Etters
to
६६
oplestan
HG
938
.C78

HG
938
078
VIRTUTIS
:
GLORIA
MERC
CES
Charles Robinson.
A
LETTER
Heffer. via Corp.
Cambridge
15. DEC. 1911.
JULIUS PRLEICH

TO THE
RIGHT HON. ROBERT PEEL,
M. P. FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
ON THE
PERNICIOUS EFFECTS
OF A
VARIABLE STANDARD OF VALUE,
ESPECIALLY AS IT REGARDS
THE CONDITION OF THE LOWER ORDERS
AND


memo
Dlands
THE POOR LAWS.
By E. Copleston D.D. Bishop of
BY ONE OF HIS CONSTITUENTS.
Laissez nous faire.
OXFORD,
PRINTED FOR JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET,
LONDON.
1819.
BAXTER, PRINTER, OXFORD.
Exclu
Wihary
Duke Universi
8-8-1934
A
LETTE R,
&c.
SIR,
IN addressing to you these remarks
upon the state of our currency, and its connexion
with some of the most important interests of so-
ciety, I have presumed partly on the political re-
lation now subsisting between us, but still more on
the manliness and candour which your parliament-
ary conduct has always exhibited, and which assures
me that I shall obtain one reader at least who will
think for himself, and will not fear, upon a great
practical question, to declare what he thinks, how-
ever adverse his opinions may be to those whose
general line of politics he approves. Another mo-
tive for this choice is, that the sanction of such a
name will probably engage the attention of many
readers for whom the subject itself has few attrac-
tions, or who think perhaps that the discussion it
B
+2
has undergone is already complete, and that no addi-
tional light can now be thrown upon it. To such rea-
soners I have only to point out the simple fact, that
the present Chancellor of the Exchequer maintains
doctrines which are at variance with writers hitherto
regarded as the greatest authorities in political
economy-that this controversy still subsists be-
tween his published opinions and theirs and that
his practical measures are still regulated by the
opinions he has avowed. Unless therefore we are
prepared to abandon these authorities, and adopt
a new theory of money, we must regard the ques-
tion as one still undetermined, and considering
its deep and universal interest, deserving of the
most careful investigation.
t.
Before I proceed however to lay before you the
view I have taken of this important subject, I must
be permitted to observe, that the didactic air
which may appear in some of these statements,
unsuitable as it is to the epistolary form, and par-
ticularly as addressed to one who is himself far
superior to the writer in political experience and
knowledge, is yet almost inseparable from the me-
thod of inquiry here pursued. When first prin-
ciples are brought in question, it is necessary to
explain and vindicate the very elements of the
science at any rate it is impossible satisfactorily
to maintain an argument on practical measures
3
"
without pointing out the dependency of our posi-
tions on those first principles which are generally
received as true. In the discussion which has
hitherto taken place, in and out of Parliament, the
advocates of our present financial systein have
sometimes adopted one, sometimes another of
these methods. At one time they deny the funda-
mental principles alledged by their opponents-at
another they dispute the connection between the
cases adduced and those principles-but still
oftener do they seek to involve the question in
darkness and mystery, by bringing forward facts,
apparently at variance with those principles, and
leaving their adversaries to account for them-thus
playing a safer part than if they openly denied
the principles themselves; and by a trick of so-
phistry, throwing a discredit upon their adversary,
because he cannot at the moment either disprove
the facts, or reconcile them at once with his own
theory.
1
To this latter practice I shall particularly advert
in the sequel; conceiving, as I do, that it is highly
disingenuous, and unworthy of the station and cha
racter of those who frequently resort to it. Every
one knows how difficult it is to make the generality
of men, especially of men who are engaged, as all
are more or less, in practical dealings, contemplate
questions of this kind steadily and impartially-a
B 2
4
considerable effort is necessary to enable them to
abstract these ideas from the crowd of adventitious
circumstances in which they are always enveloped,
and still more from the personal interests involved
in them. And when this end is accomplished for
a time, and the truth is perceived and acknow-
ledged, how soon is the attention exhausted, and
the mind returns with pleasure to that state of
slovenly repose in which we are too apt to indulge,
unless when excited by considerations of interest
or duty. If it be true even in morals that
Our better mind
Is but a Sunday's garment, then put on
When we have nought to do, but at our work
We wear a worse for thrift,
<
still more natural is it, in matters which belong
rather to the province of intellect than of moral
duty, that the purer speculations of science should
be of rare occurrence and short-lived. Those ex-
traneous particulars which have by a laborious pro-
cess been separated in order to exhibit the main
ingredient in its unmixed form, soon rush together
and become blended as intimately as before, when
the scientific purpose is answered, and the power-
ful test which had expelled them is withdrawn.
There is then a strong and constant tendency in
the public mind to this confusion of the simple
5
!
elements of science in the practical concerns of
life and it is painful to see the authority of
men high in station employed not to correct
these errors, but to sanction and confirm them.-
Independently of the actual mischief flowing from
the errors themselves, one may be allowed, with-
out incurring the charge of Quixotic enthusiasm,
to lament that the cause of truth itself should be
thus exposed to unexpected difficulties-difficulties
not of the ordinary kind arising out of the pre-
judices and ignorance of the vulgar, but from the
influence of men of talent and reputation; whose
aid one might rather have anticipated in behalf of
reason against prejudice.
That the opposite course should have been pur-
sued and should have prevailed, I can only account
for, by considering the nature of the Cause in
support of which these financial doctrines were
first avowed, and the political hostility to that cause
which was declared by many of their adversaries.
Whatever my own opinion of the doctrines may
be, it certainly does not arise from any disappro-
bation of the policy then pursued, nor from any
leaning towards the foreign politics of its oppo-
nents. On the contrary, if that cause had required
much greater pecuniary sacrifices from this nation
than have been made, according to my judgment
it was well worth them all. The nation, I believe,
6
1
would have cheerfully borne more: and now that
the contest has been brought to a glorious issue,
they would have looked back with pride instead of
regret on the exertions it had cost them. But on
this very account I lament that sophistry and de-
lusion should have been employed to effect that
for which the simple truth was alone sufficient.
The cause was worthy of better means: and to the
credit of the late Mr. Perceval it should be ob-
served, that he always grounded the obnoxious mea-
sure of a forced paper currency, not as his succes-
sor in office has done, upon the denial of all the
soundest maxims of political economy, but on the
necessity of the measure in order to sustain the
conflict in which we were then engaged. This
ground is intelligible and manly. It admits the
departure from established principles, but defends
it as the means of avoiding a greater evil. The
choice is thus fairly placed before the country:
and by the very mode of stating the case, it is at
least implied that when the emergency is past,
there will be an end also of those irregular pro-
ceedings to which it gave birth. Had this ground
been steadily maintained, the country would have
had the satisfaction of doing that generously,
which they have now been told was no sacrifice at
all. They might have indulged an honest pride in
facing the difficulties of their situation with their
"
}
7
eyes open, instead of yielding to representations
which disguised the danger, which insulted the un-
derstanding of the wise, and deprived even the ig-
norant of the credit of making a voluntary tribute
to so great a cause.
It is an old reflection, that men submit cheer-
fully to irregular acts of power which they regard
as necessary, but not to injustice under colour of
right. A reflection which Lord Clarendon follows
up by some judicious remarks on the effect of that
unwise as well as unjust decision of the twelve
judges in the case of Ship-money. "That pressure,"
he observes," was borne with much more cheer-
"fulness before the judgment for the king, than
66
ever it was after: men before pleasing themselves
"with doing somewhat for the king's service, as a
testimony of their affection, which they were not
"bound to do; many really believing the neces-
:
ઃઃ
}
sity, and therefore thinking the burden reason-
able; others observing, that the advantage to the
king was of importance, when the damage to
them was not considerable; and all assuring
"themselves, that when they should be weary, or
"unwilling to continue the payment, they might
resort to the law for relief, and find it. But
"when they heard this demanded in a court of
66
law, as a right, and found it by sworn judges
"of the law adjudged so, upon such grounds and
8
ແ reasons as every stander-by was able to swear
“was not law, and so had lost the pleasure and
66
delight of being kind and dutiful to the king; and
"instead of giving, were required to pay, and by a
"logic that left no man any thing which he might
call his own, they no more looked upon it as
"the case of one man, but the case of the king
"dom, nor as an imposition laid upon them by the
king, but by the judges; which they' thought
"themselves bound in conscience to the public
justice not to subinit to."
<<
6.6
How far this memorable case bears upon the
question before us, as a perversion of law, I shall
explain hereafter. Even under that view of it there'
appear to me to be no slight grounds of alarm in
the language which the Chancellor of the Exchequer
has thought fit to hold:-but at present I would
point out more particularly the close analogy sub-
sisting between his perversion of reason and their
perversion of law, in support of a measure of state,
and the corresponding effect naturally produced
in the minds of all those who watch the proceeding.
For myself, I could not more correctly describe
the feeling excited by his speeches and the votes of
Parliament which followed upon them, than by
adopting the words of the eloquent historian just
cited. And the more the subject is examined, the
more, I am persuaded, will the public feel the ne-
•
1
9
7
cessity of some explicit disavowal, on the part of
government, of such pernicious doctrines.
It will be my endeavour, in the latter part of
this Letter, to exhibit with as much conciseness as
is consistent with perspicuity, the several tenets
which Mr. Vansittart has maintained on the sub-
ject of our currency, in opposition not only to his
Parliamentary adversaries, but to the ablest writers,
whose opinions have been universally adopted
throughout Europe; and more especially to analyze
the reasoning by which his measures have been
supported. But it will be expedient in the first
place to premise some observations, on the im-
portance of this subject-on its intimate connection
with our laws, our morals, our religion, in short,
with every constituent of social welfare and hap-
piness. It is, I fear, but too common to regard a
question of finance as important only to the public
transactions or to the foreign commerce of the
country: and people in general are apt to turn a deaf
ear to discussions in which they fancy they have
no immediate interest. Financial pamphlets, it
has become familiar to remark, produce no im-
pression on the public mind. It is on this well-
known fact that our finance minister seems prin-
cipally to rely for the success of his measures.
For if once the generality of people of education
could be persuaded that they affect all the most
C
10
valuable interests of life-that there is really no
mystery in the thing itself, (for after all it is
only a question of simple arithmetic, and the
whole difficulty consists in preserving an exact
method, and clearing away irrelevant matter
which obstructs the view, while the art of him who
is in the wrong on a question of accounts consists
in embarrassing and confounding the question and
hiding the simple truth,) they would doubtless ex-
ercise that independence of mind for which our
country is justly celebrated, and compel by the in-
fluence of public opinion that deference to truth
and justice, which is so conspicuous in every other
branch of our public administration.
It happens unfortunately too for such enquiries,
that men are apt to overlook the simplest and
most fundamental truths, merely because they are
elementary. The successive improvements which
are engrafted on the rude elements of any art,
by degrees engross all their attention, and impede
rather than assist the view, in case any derange-
ment or unexpected difficulty should occur which
calls for an examination of first principles.
terity in practice is by no means a criterion of
well-grounded knowledge. It is often acquired by
the very neglect of that knowledge; the attention
which such knowledge demands being profitably
transferred to the rapid execution of measures
Dex-
11
really but not apparently connected with it. Thus
in all improved machinery, the operation would be
retarded if the workmen were continually reflect-
ing on the several principles of its construction,
and the connection they have with the ultimate
effects produced. There is in fact no motive for
such mental exertion, and the end being not only
as well but even more expeditiously attained with-
out it, it soon is not only disregarded as useless,
but despised as pedantic. Hence it is that practical
men are of all others least qualified to judge of
new and unforeseen cases. Habit has already
with them superseded reflection: they come to the
consideration with minds preoccupied and if be-
sides this their interests are involved, as they al-
ways are to a certain degree, in the question, there
is hardly any hope of a fair and impartial judg-
ment for even the propositions of Euclid, says a
philosophical writer, would become subjects of
controversy, if the passions and interests of man-
kind were affected by the result.
Notwithstanding, however, this prejudice in fa-
vour of practical opinions as opposed to theory,
I will venture to premise a few of the established
positions, however trite, on which the subsequent
reasoning is founded.
The great importance of a permanent standard,
as the instrument of commerce, as a common
c 2
12
measure, by which the value of all commodities
may be expressed, no one denies. Certain pro-
perties in what we call the precious metals seem
to have determined all mankind, from the earliest
ages, to adopt them in preference to other things.
for this purpose.
Besides their intrinsic value as
articles of luxury, they unite the requisites of being
portable, divisible, imperishable, distinguishable,
in a higher degree than any other substance.
Their quantity also is moderate, and not easily
increased and hence arises that main property of
being less subject to variation in value than other
commodities. That they also are variable, as
well as other things, but in a much less degree,
was long ago observed by a profound and accurate
writer. This circumstance, arising in the world
at large from the indefinite increase in quantity to
which they are liable, disqualifies them indeed for
being a perfect instrument, but still leaves them
by far the best that can be employed for that use :
and the universal concurrence of mankind is deci-
sive testimony to this point. Their variation in
value in particular countries is of course owing to
the fluctuations of demand and supply, an evil
which has always a tendency to correct itself-and
1
2 Πάσχει μὲν οὖν καὶ τῦτο τὸ αὐτό· ἡ γὰρ ἀεὶ ἴσον δύναται· ὅμως δὲ
Búλrrai μéveiv fãλrov. Arist. Eth. Nicom. lib. v. cap. 5:
13
which can never be excessive or even considerable
where mutual intercourse is uninterrupted.
It should here be observed, that admitting the
continual production of these metals to exceed the
wear and tear and loss and secretion, yet it by no
means follows that an absolute increase in quantity
would lessen their value. The principal demand
for them being for the purpose of money, in pro-
portion as mankind multiply and commerce is ex-
tended, this demand will be increased. It may
often exceed the supply, and thus raise their value,
as seems to have been the case for two or three
centuries before the discovery of America; and
even now, if the art of commerce had not been
improved by the institution of banks, and the great
extension of credit, the annual supply from America
would probably have fallen far short of the increased
demand, in consequence of the spread of civilized
population over the face of the globe, and the great
increase of it in old countries.
The rapid depreciation of these metals after the
working of the mines in South America has be-
come a matter of trite remark. But there are cir-
cumstances attending it, more instructive and more
deserving the attention of a practical statesman
than the fact itself. I mean, the backwardness of
mankind in perceiving this fact, their unwillingness
to allow it, their proneness to account for the
14
change of prices by every other cause than the
true one, the consequent unfairness and inequality
in all contracts made for a length of time, the dis-
turbance caused in the several relations of society,
the hardships and depression of some, the ruin of
others, the difficulties thrown in the way of adjust-
ment, and the discord, reproach, vexation, and
anxiety which was thus spread through every de-
partment of life.
Whoever is conversant with the history of those
times, especially with that branch of history which
enters into the detail of life and manners, must
have had frequent opportunities of verifying these
remarks. They abound with complaints of the
increased dearness of provisions, and of all the
necessaries of life-of the rapacity of landlords, the
exactions of the clergy, the sufferings of the poor,
the pressure of public burdens, the extravagant
demands of all men for higher prices and for an
increase of wages.
Even the literature of the
time, and the records of all our ancient institutions,
teem with incidental notices to the same effect.
The following passage from a sermon of Bishop
Latimer's may be taken as a specimen of the mode
of thinking on these matters, which continued till
the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign, about the close
of which the progress of depreciation received a
check, continuing nevertheless with a slow and
15
scarcely perceptible pace through the whole of the
next century.
<C
CC
Co
66
66
"Without too much we can get nothing. As
"for example, the phisition. If the poore man
"be diseased, he can have no help without too
"much: and of the lawyer, the poore man can get
no counsell, expedition, nor helpe in his matter,
except he give him too much. At marcháunts
handes, no kind of ware can be had, except we
give for it too much.
