to aU becomes absolutely 
 hopeless. The only question left is, how shall the 
 greatest sum of injustice be avoided ? 
 
 The acts of 1797, and of 1819, were equal 
 violations of property, an equal interference with 
 pre-existent contracts ; the one was a fraud on 
 creditors, the other a fraud on debtors. The 
 spoliation which has been effected cannot now be
 
 94 
 
 redressed, but its progress may be arrested : we 
 may stay the hand of the destroyer, and save the 
 class last robbed from utter ruin. The time 
 elapsed since 1819, may render it on the whole 
 perhaps inexpedient again to depreciate the 
 standard ; for, to use the words of Mr, Baring, 
 '^ in questions of currency, time is every thing." 
 Having re-adopted the ancient standard now for 
 seven years, should we not, by a fresh depreciation, 
 wantonly disturb the contracts made within that 
 period, and at the expense of fresh injustice, 
 obtain only a partial remedy for antecedent 
 wrong ? 
 
 An equitable adjustment of contracts must be 
 admitted to be impossible. The individuals con- 
 stituting the great body of debtors and creditors, 
 are changing day by day ; one man made the ori- 
 ginal contract ten years ago, and another has 
 purchased the annuity within the last ten days : a 
 transfer also has probably taken place repeatedly 
 in the interval ; and the pound note may have 
 varied in value, according to the date of. each 
 transaction, from 14 shillings up to 20. 
 
 It was observed by Mr. Fox, on the passing of 
 the Bank Restriction Act in 1797*, ''that he 
 '' who talks of positive plans to go at once to the 
 *' disease, who hopes to produce great good 
 " without hazarding some evil, is not the person 
 
 * Vol. xxxiii. p. 44. Par. Deb.
 
 95 
 
 *' from whom, in a situation like the present, 
 '' much advantage is to be expected. AH that is 
 " left, is a choice of evils. He that talks rationally 
 " will rejoice if he can discover a remedy that, 
 '' with a mixture of evil, will be able to overcome 
 '' the mortality of the disease." And this is again 
 our sad predicament : it is the most fatal part of 
 the accumulated misfortunes of our situation, that 
 it is impossible to embrace any remedy applicable 
 to the evil, on the one hand, without also com- 
 mitting some injury on the other. 
 
 I will not, therefore, attempt to deny, that the 
 course which I shall presume to recommend to the 
 Land Owners, is open to grave objections, and 
 that it must produce considerable injustice ; but if 
 it save the Aristocracy — if it save the Landed In- 
 terest, it will also restore vigour to our commerce 
 and plenty to our labouring poor ; it will inflict 
 partial injury on a few, but it will bestow lasting 
 benefit on the community. 
 
 I will assume, that I have proved the impolicy 
 of our Corn Laws, and the injurious effects inhe- 
 rent in the Paper System, creating at one time aa 
 unsound prosperity, and producing at another 
 unnatural depression ; a system which makes 
 value uncertain, and prosperity precarious ; which 
 forces speculation and over-trading, and in its re- 
 action, during the stagnation of trade and manu- 
 factures, causes that general want of employment 
 which, at this awful crisis, a starving population
 
 96 
 
 experiences. But the Paper System has just re- 
 ceived its death-blow ; the fixed standard of value 
 has been restored ; measures are in progress which 
 will secure a metallic currency for all sums under 
 five pounds ; and it remains only to alleviate the 
 crushing weight of taxes, and to obtain a steady 
 supply of corn at a moderate price. 
 
 The last object will be obtained by a repeal of 
 the present Corn Laws, and by constant importa- 
 tion under a fixed duty — a duty, as I have before 
 stated, equal to the exclusive burthens borne by 
 the land ; and, for this purpose, I am disposed to 
 believe, that 15 shillings a quarter will be ample, 
 if the Landed Interest insist on the execution of 
 the further measures which I shall now venture to 
 detail. 
 
