MYSTIFICATION OF THE QUARTERLY REVIEW ON THE STATE OF THE
COUNTRY.
THE Quarterly Review just published contains a piece of mystifica- tion on our "internal policy," designed, we presume, for parsons and country gentlemen. It embraces a great variety of topics. We shall merely follow the Reviewer in his statements and inferences upon the Currency.
The return to "the undepreciated standard" of money seems to the Reviewer to account for all the sufferings of the country. The debates of 1819 are quoted by him to prove how widely Ministers erred in their anticipations of the consequences to which their Bill would lead; and he visits on the memory of RICARDO all the subsequent distress in manufactures and agriculture. There appears to us some- thing ludicrous in thus making it a grave charge against any man, that he Was the only thinker in a crowd of legislators. lithe House of Commons thought fit to make an oracle of Riceano, he at least made no pretensions to infallibility. His opinions on the currency were honest, and they were delivered to the country along with the reasons on which they rested. The Contraction of the currency by the suppression of bank-notes was a very different measure from the restoration of paper money to its nominal standard. The country had at one time been deluged with inconvertible paper money, but for years before the Bank restric- tion was remthted, the depreciation of its paper had been lessening. In 1819, Mr. RICARDO declared the amount of the depreciation to be only three per cent. How did he arrive at this conclusion ?—By com- paring bullion with bank-notes, and by looking to the state of the ex- changes. What other tests are there of depreciation, or what nicer tests can be desired? Did his epponents, the men who talked of 25 or 36 per cent. as the amount of the depreciation., appeal to those tests ? To what did they appeal ?—They were " practical men," and of course scorned to subject their opinions to any rational test whatever. The depreciation had no douhtteen very great. When a guinea exchanged for twenty-eight shillings, they might have been warranted in talk- ing of 25 per cent. ; but the depreciation had been lessening for years, and it the time of Passing Mr. PEEL'S Bill, such an assumption was preposteroiti in the extreme. But though Mr. RICARDO stated that the restoration of money to, its professed standard was to be desired for Many reasons, and showed, by reference to all the acknowledged tests, how very slight was the amount of the sacrifice which the country was called on to make in accomplishing that end, he never recom- mended the suppression of the paper currency. Quite the contrary. HO preferred it t.0 a metallic currency—provided the issues were regu- lated on sound principles.
"That it was proper,;' says the Quarterly, ct to return to a fixed standard of value, Owe could be no doubt. it was obvioesly inexpedient that the Bank should pomess the power of raising or depressing it at its own p1eaure,hy the eu- rentt itt the Bank itself felt the sinallest wish for the continuance of such a pri- er coetraction of peeier ; there iA no ground to suppose v ege. Ent the return to a Axed standard of value, and to fix what that standard Shall-be, are so entirely different questions, that it seems impossible they. should ever be confounded. The real difficulty consisted in fixing on the atandard. Whether the OK Of a new standard should have been pitched open, oileeet te: haw depeuded, one slld think, upon the length of time during which the dejpeelown st4RAW* the eA nt to, which the dem" elation had proceeded ; the increase in the value of gold and silver ; the in- crease of debt which had taken place during its continuance ; and the con- ditions, express or implied, under which that debt was contracted."
The supporters of the Currency Bill never proposed to do more than what the Reviewer says it was undoubtedly proper to do—to return to a fixed standard of value, in so far as any standard can be deemed a fixed one. 4 metallic standard is not a fixed one, inasmuch as the value of the precious metals is liable to fluctuations; but it approaches as nearly to I hat character as any we can ever expect to possess. The Quarterly says there are two fixed standards—the old and the new. We should like to know what was fixed about the new one. We say that the old—the metallic standard—approximates to the character of a fixed one, because the cost of production has been found to vary little during long periods. But the new standard—inconvertible paper money—had no cost of production. There was no principle of limita- tion in its amount ; there was nothingfixed about it ; and therefore, on the Quarterly's own showing, it must be rejected. " To return to a fixed standard of value, and to declare what that standard shall be," are therefore not so different as the Quarterly supposes.
The Reviewer accuses the framers of the Currency Bill of ignorance of a fact that ought to have had great weight in deterring them front raising paper money to its nominal standard,—namely, that " the value of gold and silver had been for a number of years rising more rapidly than that of paper had been falling; " and Mr. JACOB is referred to as authorizing this statement. On referring to the work of Mr. Toeing, in which the calculation by Mr. JACOB on this point is to be found, it will appear that lee has said not a word about the value of gold and silver. The produce of the mines is stated to have fallen off for some years past, in consequence of the unsettled state of South America. liut although the produce of the mines has been less than it formerly was, the remittances to Europe Mr. TOOKE shows to have been actu- ally greater than before. A paper currency has been introduced into the South American States, plate to an enormous amount has been melted, and the oldest and richest -families have removed themselves and their hoards to Europe. Had it even been otherwise—had the deficiency in the produce of the mines been deducted from the remit- tances to Europe, and had that deficiency been much larger than any one will pretend it was, Mr. TOOKE states many grounds for concluding that it could have produced not the slightest elect upon the value of the mass of gold and silver in the world.