You landlords, you
rentraisers, I may say, you steplordes, you un-
"natural lordes, you have for your possessions
yearely too much. For that heere before went
"for 207. or 407. by yeare, (which is an honest por-
"tion to bee had gratis in one lordshippe, of
"another man's sweate and labour,) now it is let
"for 50 or 100 pound by yeare. Of this too much
"commeth this monsterous and portentuous dearth
"made by man, notwithstanding God doth send
us plentifully the fruites of the earth mercifully,
66
66
66
contrary unto our desertes. Notwithstanding
too much, which these rich men have, causeth
"such dearth, that poore men (which live of their
labour) cannot with the sweate of their face have
66
66
CC
a living, all kinde of victuals is so deare, pigs,
geese, capons, chickens, egges, &c. These
thinges with other are so unreasonably en-
"haunsed and I think verily, that if this con-
ઃઃ
:
16
❝tinue, we shall at length be constrained to pay
"for a pigge a pound.".
and sooeyng pliers
普
​We may smile at the simplicity of this preacher,
and talk of the comparative ignorance of that age:
but the same effect precisely has been produced by
the same cause in our own times, and is invariablý
produced whenever the value of money has under-
gone a rapid change. Man is naturally an egotist.
He classes, and estimates, and speaks of objects ré-
latively to himself. Experience by degrees enables
us to combine facts, and to correct one observation
by another but few who are busily engaged
in action attempt this: their impressions are formed
at the moment, and from these hasty inconsiderate
impressions habits of thinking and speaking arise,
which at length become inveterate, and are too
stubborn for correction: and it is not till we take
our stand at such a distance as to be no way af
fected ourselves by the objects we contemplate,
that their true relation amongst each other is
discerned.
Thus even in the year 1773, when Dr. Johnson
travelled through the Highlands, he observes that
the people every where complain of the rapacity
of landlords, and the increasing dearness of pro-
visions, and of all articles of trade. Men will,
he remarks, persist in regarding money as the
fixed commodity, and all other things as variable;
{
བ
17
whereas when a change of price like this gra-
dually pervades the market, it is plain that the
standard is variable, and not the things which are
measured by it, which keep for the most part
their relative values as measured by each other
unchanged.
;
The change of value which Dr. Johnson ob-
served in 1773 has been advancing regularly ever
since, and during the last twenty years with in-
creased velocity. This is a fact placed beyond dis-
pute. Of the latter period I forbear at present to
speak, because the depreciation of our currency, as
peculiar to this country, is still disputed: and to
the consideration of that point I shall proceed,
when other preliminary matters are dispatched.
But down to the commencement of the war in
1793, a progressive depreciation of money had
been perceptible, shewing itself in a rise of prices,
and increase of rents, with the usual accompani-
ment of complaints at the growing avarice, ex-
tortion, and greediness of all classes of men.
Of the cause of this depreciation in our own age,
so strikingly parallel in its effects on society with
that of the sixteenth century, it may be as well
here to say a few words: and a few words, I trust,
will be sufficient to explain it. That a vast in-
crease of the circulating medium lessens the value
of any given part of that medium is universally
admitted and hence we account for the former
:
D
[
18
depreciation by the increased supply of the pre-
cious metals from the mines of America. Now
about the middle of the eighteenth century the
"",
use of
paper as a representative of coin was be-
coming very general. The banking system had
spread from London to all our chief commercial.
towns; till at length, in the year 1792, when per-
haps it had reached or even surpassed the acme of
a sound currency, every market town possessed its
bank, and all the larger payments, as well as a great
proportion of the ordinary payments of life, were
made in paper. The specie thus superseded had
not yet entirely found its way to foreign countries;
and a large accumulation, with its consequent
depreciation, took place at home. It should be
observed too, that the banking system not only in-
creases the amount, but leads also to a lessened de-
mand of the circulating medium, by those modes of
economising its use, so well explained by Mr. Bosan-
quet, which make 10,000l. perform the part of half
a million in the general settlement of mercantile
transactions in London. The same operation to
a certain degree is periodically performed in every
town which contains a number of banks and its
effects are precisely the same as if an additional
quantity of money were kept in hand for these
purposes. If, for instance, a million of specie is
d Observations on the Report of the Bullion Committee,
p. 54.
19
{
required to circulate the wealth of a district, and
by means of improvement in commerce 200,000%.
which formerly was detained for answering these
mutual demands of merchants on each other, is
set at liberty, the effect on the value of the current
medium is the same as if its quantity had been
augmented to that amount.
What proportion the representative part of a cur-
rency may safely bear to the real, it is not perhaps
easy to ascertain; so much depending on the ha-
bits of the people, who require long training before
they give entire confidence to such a mode of
payment and even when the credit is entire, there
are many who prefer a tangible to an ideal form of
wealth. Some estimate may however be formed
from the opinion of Dr. Smith, who considers a
stöck in hand equal to one third of its bills as quite
sufficient to maintain the credit of a bank. When
the first editions of his work appeared, the banking
system was comparatively new, although it had
already produced a sensible effect on our currency
by a general rise of prices. Whether this rise was
likely to continue is one of the points Dr. Smith
discusses, and which he determines in the nega-
tive; probably not foreseeing the rapid and wide
extension of that paper circulation out of which it
sprung. If then we adopt Dr. Smith's proportion
of paper to specie, viz. three to one, as constituting
D 2
20
!
ร
/
the creditable state of a single bank, and recollect
that banks, whieh in his time were few, had become
in the year 1792 almost universal, so that large
payments in specie were generally admitted to be
inconvenient, and seldom took place, we may
fairly conclude, that the whole circulating medium
of the country was increased at least in the ratio
of two to one in the course of little more than
forty years. If the substitution of paper for coin
were strictly universal, the ratio of three to one
would not be too large; but I prefer the other,
both because the fact certainly was, that much
coin continued to circulate, and the average rise of
prices between the years 1750 and 1792 corre-
sponds pretty nearly with the proportion first stated.
Had the same substitution of paper prevailed
throughout the civilized world, there can be no
doubt but the depreciation of gold and silver
would soon have sunk to the same level; the in-
troduction of this new medium being precisely
equivalent to a multiplication of the metals, with
this additional circumstance conspiring to sink its
Value, that the labour and cost of production is
"comparatively nothing. But it is well known that
"we far outrun other nations in this species of
created wealth: accordingly much of our own
specie is only dislodged to swell the general cur,
rency of Europe; and by means of this outlet the
!
會
​21
excessive accumulation at home has been counter-
acted. Still the public stock of the trading world
is so far augmented, the ratio of augmentation
being greatest in that country which always keeps
its circulation brimfull by this domestic manufacture
of money,
*
I say nothing of the other concurrent causes
which aided this depreciation, such as the public
debt, and the expenditure of the American war;
my object being now chiefly to point out the ne-
cessary effects of such a change upon the welfare
of society; with the hope that if those evils which
I conceive to flow from it are admitted to be its
natural result, a strong effort may be made to op-
pose a system which aggravates those evils, un-
necessarily, and finds its resources for discharging
past engagements in the perpetuation of this un-
natural state of things. The evils I am about to
enumerate are no ground of accusation against the
government under which they sprung. The rich
have been made poor the creditor has been paid
off with less than he lent the helpless annuitant
has sunk amidst the general rise and he who sold
his land for what was deemed an equivalent, has
lived to see the price dwindled to less than half its
value. These with a thousand other grievances
cannot be imputed either to laws or ministers.
They are involved in the very nature of the com-
22
modity itself. Money was supposed to be un-
changeable in value, and property invested in that
form to be less variable in its nature, however pre-
carious its tenure, than in any other. The opinion
has been proved by unforeseen causes to be erro-
neous-causes for which no one is accountable,
and which no one could have anticipated; and
those who acted under the error must abide by
their loss. But if such be the misfortune of per-
sons who cannot be blamed for their error, it still
becomes the part of a statesman to mitigate that
misfortune as far as lies in his power: certainly it
is his duty, not to heighten this inequality not to
aggravate this unforeseen and unintentional in-
justice-not to throw himself into the scale against
the sufferer, to enrich the gainer and impoverish
the loser in this unfortunate traffic still more, by an
artificial depression of that commodity in which the
loser's property is invested, or by which his claims
are to be measured. That such is the necessary
effect of those financial measures and opinions
which Mr. Vansittart maintains, it shall be my
endeavour presently to demonstrate. But let us
first describe somewhat more in detail, what the
evils are which attend a rapid change in the valuė
of money, such as no man denies to have actually
happened, whatever his opinion of the cause may
be…
་
1
23
Now the anxiety men have in all ages shewn to
obtain a fixed standard, and that remarkable agree-
ment of nations, dissimilar in all other customs, in
the use of one medium, on account of its superior
fitness for that purpose, is itself a convincing proof
how essential it is to our social interests. The
notion of its permanency, although it be conven-
tional and arbitrary, and liable in reality to many
causes of variation, yet had gained so firm a hold
on the minds of men, as to resemble in its effects
on their conduct that instinctive conviction of the
permanency of the laws of nature, which is the
foundation of all our reasoning. Not only their
private contracts, but the most important civil in-
stitutions, are built upon it. I need only instance
the qualification for a freeholder's vote, and the
limitations of five shillings and forty shillings in
our criminal law. Trained and encouraged in this
security by the highest authorities, by universal
practice, by the very structure of language which
bears the stamp of this belief durably impressed
upon it, men naturally contract for the future on
the same principles as they exchange for the pre-
sent.
Their time, their services, their property
are engaged for distant terms at a stipulated price
in money. Others from various motives of con-
venience or necessity convert their lands and houses
into this more portable form, and find when they
24
}
come to reinvest it, that it is no longer what it was,
and what it still professes to be. Parents divide
their property in what seems to be the most equi-
table proportion among their children; who dis-
cover, when it is too late, that the intention is de-
feated, and the designed order cruelly inverted:
that those, who, as being less able to manage and
improve their portion, were especial objects of eare,
are in reality the least favoured; and instead of
being better secured against the fluctuations of
commerce, are carried onward by a stream of uni-
form depreciation which they have no means of
counteracting, and the limit of which lies beyond
their view..
wad mysting tot zer
ጎ
1
?
The answer which a political economist gives to
these complaints is, that the market naturally
adjusts itself to this change of value that all pay-
ments, sooner or later, find their proper leveles
that in the mean time industry is quickened, and
improvement promoted by the profit which all
active dealers make even beyond their own calcula-
tions that the mere nominal increase of price
operates as an incentive, and deceives men into
their own advantage that in many cases the
advantage is real as well as nominal-that the
farmer who sells his produce for more than when
he took his farm, improves his land by the exi
penditure of a larger capital- that all, sellers, in
1
1
25
short, gain, or appear to gain and that the only
gloser is the indolent proprietor of money, who is
-altogether a buyer and a seller of nothing.
?
To this statement several important considera-
tions must be opposed. In the first place, it admits
that the proprietor of money and the annuitant, a
large and in general a helpless class of the commu-
nity, have no share in the general redress. But
besides this, the correction itself comes tardily to
many and unequally to all. One of the ablest writers
indeed on this subject observes, that "a variation in
price caused by an altered value of money is com-
§ mon at once to all commodities"." This position
was not perhaps intended to be taken literally; for
the professed object of the work in which it occurs is,
to point out the ultimate effects of those variations
in the demand for labour which are for ever disturb-
ing the surface of life, disregarding in the mean time
all partial derangements, and the irregular intervals
at which the several corrections and adjustments
respectively take place. The fact undoubtedly is,
that the altered value of money does not affect all
prices at the same time: but that wide intervals
occur, during which one class is compelled to buy
dear while they sell cheap, and others have no
prospect whatever of indemnity, or of regaining
the relative position they once occupied.
a Ricardo on Political Economy, p. 577.
E
26
•
In the direct bargaining of the market, it is
true, where demand and supply are the sole regu-
lators, where profit and loss are the only consi-
derations, and each dealer is independent of the
other, self-interest is sufficiently quicksighted to
protect itself; and nothing interferes either to
embarrass the view, or to check the natural ten-
dency towards a due adjustment of prices. But
in the intercourse of life, how numerous are the
transactions into which money enters only as one
ingredient of the compound! The moment indeed
we quit the shop or the market, all our payments
are mingled up with a thousand feelings more or
less foreign to the commercial principle-feelings
of respect, of delicacy, of forbearance, of affection,
of friendship, of gratitude, of duty, which abhor
the language of traffic, and studiously exclude it
as far as human affairs will permit from their
communion. It is needless to dwell upon the
well-known fact, that all men of liberal and culti-
vated minds shun this species of negociation be-
tween themselves, that they abridge and evade it
if possible, and throw it off upon some inter-
mediate or professional agent. The permanency
of a standard relieves the irksomeness of such
arrangements, by the promise it gives, that they
cannot often return: but when this standard by
its variation silently undermines the very principle
ว
27
of the agreement, a continual repetition and cor-
rection of these painful dealings is rendered ne
cessary-dealings so much the more painful in
their correction than in their first settlement, be-
cause opinions vary about the reality of the change,
or its amount, or its probable duration: and much
injustice is endured from various motives, before
the remedy is obtained, or even applied for ; while
in the mean time the current of private life, which
ought most to be protected from such agitations,
is ruffled and disturbed by suppressed discontent,
or by discussions and altercations still more un-
friendly to social happiness.
If an example should be required, on an ex-
tended scale, let me draw your attention to the
composition for tithes between a Rector and his
parishioners a mode of settlement which for the
sake of peace, of mutual convenience, and of pro
fessional character, it is most desirable to preserve
undisturbed. Yet as the standard of value changes,
these agreements require to be perpetually recti-
fied, and made conformable to the change.
to be wondered, that in that class of life, the
should be still more obstinately blind to the ne-
cessity of a change, than in more liberal callings
that under prejudices of early habit, cooperating
with his interest, and confirmed by the potent spell
of names continuing the same, although the nature
Is it
payer
E 2
28
of the thing is changed, it should be difficult to per-
suade him that his pastor does not really demand
more than his predecessor enjoyed? Persuasion in
deed in such cases is always hopeless: the demand
is resisted as long as it can ; and when enforced is,
paid with reluctance, and too often followed by
murmurs and reproach; while at each successive
operation of the same kind, fresh irritation is pro-
duced, and a general ferment and exasperation
pervades a community, which ought to be the
residence of harmony and mutual good-will...
•
These considerations, however they may be de-
spised by some statesmen, you, Sir, I am persuaded,
will not deem beneath your notice. But the evil
is yet more apparent, if viewed in the case of those.
who are not restrained by delicacy from advancing
their claims, but whose situation is so dependent,
or their interests so entangled, that they must ac-
quiesce in the unfairness, for fear of incurring
some greater loss. The superior may be peti-
tioned, but he cannot be threatened into equity.
The competition of the market offers no resource
here. If the claim is not allowed, secret dissatis
faction there may be, but absolute submission must
be the consequence of refusal. Among the end-
less variety of cases which this class comprehends,
it will be sufficient to mention one, and that a pro
minent example, the case of stipendiary enracies.
;
1
་་
29
#
"
:
That these stipends did not rise in proportion to
the income of benefices is perfectly notorious
that in most instances they fell short of that pro-
portion by one half is my firm belief, founded upon
pretty extensive enquiry and if the legislature
had not opportunely interposed, there is reason to
think, from the opposition raised against the mea-
sure, that to this day the evil would have existed
in full force, and that at least a generation must
have passed away before the remedy would have
overtaken it.
-
:
4
The same principle is observable even in trans-
actions which partake more of the character of
trade, and in which therefore competition alone may
be supposed to regulate the market. All commo-
dities do not obtain the advanced price at once. In
what order they succeed one another, it may not be
easy to determine; and much depends upon local and
accidental causes; but in general it may be affirmed,
first, that the necessaries of life obtain it before the
superfluities and secondly, that he who can with-
hold his commodity, or dispose of it where he pleases,
obtains the advance before him who must bring it at
once to a given market. These are positions, the
truth of which I apprehend will hardly be called in
question. While the prejudice continues, which is
one of the last that leaves the generality of men, that
things are dearer, and that they must contract their
expences, the saving is of course made on the super-
30
fluities of life-and the dealers in these superfluities
finding the demand lessened, are thus induced, if
they cannot afford to wait for better times, to lower
rather than to advance the price. On the other
hand, the man who can afford to keep back his
wares, will naturally be inclined to do so, in order
that his own trade may partake in the general ad-
vance of prices, which will in time reach him as
well as the rest.
