CURRENCY.
WE have inserted, at considerable inconvenience to ourselves, another letter from G. P. S. It seems to exhibit a singular con- fusion of ideas. He protests against being considered one of those who wish to degrade the standard,—a project which he justly stigmatizes as " dishonest and impolitic ; " and yet he is clamorous for additional supplies of money ! But it is utterly im- piissible to realize both objects,—to preserve the standard and to add any thing material to the supply of money. There is sense, if net honesty, in the project of those who propose "clipping the coin;" while in G. P. S.'s project there is honesty without a grain of sense. There is no" artificial" restraint whatever on the supply of money in this country. Every one who pleases may import bullion, carry it to the Mint, and walk home with its weight in coin in his pockets. The only limit to the increase of the currency is the difficulty of obtaining gold—a difficulty - that will exist till the standard be changed. As to what G. P. S. says about an " indez feasible law," prohibiting the circulation of "credit currency, we deny its existence, and its influence if it did exist. One- pound notes have, indeed, been suppressed, anti sovereigns cir- ciliate in their stead; but had the notes been made convertible at the pleasure of the holder into gold, they would have had an equi- valent value, and prices would have been as little influenced by their circulation as by changes of the moon. We may modify or alter the channels through which paper money is issued; but it is not possible, so long as it is made exchangeable for gold coins of the present weight and purity, that its quantity should be increased. G. P. S. would have us to believe that the circulation is starved; but so far from this being the case, we know, from undoubted authority, that the Bank of England paid, between the latter end of February 1831 and the latter end of February 1832, more than THREE MILLIONS STERLING for returned notes. To talk, in the teeth of such facts, about enlarging the currency, and at the same time of preserving the standard, is as absurd as to talk about put- ting more wine into a bottle that is already full. We do not pre- tend to affirrn that there are no faults in the English system of banking—far from it; but whatever they may be, there is not the shadow of a foundation for alleging that the currency would be more abundant were another system substituted in its stead. .In Scotland, there is not a gold coin nor a Bank of England note to be seen. Every thing is paper ; and every one who has any reasonable security to offer, may obtain loans at half the interest he could obtain them for during the war: but are rims higher in Scotland than in England?—No such thing. Thesasiteof paper there as well as here is checked byits convertibility into gold; and its value must be constantly identical with the value of that metal. All that G. P. S. has said about "the supply of money keeping pace with that of goods," is, on his principles, utterly beside the question. So long ai gold is the standard, it will be introduced in such quantities as may preserve its value at the same level as in other countries. We- be "dishonest knaves," and reject the standard ; but it is worse than absurd to maintain it, and at the same time to attempt to increase or diminish the supplies of money otherwise than according to the increase or diminution of the sup- plies of gold.
But there is no use in enlarging on what is so very obvious— the currency is at this moment, and has been for years, full to over- flowing, and can admit of no enlargement without -degrading the standard.
Before taking leave of the subject, we beg again to repeat our denial that the fall in the price of commodities is a consequence of the rise in the value of money. G. P. S.'s: calculations as to the increase of population and commodities, go for no- thing ; for it is impossible to estimate the influence of increased economy, of the improved communications that exist throughout the country, the extension of the bonding system, the absence of hoarding, &c., in increasing the supply of money. We are sick of such conjectures ; and we call upon those who maintain that the currency has risen in value, to prove their assertion by facts— by specifying a single commodity that has fallen without its fall being dearly ascribable to changes of -supply or demand. We deny also the existence of that general distress of which so much is said. The only distress that really. exists is amongst the holders of stocks of those articles whose value is declining from increased facilities of production; and their distress is simultaneous with, and is, in fact, a proof of, the increasing prosperity of the rest of the people. -As compared with commodities, wages are at this moment decidedly higher than they ever were during any period of the.war ; and the condition of the mass of the people is so much the more prosperous. Tranquillity and the preservation of the standard are all that is required to secure our continued advance- ment. We hardly think that any one will venture openly to pro- pose a reduction of the standard ; and Parliament will, we trust, have sagacity enough to prevent a fraud being perpetrated under the silly and absurd pretence of increasing the currency propor- tionally to the increase of commodities !
The writer in the True San has again been railing at and misrepresenting our_remarks, in the most disingenuous manner—but he has pot answered them. He says, or leaves it to be inferred, that the National Bank scheme which he advocates is the same as RICARDO'S ; yet we find in his last article on the sub- ject the following words— " We have formerly shown in what cases a DEPRECIATION of national paper money might become desirahle—how that depreciation might be made to operate, indirectly, as a property-tar %pun the fund/molders and the owners of money." This is quite enough:
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