 While the monopoly of the Bank of England is 
 suffered to continue, even the suppression of the 
 one and two pound notes is no adequate security 
 against over-issues. Competition is the only legi- 
 timate check, — that competition of banking capi- 
 tal, which would keep the circulation of this 
 country uniformly at the level of the value of 
 money in foreign countries, and which alone can 
 prevent excessive issues; since any attempt at 
 excess would be instantly returned, on the Bank 
 making the experiment, by the other banks, its 
 riyals. And, on this head, Adam Smith* truly 
 
 * Wealth of Nations, Book xi., end of chap. 2.
 
 97 
 
 observes, that competition obliges all banks to be 
 more circumspect in their conduct, and, by not 
 extending their paper beyond its due proportion to 
 their cash, to guard themselves against those mali- 
 cious runs, which the rivalship of so many com- 
 petitors is always ready to bring upon them. It 
 restrains the circulation of each particular com- 
 pany within a narrower circle, and reduces their 
 circulating notes to a smaller number; arid it 
 obliges all bankers to be more liberal in their 
 dealings with their customers, lest rival establish- 
 ments carry them away. 
 
 Since we must then have a free trade in corn, 
 let us have also a free trade in money, and destroy 
 that fatal connexion between the Government and 
 a single Chartered Bank, which facilitates the pro- 
 digality of the Ministers, and invests an irrespon- 
 sible body with the most delicate and important 
 function of state — the controul over the circulat- 
 ing medium. 
 
 Nor will it be wise to stop even at this point ; 
 if the Land Owner is to give up his monopoly for 
 the public good, shall the East India Company 
 and the West India Proprietors be suffered, for 
 one day, to retain the full enjoyment of their ex- 
 clusive privileges? Shall the consumer be forced 
 to pay an exorbitant price for his tea and for his 
 sugar, that particular interests may be benefited ; 
 and shall the nobility and gentry of these realms, 
 the owners of the native soil, alone be sacrificed ?
 
 98 
 
 On the contrary, let us adopt the sound principles 
 of free trade; but let us not limit their applica- 
 tion to the staple produce of our land. Let us 
 <3estroj the heavy duties on timber, which, at the 
 expense of our shipping interest, are a premium 
 to our colonies ; and since we are bent on estab- 
 Jishing an open competition with the foreign 
 manufacturer, let us at once reduce largely those 
 taxes which affect both the commerce and ma- 
 nufactures of our country. 
 
 It is not the price of bread alone, which is a 
 check to our industry ; on the contrary, I am 
 well convinced, that its effect is insignificant, 
 compared vi'ith the weight of taxation to which 
 I have here alluded ; and every notion of free 
 trade is worse than visionary, unless accompanied 
 by a large reduction of taxes and of duties. The 
 experiment of the destruction of monopoly in one 
 branch of industry, while it is suffered to con- 
 tinue with unabated force in others, is an outrage 
 even of the semblance of justice; it is a shifting 
 of the burthen from the protected to the unpro- 
 tected, from the strong to the weak ; and the 
 Landed Interest is lost indeed, if it allow for one 
 moment an experiment of this nature to be made 
 on its property. 
 
 The course, therefore, to be adopted by them, 
 is to consent to a revision of the Corn Laws, to 
 consent to free importation with a moderate pro- 
 tecting duty, but to force also at the same time a
 
 99 
 
 revision of all other monopolies, and to carry a 
 reduction of taxes to a very large amount. \ 
 
 The sinking fund of five millions annually is, 
 in the first place, available ; and then, inasmuch 
 as I have proved, that Mr. Peel's Bill in full 
 operation will be a bonus to the annuitant of 
 more than 30 per cent., I strenuously and boldly 
 contend, both for the equity and the necessity of 
 imposing a direct tax to a considerable amount on 
 all annuities charged on land, or payable from the 
 Exchequer. 
 