}
Now both these principles bear with accumu-
lated force upon the class of labourers, more
especially, for a reason which will presently be ex-
plained, upon the class of agricultural labourers.
The things which they have to buy are the neces-
saries of life, and the only commodity they have to
sell, their labour, it is impossible they should keep
back. They come into the market therefore with
a double disadvantage, and the effect is invariably
found to correspond with this disadvantage. A
depreciation of the currency always depresses the
lower classes. They must buy, and they must sell,
and that immediately. The parties with whom
they deal are intent upon gain. To drive a bar-
gain is the business of their life, and they will not
fail to employ the advantage thus thrown into their
}
b Dr. Franklin somewhere observes, that his countrymen
say there is 10 per cent. difference between Will you buy?
and Will you sell? This difference is unfortunately doubled
to the labourer, when money falls in value.
31
hands. Besides which, it is easy to persuade
themselves, and even the workmen they employ,
that the high price of provisions is a temporary
evil-that it must be borne accordingly-that they
ought patiently to wait for better times. In the
mean time the labourer is by degrees inured to a
harder condition of life; to inferior food, lodging,
and clothing. With his habits of living, his ha-
bits of thinking also undergo a change; and many
of those comforts which formerly belonged to his
station, being found to be no longer strictly neces-
sary, are by degrees forgotten. In this manner,
unless an extraordinary demand for labour comes
to his aid, his condition is permanently and irre-
coverably degraded.
That such is the natural course of things ap-
pears not only from theory, and the experience of
our own times: perhaps the most unexceptionable
authority I can produce to the same point is that
of a writer, certainly well acquainted with the history
of those countries of which he speaks, but who is
far from making that application of the facts he
speaks of which is here designed.
"The great and rapid increase of national
"wealth has always been attended by a correspond-
Į
}
ent pressure of distress upon the peasantry. It
"was thus in Portugal, when Joam III. succeeded
"his father Emanuel, the most fortunate prince
"that ever sat upon a European throne: he was
32
master of Ormuz, of Goa, and of Malacca, in the
East, thus commanding the whole trade of the
"Indian seas; the gold mines of Africa sent. in
"rich returns to him, and the greater part of
"Morocco paid him tribute: to these treasures
"Joam III. succeeded, and never was there a pe-
"riod of greater national distress arising from po-
verty than at the commencement of his reign.
"It was thus in Spain, when ships came laden with
"silver and gold from Mexico and Peru; the fact
66
<6
}
1
•
was distinctly seen, and the cause distinctly
"stated by a contemporary writer: the influx of
"specie produced a diminution in the value of
money, and habits of lavish expenditure in the
"rich: rents were raised; all the necessaries of
"life advanced in price; the burden fell upon the
(6
66
r
CC
66
poor; and of the wealth which poured into the
country in full streams, all that reached them
was in the shape of more abundant alms, which
"made them more dependent than they were be-
fore, without preventing them from being more
"miserable."*
A diligent enquiry into the state of society
during the reign of Elizabeth, which in the depre-
ciation of money corresponds remarkably with the
present reign, would corroborate this position, by
The Inca Garcilasso, vol. ii. book 1. c. 7. quoted in the
Quarterly Review, vol. xv. p. 192.
"Quarterly Review ibid.
1
It appears that 210, $75, 800 formes sterling
at tin the Dollice have been freenished from the
the
1807
Mines of Mexicofion to your 1890 to 80%
that is a bou; two millions & teeling for anim
J
T



33
J
3
shewing how ill the wages of labour kept pace with
the increasing price of provisions. It is, I believe,
allowed by all who have made minute researches
'into those times, that at no period of our history
till the present was the condition of the labourer
so bad. Hence sprung the great and almost
sudden growth of the poor-law system, sometimes
absurdly attributed to the suppression of mo-
nasteries. A violent disturbance of the established
relations, as measured by the common standard of
money, had taken place; and the lower classes
being the last to obtain redress, sunk into that
state of abject dependence, from which they slowly
emerged through the natural corrective of a dimi-
nished population, aided by the general improve-
înent of the next century, and the greater steadi-
ness of our currency; but into which they are now
again plunged by the operation of a similar cause.
adi
It is the intimate connexion of this fact with
the much agitated question of the poor laws, that
gives it a commanding claim on the attention of
the legislature a connexion, which, notwith-
standing the able and varied discussion that sub-
ject has undergone, seems to have attracted less
notice than its importance deserves.It is, I be-
lieve, by far the most powerful of those causes
which have brought the disease to a crisis, and
alarmed us all into an anxiety about the remedyo
F
22 300 ·
34
{
W
}
Much harm has doubtless been done by the false
humanity of a recent law, which exempts the re-
ceiver of parochial relief from the wholesome ter-
rors of a workhouse; and whatever is done to-
wards a mitigation of the evil, all parties seem to
be agreed on the necessity of returning to greater
rigour in the general execution of the system. But
it can hardly be imagined, that a system radically
vicious, tending, as the universal voice of the
country proclaims, to corrupt, impoverish, degrade;
and disorganize society, should have been in full
vigour above two centuries, and yet not bring forth
its baleful fruit till within the last thirty years, un-
less there had been something peculiar to this
latter period, which fostered the evil, and drew
out its latent venom. For it cannot be denied,
that its growth has been progressive during the
whole period of the late war with France-a period
not of inactivity and stagnation, but of boundless
exertion of every kind. The cessation of this
demand for labour has undoubtedly thrown a
larger burden than ever on the parish funds; but
long before the peace, the agricultural parishes
especially had felt the rapid progress of that intes-
tine mischief preying upon their vitals.
;་
An investigation of the cause why the agricul
tural districts laboured under this pressure first,
and still suffer more severely than the others, will
་
DING
"
}
35
tend to prove yet more forcibly the connexion that
subsists between it and the depreciation of money.
It was before observed, that the wages of labour
always follow at a very unequal pace the advance-
ment of prices. Pure theory inculcates the na-
tural and necessary tendency towards an equitable
adjustment; it leaves the intermediate difficulties
and delays out of the question, as frictions in a
mechanical problem; and justly condemns the
folly of attempting to rectify the inequality by law.
But laws, though they cannot rectify, yet may
aggravate what is amiss, and retard the cure: and
those very frictions and disturbing forces may pos-
sibly by care and skill be diminished; at any rate
they deserve attentive study, as tending to illus.
trate the principles on which the several phenomena
depend.
Thus the labour of the manufacturer is a trans-
ferable stock compared with that of the husband-
man. Occasional competition instructs the owner
in its value, and it circulates with freedom through
those districts where it is most wanted. In other
words, the manufacturing labourer has his choice.
of a market, and of course he obtains his price.
sooner, than the husbandman who is practically
confined to a single spot, and for whose labour
there cannot be that free competition which the
commercial theory supposes. The local influence
F 2
36
J
:
>
#
too under which he acts, removes him still farther
from the condition of the vender of a commodity,
under which relation that theory regards him.
The consequence is (what experience abundantly
testifies) that every expedient is resorted to by his
employer before that of a permanent rise of
wages and as the labourer cannot defer the bar-
gain, he submits to conditions really more and
more rigorous, passing indeed under the same or
even a higher denomination, and deriving addi-
tional facility from this very disguise. At length
recourse is had to the poor-rate to supply the grow-
ing deficiency; and when once that store is opened,
not for medicine but for food, there is no limit to
the use made of it: the employer, as may easily
be shewn, having strong motives of interest as well
as of sordid habit to repair to it, and the labourer,
with broken spirits and conscious impotence,
being flattered also by the apparent security against
absolute starvation which such an indefinite re-
source offers to his mind.
Among the subordinate causes that conspire
towards this melancholy result is the fact, which
appears to be well established, that a rise in
wages is a diminution not of rent, but of profits.
Whatever is theoretically true we may be sure is
See Ricardo on Political Economy, chap. 14.
37
...
pay
really acted upon by the interested party, however
unconscious he may be of the abstract principle,
and even unable to comprehend it: and hence
another motive is for ever operating with the
farmer to keep down the price of labour, and to
it as far as he can out of the parish fund. On
the evils and iniquity of this practice, which has al-
ready struck deep root in many large districts of
the kingdom, I forbear now to insist; my present
object being solely to point out their close and ne-
cessary connexion with the depreciation of our cur-
rency. How they may best be corrected or alle-
viated, Parliament will of course make the object
of its gravest deliberation. The age is too en-
lightened to think that a regulation of wages by
law can give effectual relief; that Government can
create food, or a demand for labour; but Govern-
ment may remove many obstacles to that principle
of self-correction which the analogy of nature
teaches us is the universal law of her constitution.
Neither have we any right to complain of
that progressive depreciation which is the na-
tural result of the causes before enumerated, and a
liability to which, however unsuspected, was really
involved from the first in the very nature of money.
But the important inference is, and it is that to
which the remainder of my Letter will be directed,
that if such be the consequences of depreciation,
38
{
any artificial, any superfluous, any arbitrary and
coercive depreciation is one of the worst and most
unjust measures which can be inflicted upon the
**If
country. If Government cannot stem the torrent,
let them at least not add to its force by pouring
fresh streams into the channel, and by obstructing
those natural outlets through which the over-
charged waters are struggling to make their way,
and to find their proper level.
1
1
In entering upon this part of my subject, it is
painful to think, how much of what is obvious and
familiar, not only to yourself, but to every man of
liberal education, must be repeated in order that
the points in dispute may be fairly laid before.
the reader. The necessity indeed arises from
a cause which only the evidence of facts could
force on our belief: that positions so elementary,
theorems so long established, should have been
required to give way before a novel expedient,
confessedly adopted under the pressure of an
unparalleled emergency. To this measure of
temporary policy the science of ages and the
plainest dictates of common sense are required to
yield. It is not a compliance of the will, but a
surrender of the understanding, that alone will
satisfy the advocates of this measure. They de-
fend it not as necessary, but as no violation of
1.
}
10
39
legitimate theory. They deny that any evil has
arisen from this innovation, and yet with mar-
vellous inconsistency profess a disposition, and
even an eagerness, to return to the ancient course.
This, I confess, is not the least of those paradoxes
which rest on the authority of the present Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer. He stoutly denies that
bank paper, and consequently the whole currency
of the country, is depreciated. Yet he declares
that it is expedient to resume cash-payments as
soon as it can be done with safety. If there is no
depreciation of the currency, why is it expedient?:
The larger the proportion of paper in our currency, I
provided that paper is equivalent to specie, the
better. The quantity of undepreciated paper we
can keep afloat in the market is the very test of the
buoyancy of our credit-a sure token of public pros-
perity-an index of the amount of displaced specie,
which is employed to advantage somewhere else.
The only benefit proposed, by making it con-
vertible at the will of the holder, is, that depre-
ciation may never take place; this natural check
being fully adequate without any officious vigilance,
or any positive enactments on the part of Govern-
ment, to controul it. But when this check is
wanting, there is no security against such an ex-
cess as shall cause depreciation: and the only
proof that such a depreciation has taken place is
{
40
*
"
either the desire of men at home to obtain specie
rather than paper, and their readiness to exchange
paper for it at a nominal loss; or, the estimation
in which our currency is held abroad being lower
than it would be if it consisted of specie or of
paper convertible into specie.
Both these proofs were offered by the Bullion
Committee in 1811, and both were rejected by
Mr. Vansittart; the first as not founded in fact,
the second as not conclusive if true.
را
}
Many other points of subordinate importance
were contested in the course of this discussion,
some of which I shall have occasion to bring again
to your notice, partly as conducive to the main
argument, but principally to illustrate the mode of
reasoning to which the Finance Minister has re-
sorted, and to put it plainly before the public,
whether measures which require such reasoning
can be well-founded; or whether, if they can be
better supported, the advocate, who has abandoned
the better ground and taken up this, can be safely
entrusted with the guardianship not only of the
public revenue, but of the good faith and honour
of the country, which are deeply involved in all
these transactions.
The argument of Mr. Vansittart's opponents
was built upon the following simple maxims.
That the legal coin of the country consists of gold
41
and silver of a certain weight and fineness, one pound
of gold being coined into forty-four guineas and a
half, and one pound of silver (till the late regulation)
into sixty-two shillings, and that the impress of
the Mint is an assurance to the public that these
proportions have been observed.
That a pound sterling is either twenty of such
shillings, or of one of such guineas.
20
21
That bank paper is a promissory engagement to
pay to the bearer the full nominal amount ex-
'pressed on the bill, in the legal coin of the coun-
try, when demanded.
That if the bank will not so pay the full amount,
and if the holder cannot obtain the full amount of
legal coin in exchange from other people, but only
a less quantity than is there expressed, bank paper
is depreciated in the estimation of the other party.
That if the holder is willing to exchange his
paper at this disadvantage, it is depreciated in his
own estimation.
That transactions of this kind to a great extent
are carried on through the country.
That the general disappearance of specie, which
is undeniable, is a proof that there is a profit in
sending it abroad: and that the laws which pro-
hibit exportation of coin are wholly inefficient.
To these simple elements respecting the nature
G
42
of CURRENCY, a few must be subjoined on the na-
ture of EXCHANGE.
As every country has a common measure of its
own applicable to all traffic within that country, so
in traffic with other countries a common measure
is obtained by settling the relative value of the cur-
rency of each country one with another.
This relative value depends on the quantity of
precious metals contained in their respective cur-
rencies: any given amount of the currency of one
country which contains the same quantity of bul-
lion with a given amount of the currency of an-
other country, is equivalent to it, and constitutes
what is called the par of exchange.
L
If the aforesaid amount in one country should
have its intrinsic value lessened, the par of ex-
.
change will be altered, and a proportionably larger
quantity of that currency will be required to re-
store the equality.
Notwithstanding the par of exchange, yet from
various causes bills payable in the currency of
one country have a temporary value greater or less
than bills of corresponding amount payable in
the currency of another country: that is, they are
either above or below par.
The exchange is said to be in favour of that
country whose bills bear a premium, and against
43
that country whose bills are at a discount. The
holder of bills which bear a discount is however
generally content to abide by the loss, rather than
actually fetch the bullion from that country in
whose currency the bill is payable at par-but
when the loss would be considerable, so as to ex-
ceed the expence of transmitting bullion, he will
fetch it. In other words, he will send the bill to
that country with an order to lay it out in bullion
to be consigned to him.
...In practical questions of this kind, the case is
stated, for the sake of perspicuity, with greater sim-
plicity than occurs in real life. The dramatis per-
sona, if I may be allowed the illustration, are as
few as possible, in order that the elements of the
plot may be more distinctly seen. And if one or
two individuals only were concerned, as the case
adduced seems to represent, we might suspect a
variety of motives to operate that might obstruct
the regular execution of these proceedings, or even
the actual advancement of their own interests.
But these transactions are in reality conducted on
a grand scale: a numerous class of intermediate
agents make it the sole business of their lives to
watch the relative value of bills, which is for ever
fluctuating, and to derive profit from the ex-
change, at the same time that the real holder is
accommodated by having the affair taken off his
44
تم
own hands. The intercourse thus maintained even
in time of war between all commercial countries is
active and regular; and we may as well suppose,
that in a traffic open to all men between London and
Liverpool, one man would long be allowed to make
exorbitant gains arising from a commodity which
he buys publicly in one place and sells in the other,
as that the same people would be suffered without
competition to send bullion from a country where
it is bought at par to be exchanged for bills in
another at an enormous profit, far exceeding the
cost and risk of transinission. We assume it
therefore as an element in our reasoning, (profit
being the sole principle of commercial dealings,
and a free competition existing among a multitude
of intelligent people all intent upon the same ob-
ject,) that the profit cannot long be so great on the
exchange of a bill as to exceed the cost of the
transmission of bullion. This cost, even in time
of war, when freight as well as insurance is dear-
est, has been found between London and Ham-
cent. The same
burgh never to exceed 7 per cent.
must be regarded therefore as the limit to the
unfavourable rate of exchange even in the worst
times: for if it long exceed that measure, it must
induce dealers either to buy up the bills for the
purpose of sending them to their own country, to
be changed into bullion; or it must induce the
{
3
J
L
}
45
holders of bullion in that country to send it abroad
to buy up these bills at so great an advantage. In
either case the competition must be so great (al-
ways increasing in proportion to the profit) as
speedily to reduce the traffic within the limits above
mentioned.