The Quarterly, op the assumption that the currency in 1819 had reached a point of depreciation equal to 25 per cent, proceeds to show, that in consequence of the change in the standard, two hundred mil lkus of principal and eight or ten millions of interest have been added to the national debt, while other taxes have been enhanced to the extent of eight reillioes 'more; ahd oleo declares that this addition to our burdens must prove intolerable—" that the taxes may indeed for a time be paid; but that at the end of a number of years, that depreciation of the standard, which ought now to be consented to, will at length be seen to he inevitable." To whet depreciation does the Quarterly allude? To a depreciation of 25 per vent? It is very well to take for granted that the Bank paper was depreciated to that extent in 1819, but what shadow of proof can the Quarterly adduce that such was the case? Mr. Riceano produced evidence in support of his opinion that the de- preciatienamounted to but three per cent. Does the Quarterly inva- lidate that evidence by better, or by any proof? The Quarterly states that Mr. iticAands tests were not infallible. Perhaps not ; but what tests—what but conjectures on the subject,—can the Quarterly pretend to bring forward in opposition to them ? The Quarterly denounces, as the most dangerous of legislative mea- sures, all tampering with the currency; yet, as we have seen, it urges another depreciation of the standard, and on no better grounds than that the cenntry is distressed. That there is distress in the country, we ereto admit, altlio.ugh we believe that its amount is very much exaggerated ; but there certainly is no reason to suppose the distress to be caused by the want of inconvertible paper money, or that an unli- mited quantity of such money would remove it. It is no proof to the contrary that bankers in and ant of Parliament predicted distress as a consequence of Mr. PEE/1'S Bill. Such predictions are hazarded on every public measure that is characterized by boldness; and many think that legislation has nothing to do with any sort of wisdom but the wisdom of our ancestors. According to the prophecies of that class, "the sun of England" is always setting. Nor is it any proof of mischief of a pure currency that distress does exist in many quarters. Can no. other 'reasons be assigned for that distress than Mr. PEI.'S Bill? Mr. ATTWOOD and the 'Quarterly say no. Let us see whether they are warranted in that denial.
ProAts are now lower than when Mr. PEEL'S Bill was passed. The increase of machinery at home, the increase of competition abroad, have lowered prices universally. Wages., to be sure, have fallen, but poor-rates have increased, and poor-rates affect profits as well as wages. repletion, too, has increased, and poorer soils have been forced to procure the necessary supplies of food. With every such ex- tension of agriculture profits have fallen, capital has been deprived of part of its reproductive power, and the poor have been rendered poorer. The landlords have generously given their countrymen per- mission to multiply manufactured commodities to any extent—to in- crease the home exchanges at will—to carry on exchanges with foreigners in every thing but corn, the ultimate aim of all exchanges. The greater the amount Zif manufactured commodities, the greater the anaotuit of the luxuries that can be imported from abroad, the keener of course becomes the competition for food, and the better the condition of our landlords. Manufacturing gluts, by which the other portions of the community stiffer, are their gain; and there is little risk of a glt Of MI. Were our inanofactiires freely exchangeable against foreign corn, profits would immediately rise, and powers of production almost incalculable would be called into play. It is because profits have been so much lowered, because the productive powers of the country have been cramped, and not because the currency has been raised to its nominal standard, that we find so much distress in the land. We defy the Quarterly Review or Mr. ATTWOOD to prove that the tests on which Mr. RICARDO relied as showing the deprecia- tion of the currency to amount to but three per cent, were fallacious; and if they cannot do so, how absurd, how childish is it to ascribe, the deep- rooted distress of which they talk to a change in the currency to that extent! It is our debt—the eight hundred millions which we have actually spent—that weighs us down, and not the slight addition to that debt which Mr. PEEL'S Bill has caused. If we would be rid of that evil, let the debt be honestly paid off. Such was the scheme recommended by Mr. RICARDO. "A country," says he, "which has involved itself in the difficulties attending this ar- tificial system, would act wisely by ransoming itself from them, at the sacrifice of any portion of its property which might be necessary to redeem its debt. That which is wise in an individual is wise also in a nation." He then points out the principle of the scheme, and adds, "to such a payment the stockholders themselves would largely contri- bute." But whether the debt be paid off or not, its pressure upon the public has little to do, we think, with the rise in the standard of the currency. It may suit a banker like Mr. ATTWOOD, to clamour for a return to the glorious days of inconvertible paper. iIt may suit the Quarterly Review, as the organ of country gentlemen, to recommend the robbery of the fundholders. The country, however, will scarcely make common cause with either the Bankers or the Squires. The latter class entailed the debt upon us—that class adds at this moment to the pressure of the debt, by starving the poor and lowering the rate of profit. If we must have legislative relief, relieve us from the corn monopoly—relieve us from all useless public expenditure. If more be required, let all property be taxed impartially, land as well as stock, and Church lands before all other. Even a 'Change in the currency, the Quarterly is foiced to admit, would do little good to the country without reform in Parliament ; and the Birmingham folks say the same thing. We should be very glad to witness a change in that respect, such as the Quarterly calls for ; but we rather think, that were the British people fairly represented to-morrow, one of the last measures for which the common sense of the country would call, would be a, return to a depreciated currency.
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