 There is, indeed, another alternative, — to rescind 
 Mr. Peel's Act, and to restore the paper circula- 
 tion to the highest level of the war, and of 1817. 
 The^price of bullion would then rise, and the war 
 standard of depreciation be distinctly indicated ; 
 that standard of the great mass of our debts and 
 contracts, the measure of the rise of our greatest 
 interests. We then might debase our metal 
 standard to the precise level of the depreciated 
 paper currency ; and, having lowered our measure 
 of value, adjust it to the existing interests, and 
 contracts created in paper money, and issue, for 
 the ordinary purposes of circulation, coin of less 
 intrinsic worth. But this is an indirect way of 
 doing the same thing : it possesses all the evil of 
 delusion. It blinds the nation to the real ine- 
 vitable consequence of an expenditure beyond our 
 means ; it is a bankruptcy without an admission 
 of insolvency : it would lead to still further prodi-
 
 100 
 
 galitj, and to a repetition of the same mischief, 
 and of the same cure: moreover, it would render 
 perpetual the cost of that expensive machinery, 
 which is necessary for the collection of our present 
 amount of taxes. 
 
 But the tax on all annuitants is a direct avowal 
 of the inability to pay according to the full amount 
 of our ancient standard ; it is a memorial to all 
 governments and to all nations, that there are 
 limits beyond which taxation cannot be carried ; 
 that, in common prudence, there are bounds even 
 to neitional expenditure ; and that war is a game, 
 not of profit, but of loss. It will operate as a 
 wholesome check on our future financial measures. 
 The hope of reducing the tax itself will render the 
 Monied Interest jealous of extravagance, and 
 advocates of economical reform ; and it will ena- 
 ble us at once to ^ei rid, not only of taxes^ but 
 of a host of tax gatherers. 
 
 The remission of the taxes which interfere most 
 with our trade and manufactures, and enhance 
 the price of articles of first necessity to the con- 
 sumer, will be covered by the application of 
 the ^.5,000,000 sinking fund to the service of the 
 year, and by the amount of the proposed annuity 
 tax. It is impossible to foresee the extent of the 
 rapid progress which our commerce would make, 
 when relieved from the burthens which now press 
 it to the ground : and since all taxes fall in the 
 first instance on the consumer, and are ultimately
 
 101 
 
 borne bj the profits of capital, or by capital itself, 
 a remission of taxes is a benefit to all, and not 
 exclusively to any particular class. To the tax 
 payer the benefit is direct and immediate ; and it 
 is no stretch of imagination to foresee the great 
 increase of conifort which would ensue to the 
 entire body of the people, if the taxes on tea, on 
 sugar, on tobacco, and on malt, were greatly 
 reduced, and the assessed taxes, and the tax on 
 soap and caudles, absolutely repealed. The legacy 
 tax, also, on the transmission of personal property, 
 which presses hard on the monied interest, might 
 then also with fairness be remitted. The proposed 
 annuity tax would coverall these beneficial changes. 
 But the annuitant is himself a great consumer, 
 and would derive an immense profit from the 
 reduction of indirect taxation ; consequently his 
 real loss would be by no means the amount of the 
 tax ; for what the direct tax may take from him, 
 the remission of indirect taxes would in a great 
 measure restore. 
 
 A high rate of profit produces a high rate of in- 
 terest ; and the addition to the income of the capi- 
 talist from this source, coupled with the diminution 
 of the aimuitant's expenditure, from the fall in the 
 price of corn, and of all the necessary articles of 
 life, which the execution of this plan would create, 
 leads me, in my conscience, to believe, that the 
 weight of an annuity tax, such as in fairness could 
 bein)posed, would not create any real loss, or operate 
 
 H
 
 102 
 
 as a privation to the annuitant himself. Though 
 nominally his income might be diminished, yet 
 really his means of purchasing all the comforts 
 and conveniences of life would, in no degree, be 
 impaired. 
 
 The only annuitants who must suffer, would be 
 the annuitants now living abroad ; if thej be 
 natives, I cannot compassionate their lot, when 
 their interest will no longer militate with their 
 duties ; and when, without a sacrifice of income, 
 they may return to the land of their fathers. If 
 they be foreigners, I regret the hardship of their 
 case ; but I contend for its necessity ; and our 
 national prosperity must not be endangered for 
 the sake of our credit with strangers. 
 