J
In a traffic of this sort too, the level is found
almost immediately. Other commodities require
some time to produce them and the fortunate
holder of large quantities may make great profits
before an adequate competition can grow up:
but in these the time and labour required for the
production counts for nothing. The commodity is
always afloat, waiting only the impulse of profit to
determine its direction to the best market.
It is common indeed to represent the balance of
payments between two countries, or that amount
by which the exports of one exceed in value its
imports from another, as actually made in bullion.
But this is not the fact; and it is material to shew
it, as Mr. Huskisson has done, in his valuable
treatise on the Depreciation of our Currency.
There is in fact no such thing as a final settlement
between two countries at the end of a year, and a
balance struck as between two individual dealers:
the dealing always goes on, the low rate of ex-
1
• Question concerning Depreciation, p. 49-53.
L
་
46
change naturally drawing goods from the country
whose bills are at a discount to redeem those bills,
or to pay off that debt which is denoted by a fall
in their bills, and checking the importation of them-
while the discount continues. There is thus a
continual tendency to restore the equilibrium and
in a natural state of things, the oscillation never
departs far from the mean: if it does, its great
excess receives an instant check by the actual
transmission of bullion; which is a commodity
always set in motion by the slightest advantage at-
tending it, being the most portable, and requiring
less preparation than any other, and being the least
liable to risk from the caprice of custom.
}
Another point assumed in this reasoning is, that
bullion and coin are virtually the same thing in all
such transactions. To the foreign merchant the
matter not the form of the commodity constitutes
its value. To him a pound of coined gold will not
be worth more than a pound of gold in bars. At
home however it may be thought there is some
difference and undoubtedly for home use, the
coin is preferable, and its value is slightly increased
by having passed through the Mint. This increase
of value has enabled many countries to take what
is called a seignorage or toll at the Mint: that is,
he who carries gold to be coined receives back
from the Mint something less than he brought, in
{
47
consideration of the increased value thus given to
the commodity. In our own Mint this practice
does not prevail: the same quantity precisely is
delivered out coined, which was brought uncoined;
the only loss the owner sustains by the process
being that of the interest of the money during the
delay of coinage. It should seem therefore that
bullion with us can never be long below its value
in coin, i. e. below what is technically called the
Mint price; because it is so easily convertible at
the will of the owner into the more valuable form.
But it may be said, that bullion will often be
above the Mint price, because when once turned
into coin it is, as it were, imprisoned: it can neither
legally be turned back into the form of bullion, nor
legally be exported. Such undoubtedly is the law
of the land. But there is no fact more certain, than
that these laws are wholly inefficient whenever a
profit attends the violation of them. No man of
the slightest experience or knowledge in mercantile
affairs is ignorant of the fact: no man, except for
the sake of argument, supposes it to be otherwise.
Ties of law, and even of religion, it is perfectly
notorious, are altogether useless. If the coin is
not smuggled abroad, it is melted into bars, and
sworn off as foreign gold for exportation. Large
dealings, limited only by the demands of trade,
48
of both kinds take place and although there is no
doubt that clandestine exportation is the main
channel through which the traffic is carried on, yet
the form of an oath for the purpose of rendering
melted coin legally exportable is too well-known
to be but a slight obstacle-an obstacle reducible,
like all other matters of trade, to an average ex-
pressed in money. Practically therefore it cannot
interfere with the correctness of our conclusions,
whenever the profit of sending bullion abroad is
such as to exceed that average, which has never
been rated at more than 5 per cent.: and the
clandestine exportation of coin which involves no
perjury, but merely runs the risk of seizure, is
practised to a much greater extent.
Now it was proved during the enquiry made by the
Bullion Committee, that foreign exchanges had for
a long time been permanently unfavourable to this
country, in a degree far exceeding the limit above
mentioned, namely, the cost of remitting bullion,
and which by practical men was stated to be rarely
more than 5 per cent even in time of war. In
the case of Hamburgh in particular, the exchange
had been as low as 29.8, which denotes a loss of
about 17 per cent: and for a long time previous
to the enquiry, the discount, although varying,
might be fairly taken at 15 per cent.
A
49
$
- The argument therefore for the depreciation of
our currency was simple and clear. As the
sending of bullion to Hamburgh would save this
discount, and the expense of sending never at
the utmost exceeded 7 per cent. a merchant would
naturally have recourse to that mode of pay-
ment rather than suffer so great a loss. But if
he attempted to do so, he found that to buy
bullion in England with bank paper would involve
him in as great a loss as the discount of his bill.
For instance, that to obtain bullion equal in weight
to 100 guineas, he must give bank notes to the
amount of 112, 115, or even 120 guineas, accord-
ing as the case might be. This then was another
measure of the depreciation of the paper as com-
pared with coin: for no one pretends that 112,
115, or 120 guineas in specie would ever be given
to procure gold equal only to 100 guineas £.
1
f
f It should always be remembered that the depression of
the exchange is not proposed as a sole test of the depre-
ctation of currency. There being two causes which regulate
the exchange, viz. the balance of payments, and the intrinsic
value of the currency, these may operate either in con-
junction or in opposition to each other, In the first case,
the rate of exchange will be as their sum, in the second as
their difference. If for instance the balance of payments be
4 per cent. against us, and the currency also depreciated
4 per cent, the depression of the exchange will be 8 per cent.
If the balance of payments be 4 per cent. in our favour, and
H
50
胄
​The reasoning of Mr. Vansittart against this
argument is curious. He does not deny that if
guineas were to be had, they would be sent out to
save this discount, but he reminds us that it would
not be legal to do so. The fact is admitted on
all hands, that coin will be exported in such a
:
1
state of things, and he himself states it, and reasons
upon it again and again but he says, it ought
not to be so, and seems to think this an answer
to the proof above adduced of the difference of
value in our paper and our coin. Paper cannot
purchase bullion except at a considerable loss.
Coin will purchase it at little or no loss, Coin
therefore is more valuable than paper. No, says
Mr. Vansittart, if the daw were enforced, coin
could not be só employed. But is the law en-
forced? Can it be enforced ?, Mr. Vansittart him-
self shall answer:
EC
"The Bank has sometimes been obliged to purchase
gold at a considerable loss; but this has always hap-
1
¿
the currency depreciated as before, the quantities will neu-
tralize each other, and the exchange will be at par. If, lastly,
the balance of payments be 4 per cent. in our favour, but
the depreciation of currency 20 or 24 per cent. "the de-
pression of the exchange will only be as 16 or 20 per cent.
In this manner the premium given in bank paper for
guineas, which often exceeded the nominal rate of exchange,
is easily accounted for; the balance of payments, or the real
exchange, being at that time in our favour.
51
}
+
pened in consequence of the foreign demand for gold
draining away our coin by clandestine exportation."
Speech on the Bullion Resolutions, 1811, p. 37.
When bullion is a more advantageous mode of re-
"mittance than bills, gold bullion is sought after for
"exportation: exportable gold rises higher than that
"which cannot be legally exported, and is first sent
abroad. A clandestine or fraudulent exportation of
"coin, or of ingots produced from coin, soon follows."
p. 39.
/
ثم
1
:
Since 1809, a further depression of the exchange
"has taken place, and a greater quantity of coin has
gone out of the country." p. 50.
}
These passages all lie within a few pages of one
another. And yet in the same speech, Mr. Van-
sittart does not think it beneath himself to address
the following language to the House, and after-
wards, by means of the press, to the country at
large.
66
"Do the Committee then mean that the law will be
ineffectual, and that a real though clandestine ex-
portation of coin will take place? I will not do the
Committee, I will not do the learned gentleman, the
injustice of suspecting they can mean to countenance
"a system, which gives the illegal a decided advantage
"over the fair dealer, which habituates and hardens
"the trader in the evasion and breach of the law;
which is carried on by direct fraud and perjury."
p. 15. 16. 1.
ઃઃ
nay,
To affect all this moral sensibility about a fact
H 2
52
which is perfectly notorious-which is by every
writer on the subject assumed as necessary, and
incapable of being prevented-nay, which he him-
self for his own argument presently after assumes
and reasons upon is something worse than solemn
mockery. The very term exchange indeed has no
meaning, except on the supposition of the trans-
action which is thus awfully deprecated. It is not
exchange of commodities, nor exchange of bills, but
exchange of the currency of one country for the cur-
rency of another, which the name originally imports
-which is the basis of all commerce between civi-
lized nations--and without which no intercourse.
but that of barter could take place among them. **
1
Let it be observed moreover, that for the sake
of heightening the glow of his description, Mr.
Vansittart calls the clandestine exportation of
coin a fraud. In what sense the word fraud
iş here used I do not perfectly understand. When
melted coin is sworn off for exportation, most
probably there is perjury; although even here
it by no means follows that the exporter knew
the gold to be melted down from coin: but in
the case of clandestine exportation, the revenue
is not defrauded: the gold runs the risk of seizure,
it is true, but no duty is withheld from Govern-
ment, and certainly no fraud is practised on indi-
viduals. To induce a man to take less than the
..
53
value of his property under pretence of giving him
an equivalent, is much more like a fraudulent
transaction; and the motto Mea fraus omnis
would better suit the author of such a measure,
than the imputation of fraud on those whom he
tempts by an exorbitant profit to violate or evade
the law.
The whole however of Mr. Vansittart's argument
is built on this foundation: and he prevailed upon
the House of Commons to sanction it, by adopting a
resolution as contradictory to Mr. Horner's state-
ment, upon which in reality it has no bearing.
f
Mr. Horner had argued, that if bank paper was
worth as much as coin, it would buy gold as well as
coin: but bank paper could not be so employed ex-
cept at a great loss as much as 15 or 20 per cent.
while coin was so employed freely, and was itself
besides sent out of the kingdom instead of bullion
so rapidly, in consequence of this enormous profit,
that it had totally disappeared.
1
J
Mr.Vansittart's resolution declares, that in public
estimation bank paper and coin are equivalent, ex-
cept where this object is in view: that is, excepting
)
f Resolved, That, the promissory notes of the said company
have hitherto been, and are at this time, held in public esti-
mation 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.
ป
54
the very proof which is offered of the point in
question,k wayan sa ale
By this time it had become perfectly notorious
that agents were employed in every town of the
kingdom to collect guineas by offering a premium
in bank paper. A law had passed rendering the
transaction penal, and some convictions had taken
place. The traffic however was not in the slightest
degree interrupted. The dealers collected gold
from tradesmen, who sold their goods at a cheaper
rate when paid in specie. The profit was thus
divided among several, according to the number of
hands through which the coin passed before ex-
portation the main risk remaining only with the
exporter, while the intermediate dealings were
never brought to light except by spies and in-
formers. Of the fact, and of the motive for the
fact, there could be no doubt 5.
f
26
1/
11
Yet Mr. Vansittart asks his opponents in Par-
liament whether they have ever found this differ-
ence in price. No instances, he, avers, have been
produced therefore we are not to suppose there
J
From the days of Locke till the present time I have
"no where seen the fact disputed. It is by all writers indis-
criminately allowed, that no penalties can prevent the coin
"from being melted when its value as bullion becomes supe-
"rior to its value as coin." Ricardo's Reply to Bosanquet,
p. 42.
55
were any. All the liquor has escaped, and the
cask is empty: yet if we cannot point out the leak,
we have no right to say that the vessel was defec-
tive.
-}
}
But where is the candour of thus pressing the
argumentum ad hominem, when the question is
not whether the thing be creditable, but whether
it be done? Individuals abstain from doing many
things perfectly lawful in foro conscientia, but
which from various motives they do not choose to
engage in. Either it is not in their line of business,
or there is a prejudice, or a risk, or a trouble, or
an odium attending it. Money dealing is not the
most respectable calling, any more than dealing in
old clothes. But they may both be exercised with
a safe conscience: and even if we ourselves should
have scruples of conscience, yet if there are always
people to be found who do this work, where is the
use, where, I may say, is the honesty, of pretending
that it is not done as certainly and as regularly
as if we were engaged in it ourselves? Who does
it, is a point perfectly indifferent to the argument.
}
1
1
1467
The next ground Mr. Vansittart takes up is,
that the continuance of an unfavourable exchange
against a country, far exceeding the expense of
transmitting bullion, is no proof of a depreciated
56
1
currency in that country: and he abounds with
examples in which this anomalous mode of dealing,
according to him, prevailed. At a time when our
paper was convertible into specie at the will of the
holder, he contends that similar depressions of the
exchange have been known that during Queen
Anne's wars, for eleven years together, the exchange
was depressed even to a loss of 12 and 15 per
cent, when the expense of conveying specie could
not amount to 3 per cent.h-that for some
years after the American war the exchange with
Hamburgh continued from 5 to 8 per cent. against
England, when the expense of sending specie could
not have been more than 3 per cent. that
in 1760, the exchange between London and Ham-
burgh was near 8 per cent, in favour of London,
the expense of importing gold from Hamburgh
being little more than 3 per cent.: yet there was
no paper currency at Hamburgh at that time or
since ek.
..
}
1
"The very same year," however, continues Mr.
Vansittart, who seems to think the effect of his
argument heightened by contrast, "the very same
year the exchange was in November 6
GC
per cent.
"against England." That the alteration should have
h
↳ Speech on the Bullion Resolutions, p. 111.
1
¹ Ibid.
p. 115.
* Ibid. p. 19..
57
dify zhacods ek pra
200
taken place within a few months, is as strong a
proof as could be desired of the soundness of the
principle we maintain. That excessive depression
naturally corrected itself: and the reaction was so
violent as to carry the excess to the other side;
enormous gain having the natural effect of drawing
so many competitors, as for a short time to reverse
the market.
J
ནོ།
Indeed if a hundred such cases had been pro-
duced, in which, according to the statement, a great
profit presented itself by resorting to a simple and
common expedient, which however no one adopted
if this relative position apparently continued for
several years between two of the greatest, most intel-
ligent, and most active trading cities in the world,
containing thousands of persons whose sole busi-
ness it is to make a profit by sending to each other
whatever commodity will find a good market, and to.
whom nothing is more familiar than such transactions
*
Fo
what would the conclusion of any reasonable man
be from such a representation? Not surely that.
disinterestedness, or apathy, or ignorance could
exist to such a degree-but that there must be some
inaccuracy or some defect in the statement—that
all the circumstances of the case were not before
him-that it was a problem to be solved, not a fact
to be recorded, and produced in evidence as occa-
sion might require, to illustrate the nature of com-
I
58
}
م
1
merce and political economy. If the whole case
were thoroughly sifted, he would say, it would pro-
bably turn out that no profit could be derived from
the transaction, for if a profit to that extent could
be made, the transaction must have taken place.
To suppose it otherwise, is to give up the great
and only fundamental principle on which all com-
mercial proceedings rest. To suppose
To suppose that a mode
of dealing attended by loss would be preferred by
a merchant to one attended by profit, when both
are equally practicable, is a perfect absurdity-and
nothing can be more puerile than to support an
argument by such a case, however useful it might
be to propose it to a student in the theory and
practice of commerce as a problem for solution.
1
Yet not only Mr. Vansittart, but a merchant of
high character and abilities has resorted to the
same mode of reasoning. Mr. Bosanquet follows
up the whole of Mr. Vansittart's system, even to
the point of declaring that the standard of our
currency is that pound, whatever it may be, in
which Government pays the interest of the national
debt. At present I shall only produce, both as a
specimen of the reasoning of these gentlemen, and
of the mode of refutation that must be resorted
to, the case alledged by Mr. Bosanquet of an un-
favourable exchange. wrth Hamburgh and with
Paris. As a single example, it may be worth while
24,300
"
59
to state the case in some detail, together with Mr.
