London Weekly Paper And Organ Of The Middle Classes (Newspaper) - August 7, 1852, London, Middlesex ORGAN OF THE AND AUGUST 1851 CASH LETTER AT the urgent request of many writing from all parts of the we devote this article to an historical sketch of the resumption of Cash Payments after the downfall of Napoleon and we do so the more because the ensuing parliamentary contest will be of a financial character because the influx of gold must produce a fearful derangement in all monetary Any statesman who desires to give an equitable stability to our fiscal and commercial and excludes from his consideration the fact that the legal tender of a country forms onehalf of every must encounter an ignominious while the trading com munity will be the victims of his We have no desire to benefit one class by injuring any other but by faithfully narrating the dreadful calamities inflicted on society by the appreciation of money in our readers will be the better able to judge of the consequences that may ensue from its depreciation through the Californian In former articles it has been stated that several acts of passed during the had pledged the country to resume cash payments within six months after a defini tive treaty of peace and the first point to be considered in what sense that pledge ought to have been inter Surely it could not have been construed into an engagement to introduce a perfectly new system of hitherto unknown to the constitution In the most ex treme it could have implied no more than a restora tion of that double standard of Elizabeth which had been enforced from 1601 to The indeed affirm that this was but we deny the and proceed to prove that that described in our eighth was violated in several important By the act of the first in the series of new laws enacted under the pretence of restoring cash the tender of silver com was limited to in payment of a debt at any one though by the act of Elizabeth it was legal tender to any The payment of silver as legal at per ounce was The ounce of silver was corned into instead of into By the act of the melting and exportation of the a penal offence under the ancient was Here then is ample evidence of departure from the standard of Elizabeth but as a slight interference took place in which has been it is desira ble that the real facts should be In it was ascertained that a very considerable portion of the silver coin was deficient in weight whereupon it was enacted that no tender in the silver com of this for any exceeding should be counted a legal if deficient in for more than the value by at the rate of per This was merely a restraining of limited operation for silver com of full weight was still legal tender to any amount the kw expired in after which date silver whether of full or defi cient were legal when Chancellor of the said that prior to the Bank Restriction the interest of the debt might have been legally paid in crooked With reference to the coinage of the present weight of silver into instead of into it is to be observed that the weight of Elizabeths shilling was 92f grains but in 1816 the weight was re to 87 The true weight of the old pound sterling in silver was grains the present is only This difference of 124 as John Taylor has makes a deficiency in each silver pound sterling of and in the defi ciency is In our present silver the ounce of gold ought to be corned into in stead of into if we would preserve the equi valency between the two metals established in Prom all these circumstances it is despite the repeated assertions to the that the standard of Elizabeth was not restored at the resumption of cash A new system was introduced alien to the substance and spirit of the British The depreciation of the pound at the close of the war exceeded 33 per According to the doctrine of the every one who had made a contract in paper during the had received an implied notice that at some but uncertain irrespective of any circumstances meeting that contract which might he would be upon to execute that contract in the gold standard to the total exclusion of silver j for these were the terms enforced by the kw of without any cover thn m OT with many other to commission of a wrong which it is determined not to HO doubt aman is bound by a although he should ence or but then the law must be one nf 3 It must be one which the J It is in that sense in which 4 generally understood in this and by those who Town made that any man is bound to understand and to know of its existence and it is in that sense only in which he justly made to suffer by That act of the weighty import of which was at the return of all the debts and taxes contracted and imposed during the war should be discharged in money of double was not believed or intended by those who framed it to possess auy such What they meant was to secure the return to a standard of more steady value than that in but not to one of a different This is a just and honourable view of the Who was to pay the expense of the war Will it be pretended that the and all the creditor classes were to be exempt from bearing any share of that burden P None would dare openly to answer this question in the affirma tive yet by paying them in appreciated gold pounds what they had lent in depreciated paper they were cally exempted from any contribution to the defence of the In under the hypocritical pretext of keeping faith with the public creditor and sustaining the honour and credit of the the charges of the war were shamelessly transferred from property and imposed as a mortgage on the broken back of The preparations made to return to cash payments in stantly led to the most disastrous The Bank of and the country banks were suddenly compelled to contract their issues