 It will be argued, however, that the effect of 
 the annuity tax will be, to drive capital abroad ; 
 to this there are two answers ; — first, that the very 
 discussion of the measure will so depress the price 
 of funds, as to render the immediate loss of princi- 
 pal by sales fully equivalent to the diminution of 
 the annual interest by the tax ; and secondly, 
 even if capital be withdrawn from the funds, it by 
 no means follows that it will be sent abroad ; for, 
 by the diminution of taxation, and by the decreased 
 price of corn, the rate of profit will immediately 
 rise in this country, and capital may be invested 
 here, under such circumstances, with more than 
 ordinary advantage. 
 
 Again it will be contended, that the mort-
 
 103 
 
 gagee will instantly foreclose in every case, 
 and seek to regain his principal for the purpose 
 of investing it beyond the reach of this impost. 
 It would not be impossible to devise a special 
 remedy for this difficulty ; since, even without 
 any legislative interference, the Lord Chancellor, 
 during the war, in the exercise of a sound 
 discretion, frequently granted to the mort- 
 gager a greater length of time for the repayment 
 of the principal than the contract stipulated. 
 I am not, however, disposed to believe, that an 
 annuity tax would disturb many existing mort- 
 gages ; for the greater part of the money so in- 
 vested consists either of trust funds, or of the 
 capital of public bodies ; neither the one nor the 
 other can be sent abroad ; the investment must 
 be in this country, and a transfer from land 
 to funds would avail nothing ; for, by the original 
 supposition, the annuity tax would be an equal 
 impost on the mortgagee, and on the fundh older. 
 Some few bold individuals might venture to call 
 up their money, and to embark it in trade, or to 
 place it in foreign funds ; but the risk in some 
 cases, and the impossibility in others, of changing 
 the investment, would, in effect, be tantamount to 
 an actual prohibition. Moreover, fresh capital 
 would not be wanting to supply the place of the 
 mortgages called in ; since the relief to the Landed 
 Interest, by means of the tax proposed, would
 
 104 
 
 increase the value of property, and improve the 
 real security to the lender. 
 
 It may be asked, why this tax should not be 
 extended to the merchant and the manufacturer ? 
 I answer, because the prosperity of the state 
 requires, under the heavy load of debt which would 
 still remain, that every incentive should be applied 
 to stimulate industry, and to increase the power 
 of production. The merchant, the manufacturer, 
 as well as the Land Owner, are the producers, the 
 mortgagee and the Fundholder the sluggards ; 
 every tax on the former is a tax on industry, 
 and capital accumulating ; every tax on the latter 
 is a tax on indolence, and capital hoarded. En- 
 couragement given to the productive classes gene- 
 rates a ten-fold increase of national wealth ; cut 
 the cords, the balloon rises of itself; lighten the 
 taxes, which oppress trade and manufactures, they 
 will thrive at once, and enrich our people. 
 
 It will be said that the physician and the lawyer, 
 as well as the mortgagee and the fundholder, be- 
 long to the unproductive class ; and yet, that the 
 proposed annuity tax will not visit them. Where 
 fees by statute, or by rule of court, have been raised 
 during the war, in compensation for the depreciated 
 currency, by statute, or by rule of court, they 
 must again be reduced, in conformity with the in- 
 creased value of money : where custom alone has 
 added to their amount, custom also will soon pro-
 
 105 y 
 
 vide the remedy ; and the public will not be slow 
 to discover the foWy of paying the same fee to the 
 doctor and the advocate, with wheat at 50s. a 
 quarter, and gold at £.3. 17s. \0^d. an ounce, as 
 lately in justice they paid, when wheat was 120s. 
 and gold £.5. 10s. Od. 
 