Ricardo's analysis of the riddle.
6
11
Mr. B. observes, that in the years 1764 to 1768,
the exchange with Paris was 8 to 9 per cent.
against London at the same time the exchange
with Hamburgh was during the whole period 2 to
per cent. in favour of London. Here then ap-
pears to be a profit of 12 tó 14 per cent. for
the expence, in time of peace, of paying the debt
to Paris with gold from Hamburgh at least 8 or
10 per cent, above what it would cost in fact.
Again, the exchange with Hamburgh in favour of
London continued several years such as to con-
stitute a premium after deducting all expences of
5
}
per cent. on the importation of gold into Eng-
land: yet the exchange was not rectified thereby.
Thirdly, in 1775, 6, and 7, the exchange with
Paris was 5, 6, 7, and 8 per cent. against London,
when half the amount would have conveyed gold
to Paris, and one fourth would have paid the debts
of Paris at Amsterdam.
:
Here Mr. B. leaves the problem, implying either
that merchants did not see the profit, or did not
regard it whereas the only rational conclusion
from such a statement is, that there must be some
circumstances behind, which if known would ac-
count for the phenomenon upon the ordinary prin-
ciples of trade, Mr. Ricardo undertakes the in-
A
C
}
*
1.2
60™
1
vestigation, and by the aid of a clear intellect joined
with a perfect knowledge of mercantile affairs,
unravels the whole mystery.
A's to the exchange between Hamburgh and Lon-
don, he shews, first, that Mushet's tables, on which
Mr. B. builds his calculation, are, by the author's
own confession in a subsequent edition, erroneous.
Instead of 33.8, the par, Mr. Mushet says, should
have been 34.111. Secondly, because gold is the
standard of this country and silver that of Ham-
burgh, and the relative value of gold and silver is
liable to variation, the par of exchange can never
be absolutely fixed and upon examining the cases
in question, the difference arising from this cause
is found to have been full 3 per cent.-making the
real par 36.1 instead of 33.8, as stated in the
tables of Mushet's first edition.
10
}
Thirdly, this correction of the author's, on ac-
count of the par of silver against silver, Mr. Ricardo
finds upon consulting Kelly's table to be too low
by per cent.
goo
1
Fourthly, the tables Mr. B. has consulted make
no allowance for what is called usances, that is,
interest for 24 months, which it has been the in-
variable custom to allow in bills drawn between
London and Hamburgh-making a further differ-
ence of 1 per cent.
The sum of these several corrections reduces the
61
exchange within the limits supposed by the Bullion
Committee, namely, the expense of transmitting
bullion from one place to the other. By a similar
process the excess in the exchange between Paris
and London is shewn to be nominal and not real,
the French mint taking a seignorage of 8 per cent.
that is, raising the nominal above the real value of
the coin in that proportion; which of course must
be struck off when it is considered as exchangeable
with a foreign currency.
Another paradox, much vaunted by the mi-
nister, and supported like all the rest by Mr.
Bosanquet-viz. that gold has often been much
higher than the mint price for a long time toge-
ther, during a sound state of our currency, is
made to fall before the same rigorous and exact
investigation. But I forbear to enter any farther
into these computations-essential as they are to
the argument, and highly illustrative of the abilities
of the writer who stepped forward to vindicate the
truth. Only let me be permitted to remark, that
this mode of reasoning, once exposed in the way it
is, ought to divest its authors of all claim to our
confidence, and that even when the solution is not
at hand, yet the application of the principle above
mentioned, whenever it is applicable, ought in all
reason to be accepted as a sufficient demonstration.
Profit is in mercantile dealings, what gravitation
62
is in the system of the universe: and no problem
is worth listening to, which supposes the absence
of that universal principle.
Before we quit the subject however, it may be
well to subjoin Mr. Ricardo's own reflections upón
Mr. Bosanquet's argument, which he has analyzed
with so much patience.
1
1
"I cannot help here observing, that it must
"excite astonishment, that a British merchant
"should seriously believe it possible, that, in time
"of peace, a net profit, after paying all expences,
"of from 10 to 12 per cent. should have been
"made by the exportation of gold from Hamburgh
"to Paris during four years a profit, which, from
"the quick returns, would have enabled any person
- engaging in such undertakings to have cleared
"more than 100 per cent. per annum on the
capital employed; and that too in a trade, the
σε
r
slightest fluctuations of which are watched by a
"class of men proverbial for their shrewdness,
"and in which competition is carried to the greatest
፡፡ extent. . That facts such as these should be
brought forward to invalidate a theory, the rea-
"sonableness of which is allowed, is a melancholy
proof of the power of prejudice over very en-
"lightened minds."
.
..
The astonishment here expressed cannot exceed
my own, at reading in the speeches of a Chancellor
63
•
of the Exchequer, published by himself, a general
scarcity of gold asserted, and offered as an ex-
1
}
planation of the high price of bullion in England,
as if gold were, like grain, a thing of annual con-
sumption and reproduction, and liable to be af-
fected by an unfavourable season; or as if his
readers did not know that every commodity goes
to that market where it is most in demand-and
that where the laws of a country render it useless,
it will neither remain in it nor be brought there.
It was under the influence, I presume, of the same
counsels, that a gold coinage of sovereigns lately
took place that people wondered at their leaving
us almost as soon as sent into circulation—and
then suggested this as a proof that the time was
not yet come for a resumption of cash-payments.
Will the time ever come, if we wait till the stream
of commerce has ceased to flow in the channel of
profit ?
}
From the same high authority we are told also,
that "if our currency had in fact become of less
"value, this circumstance could not possibly have
“occasioned a fall of the exchange" and "that
66
a diminution of the currency at home may have
"the effect of improving the exchange, but cannot
by possibility depress it";" doctrines, which
(6
1. Speech on the Bullion Question, p. 22.
m Ibid. p. 34, 35.
I
64
may be convenient for the purpose of forcing a
temporary measure on the public, but which nỏ
man, one would think, who values his reputation as
a financier would wish to place on record, and sub-
mit to their cooler judgment, as his deliberate
opinions.
*
}
They are convenient moreover as introductory
to the revival of a policy, often practised in ruder
times, but which for more than two centuries has not
been suggested in our own, that of a debasement of
the coinage. If ever attempted in this country, it
will of course be proposed under the more courtly
title of lowering the standard, hints of which have
certainly been thrown out by the advocates of our
paper-system, but which I trust there is yet public,
virtue enough remaining in the country to reject
with indignation, if any minister should ever be so
hardy as to advise it. :
เ
P
That these fears are not wholly without founda-
tion will appear by adverting to the language Mr.
Vansittart has held on the subject of a legal stand-
ard, a part of his argument which deserves more
serious attention than has hitherto been given to
it, upon constitutional grounds as well as on the
common principles of justice and honour.
The first argument indeed against a fixed
standard may safely be left to the judgment of
着
​my readers, without any attempt at refutation.
Because the mint weight of a guinea is 5 dwts.
94 grs. but a guinea is considered by law to be good
currency till it is worn below 5 dwts. 8 grs., Mr.
Vansittart asks, Which am I to regard as the fixed
standard"? a specimen of verbal cavilling, which
for the credit of his station had better have been
omitted, but which for the credit of one's own cause
it is always satisfactory to see on the adversary's
side:
Having established this notable position, that
"the legal coin of the country never possessed a
"value estimated by a fixed weight of gold or silver
"bullion "," he infers very logically that bank-notes
therefore, which represent this coin, never had a
standard value, and therefore cannot have lost it.
0:
Perhaps I ought not to call this the first argu-
ment, for I perceive a little before Mr. Vansittart
had contended that our silver currency also had no
standard, because for any sum not exceeding 257. it
was legal tender however worn, and because of pay-
ments made in actual cash, at least 999 in 1000
are under that value. It is a good rule in reason-
ing to estimate arguments, as prudent men estimate
payments, pondere non numero-a rule which
n Speech on the Bullion Resolutions, p. 13.
• Ibid. p. 14
K
66
1
ought perhaps to have led to the disregard of this
passage altogether; for I cannot believe that any
person seriously examining the question can accept
it as a proof or even a presumption that we have no
legal standard, because the law declares that in no
instance shall a gold coin fall below it more than
to a certain point, and because having provided
that small payments only shall be made in silver,
(which cannot therefore affect foreign exchanges,)
it does not specify the loss of weight which shall be
sufficient to stop their currency. Only let it be
remembered that even in the case of silver coin,
it is more proper to say, that it is legal tender
however worn, than, as Mr. Vansittart says, at
whatever weight; because the original weight,
even of them, is as fixed as any thing human can
be; and no English coin was ever legally current
that did not first issue from the mint.
Having thus, to use his own words, "overturned
"the basis" of Mr. Horner's resolutions, Mr. Van-
sittart declares himself prepared to prove, in oppo-
sition to the doctrine of a fixed standard of current
coin, the prerogative of the Crown to regulate the
standard" by a reference to the soundest legal
"authorities, and the repeated and acknowledged
"practice of ages
|
» Speech on the Bullion Resolutions, p. 68. L'
་ ་་
1
67
It is this assertion, followed up by a Resolution,
which, to my sorrow as well as surprise, obtained
the sanction of the House of Commons, that ap
pears to give the question a most important cha-
racter. For if the prerogative of the Crown be
such as to make any quantity whatever of the pre-
cious metals, according to pleasure, or any sub-
stance, no matter what, lead, paper, or leather,
stand for a pound sterling, this certainly is “a
logic which leaves no man any thing that he can
"call his own"-which subjects every man's pro-
perty to be modified or even extinguished at the
will of the Sovereign.
Mr. Vansittart does indeed say, that he and his
colleagues have no intention to propose this exer-
cise of the prerogative to relieve the wants of Go-
vernment; and he even goes on to admit, that
"during the existence of a public debt, the alter-
"ation of the standard of money would be an act
Resolved, That the right of establishing and regulating
the legal money of this kingdom hath at all times been a
royal prerogative, vested in the Sovereigns thercof, who have,
from time to time, exercised the same as they have seen fit,
in changing such legal money, or altering and varying the
value, and enforcing or restraining the circulation thereof,
by Proclamation, or in concurrence with the Estates of the
realm by Act of Parliament: and that such legal money
cannot lawfully be defaced, melted down, or exported.
K 2
68
'
" of bankruptcy, and a direct fraud on the public
"creditor, as well as every private creditorħ.”
This, to be sure, is some ground of comfort; for
if the standard be not altered, till the whole na-
tional debt is paid off, we and our children have
little, it is presumed, to fear upon that account.
But why then should the topic have been intro-
duced? What bearing has it upon the point in
debate? If this power must be in abeyance while
the public debt continues, it is perfectly nugatory
to advert to it, when the question is, Does not the
Government at this moment defraud the public
creditor by paying him interest in a depreciated
currency-by requiring him to take bank-notes in
payment, or nothing?
The creditor says, Pay me in legal coin. The
answer is, Bank-paper is as good as coin. The
creditor denies it, and contends that bank-paper is
notoriously of less value than coin, and to such a
degree, that Government has itself been driven to
make the sale of it for less than its nominal value
in coin, penal. ..
To what purpose, I repeat, is it, to reply to this
argument, as Mr. Vansittart does in his first Re-
solution, that the king has the power of regulating
{
The injustice is the same to every private creditor whe-
ther there be a public debt or not.
#
69
the standard of our coinage ? He surely does not
mean to call bank-paper our coinage. Indeed part
of his argument is, that bank-paper is not made
legal tender, and that the public creditor may wait,
if he pleases, till the Bank Restriction Act is re-
pealed, for his dividends. How then is this maxim
of the king's prerogative to be applied? The coin
is not altered in value. It is the paper that is de-
preciated. Unless therefore he means that the
king's prerogative can make that paper legal tender,
the assertion has not the slightest connexion with
the subject in dispute.
J
>
Is it then meant to display the forbearance of
ministers in not having put forth the full strength
of the crown, and to warn men how they fret at
this petty grievance, when so much greater a
burden might have been laid upon them? Or is it
thrown out as a sort of challenge on a point of
constitutional law, curious indeed and important,
though irrelevant to the subject in hand?
Of the importance of such a declaration from a
minister of state there can be no doubt. And it is
well that the declaration was met on the spot, by
one of the ablest and most luminous answers that
a question of constitutional policy ever called forth.
I allude to the speech of Mr. Canning, which not
only unravels with singular grace and perspicuity
the whole sophistry of his opponent's reasoning, oh
70
the subject of currency and exchange, but has
placed this doctrine in particular, which wears so
ambiguous and menacing an aspect in the Reso-
lution of the House of Commons upon its true
Whoever has
grounds both of law and policy.
read the two speeches of Mr. Canning on this
subject, as published by himself, will perceive how
largely I am indebted to them for the matter of
this pamphlet a debt which I shall perhaps best
discharge by endeavouring to extend its obligation
as widely as possible to others.
{
The Resolution asserts the king's prerogative to
"alter and vary the value of the legal money of
"the kingdom either by Proclamation, or in con-
"currence with the Estates of the realm by Act
"of Parliament." The word value must here be
understood to mean the current value-that rate
according to which debts and pecuniary contracts
may lawfully be discharged: for, as to the in-
trinsic value of the metal being affected by the
edict of a Sovereign, or an Act of Parliament, it is
an idea which none but such financiers as the
courtiers of Canute can be supposed to entertain.
}
As Mr. Vansittart did not think it necessary to
produce any legal authorities to this point, the fol-
¹ See page 67.
}
71
lowing extract from Judge Blackstone may serve to
throw some light upon it.
66
The denomination, or the value for which the
"coin is to pass current, is likewise in the breast
"of the king; and if any unusual pieces are
coined, the value must be ascertained by pro-
clamation. In order to fix the value, the weight
" and the fineness of the metal are to be taken
66
{
"into consideration together. When a given
દ
weight of gold or silver is of a given fineness, it
"is then of the true standard, and called sterling
"metal. . . . . and of this sterling metal all the
"coin of the kingdom must be made, by the sta-
"tute 25 Ed. III. c. 13. So that the king's
prerogative seemeth not to extend to the debas-
.
66
ing or enhancing the value of the coin below or
"above the sterling value; though. Sir Matthew
"Hale appears to be of another opinion. The
66
king may also, by his proclamation, legitimate
"foreign coin, and make it current here, declaring
"at what value it shall be taken in payments. But
"this, I apprehend, ought to be by comparison
"with the standard of our own coin; otherwise
"the consent of parliament will be necessary."
About the authority of an Act of Parliament
there can be no question. It is the authority of
• Commentaries, b. i. c. 7. §. 4.
:
72
7
4
the king, without parliament, which Mr. Van-
sittart seems desirous of representing, as com-
petent to alter the current value of our coin; that
is, to compel his subjects to take it either at the
same rate when its real value is lessened, or at á
higher rate when its real value remains the same.
If the Resolution does not mean this, it means
nothing. But this is precisely the same thing, as
taking his subjects' money without their consent.
For the debts and engagements of Government
may thus be discharged (as often has been done by
despotic sovereigns) with a less quantity of the
precious metals than was really due. To do this,
Mr. Vansittart justly observes, is a direct fraud on
the public creditor. Does he mean then that the
sovereign has a right to commit this fraud? That
the king cannot tax his subjects without the au-
thority of parliament, but that he may cheat them
by his own authority? So monstrous a propo-
sition could hardly have been endured, much less
sanctioned by the House of Commons. Neither do
I think so ill of the author of this Resolution, as to
suspect him of entertaining it.
Yet one is here placed in a perplexing dilemma.
