" CURRENCY " IN THE MASK OF "LAISSEZ-FAIRE." TO THE
EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
London, 26th March 1844. SIR-In the article entitled "Legislative Interference with the Hours of Labour," which appears in your parer of the 23d, the writer, in alluding to the one-sided view taken by Lord ASHLEY, says-" In this respect the case is the same as if Adam Smith had assaulted the established restrictive system of his day by proposing the sacrifice of all considerations of humanity to the in- crease of national wealth; whereas be constantly pointed to human happiness and improvement as the end to be sought by means of letting people alone. The present condition of England shows his system defective somewhere; but that is not the point : would ever his name have survived among us if be had treated ' humane' considerations as Lord Ashley does the commercial '? What ! regulate the hours of labour by Act of Parliament, without bestowing a thought on wages, or profits, or cost of production, or value, or prise, or supply and demand, or foreign competition !"
Now, Sir, I maintain it is because our statesmen have not followed out ADAM SMITH'S principle of "letting people alone," that England has been reduced to her present embarrassed state, and that the happiness and improve- ments of her people have been sacrificed.
When one calls to mind the glorious struggle this country made during the war, the ease with which the people bore the burden of taxation which was laid apon them-the high prices, the high wages, the full employment, and the ge- neral prosperity of all classes, he may well exclaim, "Why were we not let alone?" For two years after the conclusion of the war we had a surplus re- venue of twenty millions ; and had the same system of taxation and currency been continued we should by this time have nearly paid off the whole of the National Debt-" Why were we not let alone ?" "Intense competition" was not in those days the "grand social evil ": we did not then need acts of Par- liament to regulate the hours of labour ; we found that high prices and high wages in this country were not incompatible with our foreign trade-that the claims of "humanity and commerce" were not then at variance-" Why were we not let alone ? " Over-production, over-population, were words never heard in those days: the bounties of Providence, the accumulations of human industry, were then accounted blessings, not curses- Why were we not let alone?"
Poor ignorant mortals that we were ! We little knew that all the blessings we had been enjoying for twenty years were fictitious; that all the wealth we bad gathered, all the stores of every clime that we had at command, all the boundless riches which our enterprise and ingenuity had spread around us- that all these had been raised on an unsound and rotten basis ! We were then in the "dark ages of currency," as Mr. JONES LOYD says. About the year 1810 a light began to dawn on this delusive scene: Mr. Husnissos discovered that the prices of every thing had advanced far beyond what they were in 1797, and that gold too had actually risen in price; that guineas sold for eight-and-twenty shillings a piece; that the currency had depreciated. To wipe out this foul blot on the national honour, an act of Parliament was passed in 1811, declaring that the paper-money had not depreciated, and that a shilling and a one-pound note were equal to a guinea. The omnipotence of Parliament having thus triumphed over nature and common sense, the way was smooth for Mr. PEEL'S Currency Bill of 1819, which had the following objects in view-the paying off a debt of eight hundred millions contracted when wheat averaged 80s. per quarter in wheat at 40s. per quarter, to the great ease and convenience of the landed interest; the doubling of the amount of human labour necessary to pay the Interest of that debt, to the especial relief of those classes who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow ; the permitting of foreigners to take advan- tage of our high taxed prices in disposing of their goods to us, and allowing them to take payment in our low-priced gold, to the great convenience of the Bank of England, whose issues depend upon the amount of gold in her coffers; and, to sum up the merits of this precious bill, the placing of the whole mer- cantile circulation of this country and its dependencies on the limited and fleeting supply of gold, to the great admiration of all Jews, money-jobbers, bul- lionists, and extortioners; sod finally, if report speak true, to the doubling of Sir ROBERT Pax' s own fortune. But even if this last were true, still I should approve of the maxim of ADAM SMITH, "the letting people alone." I trust, Sir, when you have considered the powerful and all-pervading operation of this one act of Sir ROBERT PEEL, that you will erase his name from the Bat of the Laissez-faire party, in which you appear to have enrolled him.
11•••••.- .1■11.
I am, Sir, your most obedient servant,
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