 Again^ it may be urged against the justice of 
 this measure, that, though the currency of the 
 country was really depreciated for a quarter of a 
 century, yet that there were repeated parliamentary 
 pledges, that at the termination of the war the 
 ancient standard should be restored ; and, there- 
 fore, that in all contracts during that time, refe- 
 rence was had to an expected return to cash 
 payments. The answer is, that these pledges were 
 broken as often as they were given ; and that 
 Mr. Vansittart's resolution still stands unrepealed, 
 which, in one of the years when the market price 
 of bullion was highest, negatives, by a solemn 
 decision of the House of Commons, the fact 
 of depreciation ; and the late Lord Londonderry, 
 the principal minister of the Crown, in his place 
 in Parliament, even in the year 1822, on the sub- 
 ject of agricultural distress, used these remarkable 
 words : *" It is not meant, that under no possible 
 *' contingency any alteration could take place in 
 " the currency of the country, as now established ; 
 " but that at the present moment there is no ground 
 
 * Par. Deb. vol. vii. p. 10:21.
 
 106 
 
 '* for departing from sound principles on the sub- 
 " jecf.'* He fended off the immediate necessity, 
 bj the introduction of the Small Note Act ; its 
 repeal has reproduced it, and now is the appointed 
 moment for a direct tax on the annuitant, in effect 
 equivalent^ but greatly to be preferred, to the 
 change which Lord Londonderry then contemplated, 
 alluding to a fresh debasement of the standard. 
 
 Then comes the general outcry of horror at a 
 breach of faith, and the violation of existing con- 
 tracts. All this tender feeling and scrupulous 
 justice would have been mighty well in 1797 : it 
 would have weight even now, if no previous inter- 
 ference had taken place between debtor and 
 creditor; but twice, since the commencement of 
 the French war, have the present Ministers of the 
 Crown disturbed every fixed money bargain, by 
 direct legislative interposition. Who, in 1797, said 
 to every creditor, ** Though you stipulated for 
 " repayment in coin of the realm, you shall receive 
 ''nothing but paper?" — Who, in 1819, when 
 a contract had been made, said to every debtor, 
 " You shall not pay that which you have agreed 
 *' to pay, but something else^ which you neither 
 " agreed nor expected to pay : you borrowed at 
 "the rate of 155. you shall pay at the rate of 
 " 20^. ?" On the ground of puhlic convenience, 
 the ancient standard was overturned in 1797 ; and 
 on the same grounds it is equitable to demand a 
 mitigation of the effects of its forced restoration.
 
 107 
 
 When, in consequence of the rise of prices 
 during the depreciation^ advance of salary, or of 
 pay, was demanded by public servants, the equit- 
 able adjustment was, in these cases, carried by 
 acclamation, and the subjects were taxed without 
 compunction, to meet the increase of pay and of 
 pensions, then to be raised to the level of the 
 higher prices ; but with the fall of prices, and with 
 the restored value of the currency, we hear of no 
 intention to reduce these annuities to their former 
 scale ; and placemen, living on salaries increased 
 both nominally and really, have the boldness to 
 decry the very term of adjustment as synonymous 
 with fraud. 
 
 The acquiescence of the Land Owners, through- 
 out the war, in the curtailment of the annuities 
 charged on their estates, by the means of the de- 
 preciation of the currency, has been urged as a 
 reason against their claim for adjustment, on the 
 restoration of the standard ; but no doctrine can 
 be more dangerously unsound ; it seeks to intro- 
 duce a principle of compensation into morals, that 
 an act of iniquity in one direction may be com- 
 pensated by a countervailing act of injustice in 
 another; and that because, in 1797, the creditor 
 was defrauded, it is just, in 1819, to injure the 
 debtor ; when, in ninety-nine cases out of every 
 hundred, the individuals and the contracts are dif- 
 ferent, on which this operation is to be performed.
 
 108 
 
 The case of the greatest hardship which can 
 be put, is that of a mortgagee, who lent his money 
 prior to 1797, and who, during the war, received 
 his interest in a depreciated currency, and will 
 now be a second time defrauded, since the full 
 measure of 1819 was to him only an act of simple 
 justice. It would be vain to palliate the hardship 
 of his case; but it is the very gist of my argu- 
 ment, that cruel injustice must flow, of necessity, 
 from all tampering with the currency. It is not 
 now the question, whether it shall be done for the 
 first time : already the standard has been twice 
 altered in twenty-five years, and there remains 
 only a choice of difliculties and of evils, — the 
 adoption of a course, not devoid of injustice, but 
 calculated on the balance to produce the least 
 possible. The creditors prior to 1797 must be a 
 small body indeed, compared with those who 
 have contracted debt within the subsequent 
 period. 
 