For if he goes no farther than Blackstone, who
thinks" the king's prerogative does not extend to
"the debasing or enhancing the value of the coin"
-if he means no more than that the authority
Y
73
either of an Act of Parliament or of a Proclamation
is necessary to give currency to the coins, their
absolute and relative value being previously settled
according to strict justice, what is the import of
that "reference to the soundest legal authorities
"and the repeated and acknowledged practice of
ages," which is announced with so much so-
lemnity in his speech? and to which moreover he
thinks it expedient to subjoin a declaration, both
on his own part and on that of Mr. Perceval, that
they have no intention of proposing an alteration
in the standard of our money? Why this re-
ference to the soundest legal authorities, if he
means nothing more recondite than Judge Black-
stone's Commentaries ?-and why this mention of
repeated and acknowledged practice, if he means
only the practice of the last two centuries, which
no one ever arraigned, and which certainly has no
connexion with the subject then under discussion,
the forced eirculation of bank-paper ? Surely
the king's prerogative has nothing to do with the
paper of the bank.
It is well known to all who have made en-
quiries on the subject, that although the coin has
at several periods of our history been debased,
so that from a pound of silver, which formerly was
t
Page 68.
L
74
coined into twenty shillings, sixty-six shillings are
now coined, yet the standard has never been
lowered from the 43d of Eliz. when sixty-two shil-
lings were coined out of the pound, until last year,
when the number was increased to sixty-six; the
recent measure being justified on the score of con-
venience, and as not affecting the general rate of
our currency, which ever since the year 1773 has
been measured by the standard of gold: and the
standard of our gold coin still remaining unaltered,
the legal tender in silver being also reduced to forty
shillings, it was admitted on all sides to be no en-
croachment on the principle of a permanent stand-
ard of currency. Does then Mr. Vansittart mean
by this appeal to repeated and acknowledged
"practice," to propose the arbitrary practice of our
Sovereigns prior to the reign of Elizabeth practice
which has been discontinued not only since the
Revolution, but which even the Stuart princes in
all their difficulties never dared to imitate does
he propose this as evidence of the King's pre-
rogative at the present day? If he does, my an-
swer to his doctrine would be no other than that of
Bishop Andrews to King James, "I think your
<c
1
..
1
majesty has a right to take my brother Neale's
money, because he gives it, but he has no right
"to give away mine."
The authority of Sir Matthew Hale, which
$
75
1
Blackstone seems to think inclining the other
way, is reduced almost to nothing by his own
words, as quoted by Lord Liverpool in his Treatise
on the Coins of the Realm banh
It is neither safe nor honourable for the King
“to imbase his coin below sterling: if it be at
56 any time dope, it is fit to be done by the assent
“of Parliament:" and his opinion even of such a
transaction is pretty unequivocally expressed in
these words, fieri non debuit, factum valet"."
>
Y
Notwithstanding all this, notwithstanding the
forcible appeal made at the time to the consti-
tutional feeling of the House, the Resolution was
permitted to stand the first in that series *,
which was brought forward to support the circu-
lation of bank-paper. It was permitted by the
same assembly who objected to Mr. Horner's
Resolutions, which contain the clearest and most
concise exposition of the principles of our cur-
rency that has ever been promulgated, that it
did not become the legislature to vote abstract
propositions however true, and who yet place on
their journals one so abstract, that it has confessedly
no connexion either with the Resolutions that follow,
or with the occasion out of which the discussion
arose.
}
" Sir Matthew Hale's Pleas of the Crown, p. 194. fol. ed.
See Appendix, No. II.
F
L 2
76
ا
4 X
1
}
In its only intelligible sense, it contains the
plainest implication of the Sovereign's right to the
property of his subjects, which has ever been
hazarded in modern times. And on that account
it is well that a firm stand was made by one member
of the House, not against the measure of bank
restriction, which perhaps the circumstances of
the country rendered expedient, but against the
doctrines and reasons by which it was defended.
These doctrines struck at the root of all sound
political economy, of our constitutional privileges,
and of our public honour and good faith. It will
not, I am sure, be unacceptable to my readers if
I produce, from one of the speeches delivered on
this occasion, not the most brilliant passage, but a
passage which places in the strongest light the true
merits of the case, and the grounds of the speaker's
opposition to Mr. Vansittart's Resolutions.
"
"In addition to these motives of policy, there
are, as I have heard this night, not without asto-
nishment and dismay-considerations of jus-
tice, which preclude any systematick reduction
of the amount of our paper currency. Such a
"reduction, it is argued, would change the value
"of existing contracts, and throw into confusion
1
every species of pecuniary transaction, from the
"rent of the great landed proprietor down to the
wages of the peasant and the artisan. Good
77
"God what is this but to say, that the system of
“irredeemable paper currency, must continue for
66.
ever? What is it but to say, that the debts in
curred; and the contracts entered into, under
"the old established legal standard of the cur-
❝rency, including the debts and contracts of the
"State itself, are now to be lopped and squared
"to a new measure, set up originally as a tempo-
rary expedient; and that the sacredness of publick
faith, and the obligation of legal engagements,
are to be conformed to the accidental and fluctu-
ating derangement, and not to the antient and
"fixed rule, of our currency?
*
56
66
{
"If this be so, there is indeed no hope that we
"shall ever return to our sound and pristine state.-
"This objection is of a nature to propagate itself
"indefinitely. Every day new contracts must ne-
cessarily be made; and every day successively
(as it is of the essence of depreciation to go on
"increasing in degree) at rates diverging more and
"more widely from the real standard from which
"we
we have departed. Every day, therefore, must
interpose additional impediments to a return to
"the legal standard. Never did the wildest and
"most hostile prophesier of ruin to the finances of
this country venture to predict that a time should
come, when, by the avowal of Parliament, no-
minal amount in paper, without reference to any
66
1
{
78
<<
"real standard value in gold, would be the pay
ment of the publick creditor. But still dess
could it ever be apprehended that such a system
was to be built on the foundations of equity and
right; that it would be considered as unjust to
give to the paper creditor the real value of his
έσ
contracts in gold, but just to compel the creditor
"who had trusted in gold, to receive for all time
"to come the nominal amount, whatever that
"might come to be, of his contract in paper.
..
<<
را
"
"This proposition appears to me so monstrous,
"and shows so plainly to what an extravagant and
alarming length we are liable to be hurried,
when once we have lost sight of principle and
given ourselves up to the guidance of expediency,
that I am sure this House ought to lose no time
"in pronouncing its opinion as to the maxims by
"which, for centuries, the currency of this country
"has been preserved in eminent purity and inte-
grity; and in declaring its determination to
acknowledge no others in the theory of our
money system, and to look to a practical return
"to that system, not only as advantageous to the
"State, but as indispensable to its justice and its
"honoury."
CC
!
| རྒ
When I perceive this tone both of sentiment and
reasoning preserved vigorously throughout, when
y Mr. Canning's Speech, p. 71-73.
79
the speaker never ceases to profess that the prac-
tical measure may still be necessary, and therefore
he is not prepared to vote against it, but protests
earnestly and eloquently, and with a masterly know-
ledge of the subject, against the false and fatal
grounds on which its advocates defend it, and then
mark the reception which this line of conduct met
with from both sides of the House, I recognize a
melancholy instance of the feeble influence of
truth, of reason, or even of eloquence, when un-
aided by the co-operation of party. Mr. Canning's
support was treated with scorn by the author of the
Resolutions against ministry, because he would not
adopt the concluding proposition, fixing an abso-
lute period of two years for the resumption of cash
payments. While on the other hand Mr. Van-
sittart indulged in what doubtless appeared to him-
self the most biting sarcasms, on the inconsistency
of a man who could adopt the theoretical opinions
of his adversary, and yet support his own practical
measures which he compared to "voting for a
"conclusion that contradicts the premises." By
the same ingenious process it would appear, that
he who votes for the suspension of the Habeas,
Corpus Act, must either deny the existence of the
constitutional privileges therein declared, or that
if he maintains these, he acts inconsistently in con-
senting to a suspension of them under any cir-
cumstances.
f
80
66
But the right honourable gentleman's system of
logic, like his finance, sets all precedent at de-
fiance. Thus, having wound up his speech in a
note of triumph with a sketch of the growing
wealth and flourishing condition of the country, he
denies that this wealth can be fictitious, because it
shews itself in works of improvement, such as three
new bridges over the Thames, &c. and to call
"these improvements fictitious would be an out-
rage to common sense." What faculty is out-
raged by this species of deduction I leave you, Sir,
and my readers to determine. One would think
indeed that solid and useful works, raised upon
fictitious capital, must have occasionally met the
eyes of every man. While nothing is more
66
certain than that one effect of fictitious wealth
is to call forth an active and daring spirit of
speculation, growing bolder and bolder from the
apparent success of men whose means were as
nothing when measured by the old standard, but
who by fortunate rashness with their own small
capital, or by staking the property confided to them,
have risen to sudden opulence. In that new and
artificial state of things, it is the shrewd and enter-
prising schemer, not the sober dealer, who thrives.
Wealth appears to be called into being almost by
magic. Cautious and prudential maxims of business
are despised as antiquated: and what in other times
would be called wild and ruinous speculation, now
*
81
2
wears the appearance of energy, intelligence, and
spirit. In the mean time industry does certainly
receive an impulse, and a sort of new life is breathed
into the whole system of society. The mere cir-
cumstance of a fall in the value of money creates,
as was before observed, a demand for labour-
and that labour being really underpaid brings un-
usual profit to the employer. Thus it is that farms
are improved, roads, bridges, and canals formed,
buildings raised, and a general expenditure of
capital, however fictitious itself, soon assumes a
visible and substantial form.
Till the bubble bursts all goes well. All is hope,
activity, and cheerfulness. Thus it was with the
famous South-sea scheme, the effects of which on
society would have been still more melancholy,
had the delusion lasted longer. Thus it is in all
revolutionary movements supported by a paper
circulation: and it would be just as reasonable for
a Frenchman to point with exultation to the armies
they raised, clothed, and put in motion, or to the
public works they planned and completed during
that season of general ferment, as for an English
minister to produce new bridges and canals, as
proofs that the circulating wealth is real and
not fictitious. Ce n'est pas l'assignat qui perd,
* See p. 24.
M
1
ei
82
"c'est l'argent qui gagne, was the language of the
ruling party respecting their paper, in the first
stages of its depreciation.
well our minister caught this
about the dearness of gold.
We have seen how
note in his argument
By the help of the
same logic, he also proves that if the effects of a
paper circulation are solid and visible, the paper-
money itself cannot be fictitious.
}
}
:
Let him wait till the experiment is fairly over,
before he pronounces on its success. Until that re-
presentative wealth assumes again the solid form,
we have no right to say, whatever its temporary
effects may have been, that it really is what it pro-
fesses to be. From the obstinate refusal indeed
which it shews to reassume this shape, from its
abhorrence to obey any of the charms and incan-
tations that have been tried to induce it to re-enter
the earthy substance, there is good reason to think
that the subtle sprite is well aware how much its
importance would suffer how greatly its dimen-
sions would shrink, and its volatility be impaired by
such a change at least it should seem that some
more powerful wizard than the present Chancellor
of the Exchequer is needed to bring about the
metamorphosis. If he has not succeeded in de-
ceiving us, how many deceitful promises, how
many baffling put-offs and excuses have been prac-
*****
83
tised on him by this coy phantom, who still eludes
his grasp
>
J
J
Par levibus ventis volucrique simillima somno. 17
零
​" ;
At one time it was the support of our armies on
the continent then the foreign subsidies-then
the scarcity of corn-then the Berlin and Milan
decrees then the inordinate thirst of Buonaparte
for gold, and his power of rendering it invisible
then the war in the peninsula-then the peace-
for the last document which, if I remember right,
the successor of Mr. Pitt laid before Parliament to
account for the disappearance of specie was a com-
parative list of the arrivals of travellers to and from
the continent at Dover.
Having run the round of all these frivolities, let
us hope that sober reason and experience may at
length be allowed to resume their station: and
that if we cannot fix this visionary wealth into any
substance of corresponding bulk and solidity, we
shall at least be permitted to ascertain how much
of it is shadowy and ideal, and how much of ster-
ling worth. This Mr. Vansittart may call if he
pleases "tampering with our currencyª,” which
is just as if one should call a proposal to terminate
the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act tamper-
ing with the constitution. But there is no other
2
Speech on the Bullion Resolutions, p. 197.
>
M 2
84
è
way of satisfying the public mind, or of putting an
end to that feverish uncertainty about matters
which, for the peace, the happiness, the security,
and honour of private life, ought to be most certain.
The disclosure will doubtless be distressing to
many, but it will be less mischievous than a con-
tinuance of the delusion. Most mortifying of all will
it be to those, who have mocked us with congra
tulations on our increased riches, and who naturally
desire to put off the evil day, when the emptiness
of their boasting shall be made apparent, and when
those whom they have misled will justly reproach
them as the authors of their calamity. More espe-
cially will the bank proprietor feel the loss, who has
indulged longest in this golden dream, fondly ima-
gining that it is to last for ever,
16122
Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aureâ,
Qui semper vacuam, semper amabilem
Sperat, nescius auræ
Fallacis.
[
¿
}
It cannot indeed be expected but that all
funded property will collapse, when no longer dis-
tended by this airy medium-but the Bank, which
has been the chief absorbent of the profit, which
has glutted itself, as it were, with the excessive
and unlooked-for, gain, must be content to con-
tribute a proportionate share towards the general
ار
85
restitution. From the year 1797, when the re-
striction commenced, to the present time, the value
of its stock has been increased nearly threefold™,
The whole of this increase must not be attributed
to the restriction itself; but it is impossible not to
see that the regular profits of such an institution,
incapable as it is of engaging in general trade, and
making therefore only lawful interest of its money,
and of the Government balances deposited in its
hands, can never have amounted to half this sum.
In the general correction therefore that must be
made, by substituting the metallic for the nominal
value of all monied property, whatever amount of
that property exists in the form of Bank-paper, the
whole difference of these values will be a loss to the
Bank. The difference probably is still not less than
15 per cent. causing a defalcation of nearly one
seventh on all its present issues. But whatever
the defalcation may be, it will not amount to a
restitution of their exorbitant gains-it will only be
|
b In 1797 bank stock was worth 125 per cent. At pre-
sent it is 268. But besides this, every hundred pound stock
of that time is a hundred and quarter now; the bank having:
in 1816 increased their nominal capital in that proportion:
268
い
​so that the increase of bank stock since 1797 is as 268 +
to 125, or as 335 to 125, which is nearly as three to one.
}
86
a cessation of them for the future and the stock,
after this reduction, will still exceed its original value
in 1797 in a much larger proportion than ever
could have been calculated or even hoped for at
that time.
•
A
<
The most rational and equitable plan for checking
this inordinate growth, and providing a fund för
the resumption of cash payments, was that of Mr.
Canning in 1811. He proposed, that the then divi-
dend of the Bank, which was 10 per cent. should
be the inaximuin, and that all future gains during
the restriction, beyond this dividend, should be
reserved for the purpose of meeting that demand
which must one day be made for bullion, if the Bank
is ever to fulfil its engagements with the public.
This proposal, simple and practicable as it seems,
met with no countenance from either party. unde
¥
But the subject of the Bank, of its connexion
with the Administration, and its unfortunate in-
fluence over it, is one too wide in extent to be dis-
cussed at the close of this Letter. It is a subject
moreover which is in the hands of one best quali-
fied to do it justice: one, whose intrepid perse-
verance against the low commercial spite and
jealousy he had to contend with, has already saved
the country more than the aggregate of all the
sinecure places ever existing; and who, if ade-
87
quately supported in the House, will doubtless
succeed ultimately in accomplishing his patriotic
purpose.
That the Bank has, not, abused the discretion
vested in them by the Government still more-that
their issues have not been so excessive as to pre-
clude, like those of America and France, all hope of
liquidation, is but slender consolation to a people,
whose ministry placed that blind confidence in
them which empowered them to do so whose
ministry entrusted to a trading company, without
check…or controul, an entire command over the
whole currency of the country. If the guardian-
ship of the public purse be the most. sacred charge
of the House of Commons; if, as you, Sir, have
recently told us with perfect truth, to watch the
slightest encroachment on this constitutional
privilege, be the first and most anxious duty of
the officer who presides there; what must we think
of that careless and wanton surrender of this
superintendence, which was involved in the mea-
sure of the Bank Restriction, accompanied as it
has been all along by a peremptory refusal to
impose any restraint upon the Bank, as to the
amount of its circulation? It is a conduct justi-
fiable only on the ground, not merely that ex-
cessive issues had not taken place, but that they
never could take place a ground which yet the
88
most devoted advocates of the measure have not
ventured to maintain.