onehalf all prices sunk in a corre ratio the working classes could not obtain em ployment the distress in all parts of the country was In 1816 the Manchester the Staffordshire and the mechanics and operatives of nearly all were goaded to by the monetary The Government became and on the 21st of a kw was passed postponing the re sumption of gold payments for two and prosperity was instantly restored thus was demonstrated the true nature of the and the true nature of the the persevered in Government reduced its debt to the Bank of and thereby diminished the paper The mation of the market price of gold to the Mint price in 1819 was effected by these Seven millions of gold com were poured into the market at the instigation of the Ministers at the very time when the committee on Peels were for the express purpose of mis leading its who foolishly because gold had reappeared by a strained it could be detained in the country when the force of that effort had That to use the language of Sir James formed their judgment of the value of not from the price of commodities gene but from the price of a single with which the Government had been for the express purpose of forcing down its The Directors of the Bank of England entered a protest against this which was agreed to on the 20th of and kid before the Chancellor of the in which they stated their fear that the new kw would compromise the universal interests of the empire in all the relations of and The first Sir Robert Peel presented to the House of Commons a the and traders of London against the Resumption in which he made the following remarks He begged leave to state his opinion that petitioners were the best judges of such a He would that although they were intimately connected with all that concerned the welfare of the the most experienced and the best qualified from connexion with our manufactures and yet they had not been examined by the committee he that before a measure so destructive of the commercial interests of the country was passed and when he said members would conclude every other interest to be combined with and to go along with the House would pause awhile in order to collect that information which they so particularly In looking at the reports that had been published on the he aust say that the witnesses were not men likely to give any information to the Government nor men acquainted with the state of the country j the last men who should have been if Government wanted to arrive at the merits of the Lord Lauderdale presented a petition to the House of Peers signed by nearly five hundred of the most respect able merchants of the city of in which they pro tested against the diminution of the The follow ing paragraph expresses the evik they anticipated from the That the consequences of such contraction as your peti humbly be to add to the burthen of the public debt greatly to increase the pressure of the taxes to lower the value of all landed and commercial property seriously to affect both public and private credit to embarrass and reduce all the operations of and and to throw out of employment as in the calamitous year of 1816 a great proportion of the industrious and labouring classes of the How it may be was parliament deluded into passing an act so strongly opposed by the Bank Directors and the trading community P The true answer is that the members surrendered to in the course of the debate of May The House did not withdraw its confidence from the Bank from any doubt of its wealth or its but from a conviction of its total ignorance of the principles of political economy and hi the same speech he assured the House that the question of passing Peels was and not deserving in on Westerns this oracle confessed that he had very little ground for forming any correct opinion on the By comparing he with its standard we had certain means of judging of its depredation but he knew of none by which we were able to ascertain with certainty alterations in real or abso lute At a subsequent period he stated that an alteration in value of five per does not appear to me very formidable but of this matter I do not profess to know much I have had little practical knowledge on these Shortly before Ms death he frankly ac he had wholly We these details at the constitu essential it is to test the intellectual qualifications and aims of those who seek their Here blind blind but and his trebled fortunes by the suc The consequences of this gigantic error put forward by a professor of political economy who had snubbed the for then are now to he In before the disastrous kw was the country was In November of the same year the people broke out in Of this contrasted state of things it is important to record the and we possess it in speeches from the throne to On opening the session in the royal speech contained these Prince Regent has the greatest satisfaction in being able to inform yon that the and manufactures of the country are in the most flourishing The fatal measure was passed amidst the insensate acclamations of the In the November following the whole country was in a state of At that period year parliament and the royal speech obtained the following I have with great concern the attempts made in some of the districts to taka advantage of local distress to excite to of and government of the utterly hostile to the only at the change of those have constituted the of the rights of property and of aO Such were the immediate effects of this spoliating In and the northern cloud from Glas the insurrections in and the gave ample proof that the pressure of the gold In Lord Liverpool gave the following account of this In the Bank saw the necessity which was pressing upon and they then did begin to draw in