 The same answer applies also to the fund- 
 holder ; excepting always that peculiar difficulty 
 of the person now holding the annuity, not being 
 the original lender, but the purchaser, if not at 
 the full value, at least in a currency not depre- 
 ciated in the extreme: but here the number, of 
 creditors is known to be small, the whole body of 
 fundholders not exceeding 280,000 persons ; and 
 the number of debtors is the entire community.
 
 109 
 
 composed of all who contribute a portion of a 
 single tax to the interest of the debt. 
 
 Nor will the argument avail any thing, that the 
 Legislature never recognised the difference of 
 value between paper and coin ; for^ in the same 
 year when Mr. Vansiftart's resolution was carried 
 (a resolution, as stated by Mr. Brougham, which 
 every man who could count ten on his fingers knew 
 to be false). Parliament even declared its know- 
 ledge of the falsehood by passing an Act for the 
 punishment of those who should sell a guinea for 
 more, or pay a bank note for less, than its deno- 
 minative amount. We cannot want a more direct 
 acknowledgment of depreciation in public opinion. 
 
 Then again, it is observed, " that the condition 
 " of this country must.be strange indeed, if it can 
 '' only prosper by a violation of national faithj 
 *' and a subversion of private property ; measures 
 '* which are reprobated by all statesmen and all 
 " historians." Now, the testimony of all histo- 
 rians establishes the fact, that this is the certain 
 end of heavy national debts ; and that at last it 
 becomes even the first duty of statesmen, when a 
 nation labours for its existence under the load of 
 its incumbrances, to lighten the vessel, and to cut 
 away the broken mast of credit. Public extrava- 
 gance is the abuse of which we complain ; we 
 exceeded our natural strength in the late war ; 
 languor and depression are the necessary conse- 
 quences ; we forestalled our income, wc mort-
 
 no 
 
 gaged our resources ; and it cannot be a matter 
 of surprise that it is now difficult to raise within 
 the year, a revenue sufficient for the maintenance 
 of our national honour. Mr. Hume*, in his 
 Essay on Credit, points out the reraedj, and 
 recommends the precise measure which I have 
 dared to proj^osc. He sajs, that under such cir- 
 cumstances of heavy debt, '^^ the revenue must be 
 *' raised from a continued taxation of the annui- 
 *' tant, orj what is the same thing, from mort- 
 '^ gaging anew a certain part of their annuities ; 
 '■ and thus making them contribute to their own 
 " defence, and to that of the nation." 
 
 The argument, also, that our national credit 
 would be destroyed by a direct tax on the an- 
 nuitant, and that, in case of a great state emer- 
 gency, we could never borrow again, is decidedly 
 at variance, both with fact, and with reason. 
 
 Austria depreciated her currency 400 per cent., 
 acknowledged the depreciation, by law compelled 
 her paper to pass 400 per cent, below its nominal 
 value, and still to this hour she has no difficulty 
 in borrowing, even in England : and Mr. Hume, 
 in the same Essay, assigns the true reason, when 
 he says, that the fear of an everlasting destruc- 
 tion of credit is an endless bug-bear: for a pru- 
 dent man, in reality, would rather lend to the 
 public, immediately after we had taken a sponge 
 
 * Hume on Public Credit, Essay ix. p. 379.
 
 Ill 
 
 to our debts, than before ; as much as an opu- 
 lent knave, even though one could not force him 
 to pay, is a preferable debtor to an honest bank- 
 rupt : the former, in order to carrj on business, 
 may find it his interest to discharge his debts, 
 when they are not exorbitant ; the latter has it 
 not in bis power. 
 