Whether your opinion coincides with my own
on these points or whether you will approve of
the considerations here submitted to your judg-
ment, upon matters certainly of great national
moment of one thing I am confident, that you will
not lightly dismiss the subject from your thoughts,
nor think amiss of the appeal which is thus made
in behalf of some of the dearest interests of so-
ciety. You will also, I trust, feel the necessity of re-
pairing, in some way or other, the injuries our pub-
lic credit and our mercantile character have sus-
tained from the unprincipled speculation which a
system of finance supported by such doctrines
never fails to introduce and more especially of
raising our peasantry, if possible, from the lan-
guishing and abject condition into which they
have gradually fallen-and which the same finan-
cial system has rivetted upon them with many
aggravations.
The station you now occupy, though not digni-
fied by office, is a prominent and proud one. Το
have been chosen by above fifteen hundred gentle-
men of liberal education as their representative in
Parliament, without one dissentient voice, and I
believe I may add without one dissentient mind
in the whole body, is a distinction which confers
T
89
no barren honour on its possessor. It must give
weight and authority to his opinions: it must ex-
tend the sphere of his utility: it must afford
grounds of self-confidence and self-respect: at
the same time that it cannot fail to reflect back
on ourselves some portion of the esteem which
belongs to a man "well formed and well placed,"
who is too independent of party to have his own
line of conduct prescribed to him, and who has
abilities to direct the efforts of party to the
benefit of his country.
7
THE END.
N
APPENDIX.
No. I.
Resolutions proposed by Francis Horner, Esq.
in a Committee of the whole House of Com-
mons, May 6th, 1811; and negatived, May
10th.
1. THAT the only money which can be legally ten-
dered in Great Britain, for any sum above twelve-pence
in the whole, is made either of Gold or Silver; and that
the weight, standard, and denomination, at which any
such money is authorized to pass current, is fixed, under
His Majesty's prerogative, according to law.
2.-THAT since the forty-third year of the reign of
Queen Elizabeth, the indentures of His Majesty's Mint
have uniformly directed that all silver used for coin
should consist of eleven ounces and two penny-weights
of fine silver, and eighteen penny-weights of alloy, in
each pound troy, and that the said pound troy should
be divided into sixty-two shillings, or into other coins
in that proportion.
3.—THAT Since the fifteenth year of the reign of King
Charles the Second, the indentures of His Majesty's
Mint have uniformly directed, that all gold used for
coin should consist of eleven ounces of pure gold, and
one ounce of alloy, in each pound troy; and that the
said pound troy should be divided and coined into forty-
N 2.
922
}
!
four guineas and one half-guinea, or into other coins in
that proportion, -3 za gladi denda do vagon hitmer
w
4THAT by a Proclamation of the fourth year of the
reign of King George the First, it was ordered and di-a
rected, that guineas and the several other gold coins
therein named, should be current at the rates and values:
then set upon them; viz. the guinea at the rate of "
twenty-one shillings, and other gold coins in the same
proportion; thereby establishing, that the gold and silver
coins of the realm should be a legal tender in all money
payments, and a standard measure for ascertaining the
value of all contracts for the payment of money, in the
relative, proportion of 155 pounds weight of sterling
silver to one pound of sterling gold.
5.--THAT by a statute of the fourteenth year of the
reign of His present, Majesty, subsequently revived and
made perpetual by a statute of the thirty-ninth year of
his reign, it is enacted, that no tender in payment of
money made in the silver coin of this realm, of any sum
exceeding the sum of 25l. at any one time, shall be re-
puted in law, or allowed to be a legal tender, within Great
Britain or Ireland, for more than according to its value.
by weight, after the rate of 58. 2d. for each ounce of
silver.
?
*
}
"
い
​a' Bus
of
6 THAT by a Proclamation of the sixteenth year
the reign of His present Majesty, confirmed by several
subsequent Proclamations, it was ordered and directed,
that if the weight of any guinea shall be less than five
penny-weights and eight grains, such guinea shall cease™
to be a legal tender for the payment of any money within
量
​Great Britain or Ireland; and so in the same proportion™
for any other gold coin.
+
prakres red 5 M
7.THAT under these laws (which constitute the
established policy of this realm, in regard to money) no
contract or undertaking for the payment of money, sti→ »
WA
"
93
~
pulated to be paid in pounds sterling, or in good and
lawful money of Great Britain, can be legally satisfied!
and dischargedy in gold coin, unless the coin tendered
shall weigh in the proportion of parts of five penny-
weights and eight grains of standard gold for each pound
sterling, specified in the said contract; nor in silver
coin, for a sum exceeding 257. unless such coin shall
weigh in the proportion of of a pound troy of
standard silver for each pound sterling specified in the
contract.
་
THAT the promissory notes of the Bank of Eng
land are stipulations to pay, on demand, the sum in
pounds sterling, respectively specified in each of the said
notes.
?
{
9. THAT when it was enacted by the authority of
Parliament, that the payment of the promissory notes
of the Bank of England in cash should for a time be
suspended, it was not the intention of Parliament that
any alteration whatsoever should take place in the value
of such promissory notes. Marjala qufo,aro
10THAT it appears, that the actual value of the
promissory notes of the Bank of England (measuring
such value by weight of standard gold and silver as afore
said) has been, for a considerable period of time, and
still is, considerably less than what is established by the
laws of the realm to be the legal tender in payment of
any money contract or stipulation to sapeedis
}
•
14.THAT the fall which has thus taken place in the
value of the promissory notes of the Bank of England?"
and in that of the country bank paper which is exchange
able for it, has been occasioned by too abundant issue of "
paper currency, both by the Bank of England, and by
the country banks; and that this excess has originated
from the want of that check and controul on the issues of
the Bank of England, which existed before the suspen
sion of cash payments.
94
12.-THAT it appears, that the exchanges with fo-
reign parts have, for a considerable period of time, been
unfavourable to this country, in an extraordinary de-
gree.
LA
"
13.—THAT, although the adverse circumstances of
our trade, together with the large amount of our mili-
tary expenditure abroad, may have contributed to render
our exchanges with the continent of Europe unfavour-
able; yet the extraordinary degree, in which the ex-
changes have been depressed for so long a period, has
been, in a great measure, occasioned by the deprecia-
tion which has taken place in the relative value of the
currency of this country as compared with the money of
foreign countries.
10: 8
14-THAT during the continuance of the suspension
of cash payments, it is the duty of the Directors of the
Bank of England to advert to the state of the foreign ex-
changes, as well as to the price of bullion, with a view
to regulate the amount of their issues.
15.-THAT the only certain and adequate security to
be provided against an excess of paper currency, and
for maintaining the relative value of the circulating me-
dium of the realm, is the legal convertibility, upon de-
mand, of all paper currency into lawful coin of the
realm.
}
3 · 16.—THAT in order to revert gradually to this security
and to enforce meanwhile a due limitation of the paper
of the Bank of England as well as of all the other bank
paper of the country, it is expedient to amend the Act
which suspends the cash payments of the Bank, by al-
tering the time till which the suspension shall continue,
from six months after the ratification of a definitive
treaty of peace, to that of two years from the present
time.
H
1
95
1
}
1
No. II.
Resolutions respecting Money, Bullion, und
Exchanges, moved by the Right Hon. N.
Vansittart, in a Committee of the whole
... House of Commons, 13th May, and agreed to
by the House, 14th and 15th of May, 1811.
1. Resolved,
THAT the right of establishing and regulating the
legal money of this kingdom hath at all times been a
royal prerogative, vested in the Sovereigns thereof, who
have, from time to time, exercised the same as they
have seen fit, in changing such legal money, or altering
and varying the value, and enforcing or restraining the
circulation thereof, by Proclamation, or in concurrence
with the estates of the realm by Act of Parliament: and
that such legal money cannot lawfully be defaced,
melted down, or exported.
2. Resolved,
THAT the promissory notes of the Governor and
Company of the Bank of England are engagements to
pay certain sums of money in the legal coin of this
kingdom; and that for more than a century past, the
said Governor and Company were at all times ready to
discharge such promissory notes in legal coin of the
realm, until restrained from so doing on the 25th of
February 1797, by an Order of Council, confirmed by
Act of Parliament.
3. Resolved,
THAT the promissory notes of the said Company
have hitherto been, and are at this time, held in public
96
1
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 appli-
cable.
4. Resolved,
THAT at various periods, as well before as since
the said restriction, the exchanges between Great Bri-
tain and several other countries have been unfavourable
to Great Britain; and that during such periods," the
prices of gold and silver bullion, especially of such gold
bullion as could be legally exported, have frequently
risen above the Mint price: and the coinage of money
at the Mint has been either wholly suspended or greatly
diminished in amount: and that such circumstances
have usually occurred, when expensive naval and mili-
tary operations have been carried on abroad; and in
times of public danger or alarm; or when large import-
ations of grain from foreign parts have taken place.
5. Resolved,
THAT such unfavourable changes, and rise in
the price of bullion, occurred to a greater or less degree
during the wars carried on by King William the Third
and Queen Anne; and also during part of the seven
years war, and of the American war; and during the
war and scarcity of grain in 1795 and 1796, when the
difficulty of procuring cash or bullion increased to such
a degree, that on the 25th of February, 1797, the Bank
of England was restrained from making payments in
cash by an Order of Council, confirmed and continued
to the present time by divers Acts of Parliament: and
the exchanges became still more unfavourable, and the
price of bullion higher, during the scarcity which 'pre-
vailed for two years previous to the peace of Amiens.
97
3
6. Resolved,
THAT the unfavourable state of the exchanges,
and the high price of bullion, do not, in any of the in-
stances above referred to, appear to have been produced
by the restriction upon cash payments at the Bank of
England, or by any excess in the issue of Bank-notes ;
inasmuch as all the said instances, except the last, oc-
curred previously to any restriction on such cash pay-
ments; and because, so far as appears by such inform-
ation as has been procured, the price of bullion has fre-
quently been highest, and the exchanges most unfa-
vourable, at periods, when the issues of Bank-notes have
been considerably diminished, and they have been after-
wards restored to their ordinary rates, although those
issues have been increased.
!
7. Resolved,
1
THAT during the period of nearly seventy-eight
years, ending with the 1st of January 1796, and pre-
vious to the aforesaid restriction, of which period ac-
counts are before the House, the price of standard, gold
in bars has been at or under the Mint price twenty-eight
years and five months; and above the said Mint price
forty-eight years and eleven months; and that the price
of foreign gold coin has been at or under 37. 18s. per
ounce, thirty-six years and seven months, and above
the said price thirty-nine years and three months; and
that during the remaining intervals no prices are stated.
-And that during the same period of seventy-eight
years, the price of standard silver appears to have been
at or under the Mint price, three years and two months
only.
8. Resolved,
་
THAT during the latter part, and for some time
98
after the close of the American war, during the years
1781, 1782, and 1783, the exchange with Hamburgh
fell from 34.1. to 31.5, being about eight per cent.;
and the price of foreign gold rose from 31. 17s. 6d. to
41. 2s. Sd. per ounce, and the price of dollars from
5s. 44d. per ounce, to 5s. 11d.; and that the Bank-
notes in circulation were reduced between March 1782
and December 1782, from 9,260,000l. to 5,995,000l.
being a diminution of above one third, and continued
(with occasional variations) at such reduced rate until
December 1784: and that the exchange with Hamburgh
rose to 34.6, and the price of gold fell to 31. 17s. 6d.
and dollars to 5s. 1d. per ounce, before the 25th of
February 1787, the amount of Bank-notes being then
increased to 8,688,000l.
9. Resolved,
THAT the amount of Bank-notes in Febru-
ary 1787, was
was 8,688,000l. and in February 1791,
11,699,000l.; and that during the same period, the sum
of 10,704,000l. was coined in gold; and that the ex-
change with Hamburgh rose about three per cent.
10. Resolved,
THAT the average amount of Bank-notes in the
year 1795, was about 11,497,000l.; and on the 25th of
February, 1797, was reduced to 8,640,000l. during which
time the exchange with Hamburgh fell from 36 to 35,
being about three per cent. and the said amount was
increased to 11,855,000l. exclusive of 1,542,000l. in notes
of one pound and two pounds each, on the 1st of
February 1798, during which time the exchange rose to
38.2, being about nine per cent.
99
11. Resolved,
...
:
THAT the average price of wheat, per quarter,
in England, in the year 1798, was 50s. 3d.; in 1799,
67s. 5d.; in 1800, 113s. 7d.; in 1801, 118s. 3d.; and in
1802, 67s. 5d.
The amount of Bank-notés, of five pounds and up-
wards, was
in 1798, 10,920,4007.
''
About
And under 5l.
Making together
1,786,000l.
12,706,400.
t
in 1799,
12,048,7901.
1,626,1107.
13,674,906/.
in 1800, 13,421,9201.
1,831,820l.
15,253,740l.
in 1801, 13,454,370l.
2,715,1807.
16,169,550l.
in 1802,
13,917,980%.
3,136,470l.
17,054,450l.
That the exchange with Hamburgh was, in January
1798, 38.2; January 1799, 37.7; January 1800, 32.; Ja-
nuary 1801, 29.8; being in the whole a fall of above 22
per cent.-In January 1802, 32.2; and December 1802,
34.; being in the whole a rise of about thirteen per
cent.
12. Resolved,
THAT during all the periods above referred to,
previous to the commencement of the war with France
in 1793, the principal states of Europe preserved their
independence, and the trade and correspondence thereof
were carried on conformably to the accustomed law of
nations; and that although from the time of the inva-
sion of Holland by the French in 1795, the trade of
Great Britain with the Continent was in part circum-
scribed and interrupted, it was carried on freely with
several of the most considerable ports, and commercial
correspondence was maintained at all times previous to
the summer of 1807.
o 2
100
13. Resolved,
?.
THAT Since the month of November 1806, and
especially since the summer of 1807, a system of exclu-
sion has been established against the British trade on
the continent of Europe, under the influence and terror
of the French power, and enforced with a degree of
violence and rigour never before attempted; whereby all
trade and correspondence between Great Britain and the
continent of Europe has (with some occasional excep-
tions, chiefly in Sweden and in certain parts of Spain
and Portugal) been hazardous, precarious, and expen-
sive, the trade being loaded with excessive freights to
foreign shipping, and other unusual charges: and that
the trade of Great Britain with the United States of
America has also been uncertain and interrupted; and
that in addition to these circumstances, which have
greatly affected the course of payments between this
country and other nations, the naval and military ex-
penditure of the United Kingdom in foreign parts has
for three years past been very great; and the price of
grain, owing to a deficiency in the crops, higher than
at any time, whereof the accounts appear before Par-
liament, except during the scarcity of 1800 and 1801;
and that large quantities thereof have been imported.
14. Resolved,
THAT the amount of currency necessary for car-
rying on the transactions of the country, must bear a
proportion to the extent of its trade and its public re-
venue and expenditure; and that the annual amount of
the exports and imports of Great Britain, on an average
of three years, ending 5th of January, 1797, was
48,732,6517. official value; the average amount of re-
venue paid into the Exchequer, including monies raised
by lottery, 18,759,1657.; and of loans, 18,409,8427. making
101
together 37,169,0071.; and the average amount of the
total expenditure of Great Britain, 42,855,111.; and
that the average amount of Bank-notes in circulation
(all of which were for five pounds, or upwards) was about
10,782,780%.; and that 57,274,6171. had been coined in
gold during His Majesty's reign, of which a large sum
was then in circulation:
That the annual amount of the exports and imports
of Great Britain, on an average of three years, ending
5th of January, 1811, supposing the imports from the
East Indies and China, in the year ending 5th of Ja-
nuary, 1811, to have been equal to their amount in the
preceding year, was 77,971,318.; the average amount of
revenue paid into the Exchequer, 62,763,7461.; and of
loans, 12,673,5487. making together 75,437,2947.; and the
average amount of the total expenditure of Great
Britain, 82,205,0661.; and that the average amount of
Bank-notes, above five pounds, was about 14,265,850l.
and of notes under five pounds, about 5,283,3301.; and
that the amount of gold coin in circulation was greatly
diminished.