and reduce their In the month of March they reduced their issues between the 15th of March and 15th of May they made a reduction of between August and December they farther contracted issues making altogether a reduc tion of in their This as Mathias Attwood remarked in the House of in explains the whole mystery of this The measures of by the issue of four millions of Government commenced in the distress of 1822 the notes were drawn back in the last of them in and early in December broke out the Here again the is conclusive that a return to the gold standard was fatal to The evil was corrected by an expansion of the Lord Liverpool authorising the Bank to advance on Exchequer hills moreover Joint Stock Banks and branches of the Bank of England were called into But all was Panics followed in and and ruin spread in all It is an historical fact that every contraction of the medium has caused mercantile prostration and political convulsion while every expansion has been attended with prosperity and cheerful obedience to the The resumption of cash payments was a revolution and social and to its source the philosophic his torian of a future age will trace the Reform and the Repeal of the the merited punishments of a grasping and selfish The fearful character of that revolution might be strikingly illustrated by a com parison of the war expenditure with the expenditure of the railway the one being attended with general pro the latter with ruin albeit hi the former period the was only twenty while in the latter it was But our space and we must postpone inch a review to a future The immediate consequence of the change in our monetary severe beyond At length Lord relaxed the principle of the of He introduced into the Commons ve monetary one day for the relief of agriculture and On the 29th of he brought in the Among other restrictions the of 1819 bound all bankers to pay gold on demand for their and to dis issue of paper for any sum under after the year 18S4J Lord Castlereagh repealed this latter Four were added to the Prosperity was at restored profits and all the folly This was evidently due to the from the gold standard and it is its commerce continued flourish till the com of daring the greater part In speech his Majesty There It a in this country when all the great elections for very interest in taint have excited the absence of all of the Prince President the following War who returns Councillor of to be on matters in the room of accepted Councillor of Stated to be President of the lection of Public room of named to be of Consul at to be Councilor of the of that never interests society at the in so thriving a was Prosperity but a convulsion soon fol prosperity enjoyed was the result of high and high prices every had taxation so that employers and em from the rich consumers of their goods rand in the first had i the In of high in paper money amounted to an of direct by which property was sustain all the fiscal burdens of the while exempted from their This desirable perpetuated had not and tied down to the A Letter to Lord Archibald By these who gladly sold his us drain at less ik of iti panic brought the nation hours of availing himself of our sovereigns in casks to and there hi his and only restored them after d millions by buying onr manufactured goods Jhe cost of and with them deluging the markers of Commercial for By William nominated Bequest or the first to be in the Boudet nominated president of the section on disputed matters de Master of Requests of the first be of nominated President of the of Public Eugene and Masters of Bequests of the second to be of the first in the room of of State and of de Count Napoleon de be Masters of in the room of nominated Masters of Bequests of the first dan and nominated Prefect of the department of the Another deane names Charles Giraud at the in of Eugene It is stated that the President in very precise lan guage that he does not intend reestablishing the It would appear as if he wished to have the honour forced on At all nothing will be done in matter until after his marriage has been It is announced that there will be no review on the 15th A Paris correspondent to a daily journal There is more in this than meets the The Prince President is resolved that the empire shall not be restored man irregular and especially that any resolution he may take shall not have the appearance of being decided by a military Whispers have been going about for some days that the army would on the when assembled at the cry Vive and it is most pro to meet the report in question that the idea of a review has been The question of the marriage of the President with the Prin cess of Wasa is not only fully determined but it is likely to take place much sooner than is generally It is even said that so impatient is the that he is resolved ou a second visit to where the young lady still although it has been erroneously stated by some of the that gone to Letters from Lisbon of the 28rd received via state that the Chamber of refused to by votes to the decree of the 3rd relative to the capitalisation of public This decision caused great agita and ihe President had considerable In of it the their but when the post left it was known whether or not it would be accepted by the I ease it that her majesty would call on shal the Marquis de Louie to form a new The nobles of the duchy of Saxe Coburg sent an Germanic against the new and the German journals they confidential on from members who think the constitution it wat i cooperation of the It hai been the Saxe Coburg had drawn up a memorial on I he does not intend to decision of the Diet shall state that the President of the is named Her great grandson of who was declared branch of is