 It will be urged, that the admission of expe- 
 diency, in direct violation of Parliamentary en- 
 gagements, is immoral and impolitic ; since with 
 States, as with individuals, the " konestiwi," and 
 not the '* utile/' should be the strict rule of 
 conduct. But are not the Land Owners in actual 
 possession of a monopoly firmly secured by an 
 existing Act of Parliament ? General expedi- 
 ency is the reason assigned for its abrogation ; 
 and if they are to give way, and to sacrifice their 
 interests to this overpowering necessity, surely 
 they are justified in compelling the creditor to 
 admit his own rule in his own case, and to mo- 
 dify his claim according to expediency. The 
 public creditor relics on Parliamentary security ; 
 the private creditor founds his claim on equity or 
 law ; but the Land Owner has a superior title : he 
 possesses the sanction of Parliament, and equity 
 is also on his side. Low rents and high taxes 
 must ruin him ; he holds, at this moment, the van- 
 tage ground ; Parliament stands pledged to his 
 monopoly ; and he would be insane, indeed, to
 
 112 
 
 abandon it without a fixed and complete com- 
 pensation. 
 
 I have shown the terms on which^ in mj hum- 
 ble judgment^ it would be wise to capitulate ; I have 
 proved both the policy and general equity of these 
 terms, and the power possessed by the Land Owners 
 to obtain them ; but, to be successful, the i],obility 
 and gentry must act in the strictest union ; they 
 will be opposed by the monied interest, as by one 
 man ; they will be opposed by the present Mi- 
 nisters, few of whom are connected with land, or 
 with the aristocracy, — some of whom, by far the 
 most able, having risen, by their talents, from an 
 bumble origin, are disposed, very naturally, to 
 envy the existence of any power in this country 
 which genius cannot win, and which birth alone 
 bestows. The Land Owners will be strenuously 
 opposed, but they will be powerfully supported ; 
 they will be supported by every payer of tax 
 throughout the kingdom, — by the peasant and the 
 artisan, — by the merchant and by the manufac- 
 turer. Then, indeed, they will fight on the right 
 ground ; they will be backed by the great body of 
 the people. Interests will be reunited, which ought 
 never to have been severed ; a nation will be ar- 
 rayed against an administration ; millions against 
 thousands ; and the issue of the contest will not 
 long be doubtful. 
 
 The annuitant will suffer, indeed, but to a very
 
 l\3 
 
 small extent ; and by timely concession he may 
 avert a far greater calamity ; for if he stand on 
 the extreme of his right, and the Land Owner 
 adhere to his Corn Law and his monopoly, the bur- 
 then of taxation can no longer be endured ; civil 
 discord and insurrection will be the result ; and, 
 though the owners perhaps may change, yet the 
 land must remain, when the debt shall have 
 been swept away, and become a by-word among 
 nations. 
 
 With an apology for the le.gth into which 
 I have been drawn, I will conclude, in the 
 emphatic words of Mr. Hume. When contem- 
 plating, in the middle of the last century, the 
 annihilation of the debt, '' The event," he 
 says, " is calamitous, but not the 7}iost calami- 
 '^ tous; thousands are thereby sacrificed to the 
 " safety of millions ; but the contrary event 
 *' might have taken place, and millions have been 
 *' sacrificed to the temporary safety of thousands. 
 '• Though the House of Lords be altogether com- 
 " posed of the proprietors of land, and the House 
 " of Commons chiefly ; and, consequently, neither 
 " of them can be supposed to have great property 
 " in the funds, yet the connection of the Members 
 *' may be so great with the proprietors, as to 
 " render them more tenacious of public fuilh, 
 " than prudence, policy, or even justice, strictly 
 " speaking, require. The dignity and authority 
 " of the landed gentry and nobility is much better
 
 114 
 
 *' rooted than the prosperity of <he public credi- 
 " tor ; and would render the contention very 
 '* unequal, if ever we come to that extremity. 
 " One would incline to assign to this event a very 
 " near period, such as half a century, but I 
 /' shall not assign any precise date; I shall con- 
 '' tent myself with pointing out the event in 
 " general." 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 LONDON : 
 PRINTED BY T. BRETTELL, RUPERT STREET, HAYMARKET.
 
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