15. Resolved,
THAT the situation of this kingdom, in respect
of its political and commercial relations with foreign
countries, as above stated, is sufficient, without any
change in the internal value of its currency, to account
for the unfavourable state of the foreign exchanges, and
for the high price of bullion.
16. Resolved,
1
THAT it is highly important that the restriction
on the payments in cash of the Bank of England, should
be removed, whenever the political and commercial re-
102
lations of the country shall render it compatible with the
public interest.
17. Resolved,
THAT under the circumstances affecting the pa
litical and commercial relations of this kingdom with
foreign countries, it would be highly inexpedient and
dangerous;. now to fix a definite period for the removal
of the restriction of cash payments at the Bank of Eng
land, prior to the term already fixed by the Act 44
Geo. III. c. 1. of six months after the conclusion of a
definitive treaty of peace.
f
THE END.
BAXTER, PRINTER, OXFORDI
1
}
1
ト
​!
t
SIR,
TO JOHN BÚll.
No. 1. If a "provincial currency" be a "solid" one, how can it be
otherwise than unquestionable ?"
Did the Bank of England establish branch banks for the purpose
of opposing the country bankers, and of their own accord, or were:
they forced into it by his Majesty's Ministers ! ·
66
Did the Bank of England encourage speculation, overtrading,
and unnatural issues" in 1823-24 and 25, (the average amount of their
notes in circulation in those years being £20,170,713) or did the
country bankers (the amount of their notes stamped in 1823 being,
£4,479,448, in 1824, £6,724,069, and in 1825, £8,755,309) ?
Did the Bank of England "guide their operations solely by the
legitimate wants of the country, and the prudence and solidity of the
parties with whom they deal," in the years 1823-24-25, or did the
country bankers? The former stood the panic and increased their
issues one-third during the time of the same, a large number of the
latter failed, and those who stood the run cried out most wofully at
the sacrifices they were obliged to make in order to pay their notes;
it can hardly be said that these latter increased their issues in order
to alleviate the difficulty.
I
No. 2. Whenever an assertion is made, it is not enough to say,.
"Facts to prove this might be multiplied without number;" bat it.
is necessary to name two of these said facts, at the least.
$
The advances which the Bank of England had made to the Go-:
venment, &c.&c. at the period of the panic did not hinder them from.
accommodating the public, as appears by it sissues at that time, and
which accommodation has shewn itself to have been sufficient, to wit,-
the abundance of mouey ever since. The amount of country bank
notes stamped in 1826 was £1,497,872!!!
The ordinary issues" of the bank were not increased by
""
"loans to Government,
their
and by their "injudicious.
advances on mortgage," because, if they had not lent to Govern
ment and to individuals, the money would have found its
way out in the discounts of bills of exchange. At the beginning of
the panic the amount of Bank of England notes in circulation, was
£17,477.294 (can this be called exceeding its ordinary issues ?), and
at its height, the amount was £25,709,425.
No. 3. How is it possible to say, to a certainty, that since the
period of the panic, "not less than two or three millions sterling.
heretofore lodged in the hands of the private bankers, have been
transferred to the coffers of the Bank of England;" and how can the
Bank of England alone have profited by the unjust and unfounded
clamours raised against their opponents," when they continued the
same rate of discounts (viz. 5 per Cent.) till July last,, other persons
having been glad to discount at 4, 3, and even 2 per Cent., ever since
the panic?
No. 4. There is now, and has been for some time, more money in
circulation than can be profitably employed; consequently, how cart
the following be true:The loss of this floating capital (£2,000,000)
to the bankers and to the public, who profited by it whilst in their
hands." Again, let me ask, after the Bank of England had consent-
cd to establish Branch Banks, could any one, in his senses, suppose
that its Directors would establish them in all towns, except princi-
pal ones, and merely for the show of the thing? No, no; having,
been urged to the measure, its Directors said (no doubt), as all
sensible men would say, 66 we must endeavour to make these branches
profitable to our proprietary, and this cannot be done by leaving out
the principal towns."
Having established branch banks, who is to say "you shall not
pay the public dividend at them ?" Powers of Attorney must be
granted by the individuals holding stock to some of the establish-
ment in London, just the same as if a London banker received and
remitted them. The ultimate intentions "of the Bank of England"
seem to be, the establishment of a circulating medium free from
danger and excessive fluctuations. It seems truly surprising that
the " eyes of the banking interest" were not "opened to the danger
of their situation" at the time of the " speculation mania."
These considerations prevent me from diving into paragraph five
of this silly prospectus. Your obedient, humble Servant,
Nov, 16th, 1827.
A BANK OF ENGLAND NOTE ADMIRER.
}
TATE OF THE CURRENCY. - CHAMBER of COM-
MERCE and MANUFACTURES, Manchester, 23d.
February, 1826. A PETITION to the HOUSE of COM.
MONS, from the Members of this Chamber, was sent up on
Tuesday last, of which the following is a copy.
To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled.
The humble Petition of the President, Vice-President,
Directors, and other Members of the Manchester Chain-.
ber of Commerce and Manufactures,
Humbly sheweth,
That from the period of passing the Bank Restriction Act, in
1797, to the present time, local notes have never been issued in
Manchester.
That such an issue was intended by the Manchester banks in the
year 1821, but was promptly and unanimously resisted by the inha-
bitants; and a reference to the resolutions adopted and published on
that occasion will shew how clearly they foresaw the evils to which a
local small-note curreney is incident, and how strongly impressed
they were with its overwhelming consequences in seasons of difficulty
and alarm.
That subsequent experience has forcibly confirmed to your Peti-
tioners the truth of the opinions then declared. They consider it to
be the inevitable tendency of such a currency, in ordinary times, to
advance prices-to encourage overtrading-to raise up rash adven-
turers in business-and to give a shew of factitious and fallacious
prosperity to the community, until, by the recurrence of a period of
commercial or financial embarrassment, the scene suddenly changes
-anxiety and distrust prevail-prices fall to a point of depression,
as unnatural as their previous elevation an enormous loss of
property ensues, banks fail, and ruin overtakes, not only the authors
of the improvident issues, and those who have been dependant on
them for support, but multitudes of steady and industrious trades-
men, wholly innocent of the causes which occasion the calamity, are
swept down in the wreck.
That, in the opinion of your Petitioners, a metallic currency
affords comparative stability to prices-checks the fluctuations of
the exchanges gives security to the earnings of the working classes
-and, in unfavourable seasons, forms an important reserve for the
purchase of provisions from abroad; thus, in these various ways,
affording abundant compensation for the alleged loss of interest
occasioned by its use.
That, strongly impressed with the truth of these sentiments,
forced as they have been on their notice by the events of the last two
months, and by the contrast between the comparative confidence and
quiet experienced in this district, and the fear and suffering which
have prevailed elsewhere, your Petitioners sincerely rejoice in the
resolution of your honourable House, in favour of a metallic
currency throughout the Country.
That your Petitioners have ever considered the Bank of England
monopoly, which prevents the establishment of any other bank with
more than six partners, as injurious to the pecuniary transactions of
the Country, and they rejoice to find that this monopoly is likely
now to cease.
多
​That your Petitioners would also represent to your honourable
House, that the high stamp-duties at present imposed on bills of
exchange for small amounts, have almost entirely prevented their
use, of late years, in this district,-that they formed a secure and
most convenient currency for payments of small amount,-and that
Bank of England notes, of five pounds value and upwards, now
used here in their stead, are attended with many disadvantages,-
that such a réduction in the stamps as would allow of the renewed
use of such bills of exchange would be very beneficial, and would
be particularly advantageous at the present moment, when the want
of a currency for small amounts is much felt.
Your Petitioners therefore humbly pray for the general
introduction of a metallic currency, for the abolition
of the bank monopoly, as regards the number of part-
ners in other banks, and for a reduction in the stamp
duties on small bills of exchange. And, as in duty
bound, they will ever prav.
G. E. AUBREY, Secretary.
secure as the very nature of commercial communities allows, against the
two great evils which are incident to the use of money,-fluctuations in
prices resulting from violent alterations in the quantity of the circulating
1 medium, and the insolvency of the money-dealers. But the condition of
a country having a paper currency convertible into coin or bullion is far
different. There, the bankers are not only the lenders of money, but the
creators of it. They may possess borrowed capital; they may have
capital of their own; they may have neither. If their affairs are not
conducted with the utmost possible publicity-which never happens-
no one has any means of judging whether the paper money which they
make and issue exceeds or falls short of their means of paying it in real
value. With a metallic currency, the capital, from whatever source it
comes, is palpable and indestructible. The failure of a banker is ruinous
only to himself and to those who have lent him what he is unable to
repay. But with a paper currency, the capital is hidden; the money,
which is taken on the faith of its existence, may have nothing to repre-
sent it; and, what is worse, it may prove valueless in the hands of those
who were no way concerned in the original creation."
A
SECOND LETTER
TO THE
RIGHT HON. ROBERT PEEL,
M. P. FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
ON
THE CAUSES
OF
THE INCREASE OF PAUPERISM,
AND ON
THE POOR LAWS.
By
BY ONE OF HIS CONSTITUENTS.
Camera


Copleston DD. Bishop of hCandage
It is one of the finest problems in legislation, "What the State ought
to take upon itself to direct by the public wisdom, and what it ought to
"leave with as little interference as possible to individual discretion."
BURKE.
OXFORD,
PRINTED FOR JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET,
LONDON.
1819.
BAXTER, FRINTER, OXFORD.
A
SECOND LETTER,
&c.
SIR,
IT was my object in a former
Letter, which I took the liberty of inscribing with
your name, to establish the following points-that
a rapid depreciation of money naturally introduces
disorder and embarrassment into all the depart-
ments of life-that from the long and universal
habit of regarding money as a fixed standard, it is
the last thing men are brought to think is variable,
and that they are prone to account for the change of
prices in every other way-that the pressure aris-
ing from this confusion bears heaviest upon the
lower classes-that in the gradual correction which
follows, they are the last to regain their relative
position, and during the interval suffer severely
from an unacknowledged and unperceived cause-
and that it was this cause chiefly (a cause not to
be ascribed to Government, nor capable of being
B
2
controlled by it) which led to the institution of
Poor Laws in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and
in a great measure to the vast extension of that
mode of support in our own times.
It was a natural consequence from these po-
sitions, supposing them to be well established, that
any artificial depreciation is a most impolitic and
unjust measure-and if at all times unjust and op-
pressive, then more especially so, when the na-
tural cause of depreciation is still operating in full
force, and not yet perhaps arrived at its utmost limit.
For it can hardly be doubted that the use of paper
in commerce, the advantages of which in this
country have been so thoroughly proved, must
gradually pervade all civilized countries, and must
proportionably lower the value of the precious
metals; since the demand created by the increase
of mankind and the extension of commerce will
probably not balance both the increased supply of
those metals, when improved machinery shall be
applied to the mines, and the diminished demand
for them, when the world at large shall have
adopted that substitute, which, under the rule of
convertibility into specie, is equally efficacious
with the metals themselves, and much more con-
venient.
L
In following up this argument, it was necessary
to examine with freedom the grounds upon which
3
that financial system is defended, from whence so
great an aggravation of these evils appeared to pro-
ceed. It was first introduced as a temporary ex-
pedient an acknowledged departure from sound
practice, but rendered necessary by the occasion.
Having been long acquiesced in upon this prin-
ciple, at length its pernicious effects became ma-
nifest and alarming. It was then that a new ad-
vocate appeared, adopting new grounds of defence
grounds subversive of all that had heretofore been
deemed most authentic in political economy, con-
taining no slight attack upon our constitutional
rights, and leaving interests that hitherto had been
held most sacred in law to the mercy of Govern-
ment, or rather of monied men, on whom the ad-
ministration had now confessedly made itself de-
pendent for pecuniary resources.
There was another feature in this anomalous
case which is not unworthy of notice. Men who
are engaged in action must sometimes accommo-
date themselves to the imperfection of the ma-
terials they employ. When persuasion is neces-
sary to carry their purpose, they must use argu-
ments, not the soundest always, but those which
are most likely to prevail with the people they ad-
dress. If men will not be guided by their reason
to the right road, they must either be led by their
B 2
4
!
+
prejudices, or tempted by their inclinations. An
Athenian orator once told his countrymen that
truth had ceased to influence them, and it was be-
come necessary to entrap them into their real in-
terests. In such a state of moral or intellectual
corruption, one makes allowance for the difficul-..
ties in which statesmen find themselves placed.
But there is nothing in the case we are consider-
ing, nothing either at the time or since, which
leads to the excuse here imagined. It was not
the minister who made this defence. It was a per-
son wholly unconnected with the Administration.
Mr. Vansittart urges indeed this very circum-
stance, towards the conclusion of his speech, as
giving him a more than ordinary claim to the con-
fidence of the House. His situation then did not
impose upon him the
upon false principles. It must have been con-
viction and nothing else for I speak with the ut-
most sincerity when I say, that his character is far
above the suspicion of making a compromise with
truth, with a view to the attainment of office, or of
any earthly advantage.. I will add too, with equal
sincerity, that an established character for private
worth and integrity must in my opinion have con-
tributed largely to the success of his argument
and that nothing but this-not even the flattering
irksome duty of arguing
5
ease and security which such doctrines communi-
cate could have so far disarmed the judgment of
his hearers, as to procure their assent to the rea-
soning analyzed in my first Letter.
}
After the lamented death of Mr. Perceval, these
doctrines seem to have secured his office to Mr.
Vansittart. And here it is that the humiliation
becomes truly mortifying. That such reasoning
and such opinions (not extorted by his embarrass-
ments, but gratuitously offered) should have been
the road to the highest employments-that the
management of the whole financial concerns of
the country should have been obtained by the
denial of every fundamental principle in the science
of political economy, is certainly an event that one
was hardly prepared for in the present age, and
which ought to lower the pride of those who are
wont to exult in the progress and advancement of
human reason. The documents on which this
opinion rests are in possession of the public.
His speeches on the Bullion question were his
pretensions to the appointment. Let these cre-
dentials be examined, without prejudice and with-
out partiality.
Undoubtedly it holds good of a departure from
right reason, as well as from moral rectitude, that
the original position cannot be regained at once.
A single false step often draws a train of evil conse-
6
quences after it; and the process of amendment is
perhaps always slow in proportion to the inveteracy
of the disease. But the first thing towards re-
covery is to perceive that we are in the wrong:
the next, to put ourselves into hands different
from those who have brought on or who have
mistaken the malady. Of the evils of this tem-
porary depreciation, people seem now to be con-
vinced but can we expect they will ever be cured
by those who deny the fact?
•
There was nothing, I believe, in my last Letter
which implied a belief that cash-payments could
instantly be resumed. On the contrary, I am pre-
pared to expect that the voice of all parties will
pronounce that to be impossible. But let us at
least know that they, on whose skill and manage-
ment we rely, are aware of the dangers we are in-
that they do not dispute that we have lost our
reckoning, and are out of the right course. If the
vessel is got among shoals and currents, undoubt-
edly we must not hope to recover the track by the
same rules of navigation which are practised in the
wide ocean: yet who can bear to entrust her safety
to the same pilot, whose obstinacy has entangled
us in the difficulties; and who has all along chosen
to regulate his course, not by the sun and the stars
and the immutable laws of nature, but by objects
fleeting and variable, which move as he moves,
7
}
:
and by the advice of those whose interest it is to
keep him involved in these perplexities?
The main obstacle in our way is understood to
be the diminution of the circulating medium,
which must follow if a metallic currency were im-
mediately restored. Prices of all commodities will
of course fall, and a reaction take place upon all
those interests which have been improved by the de-
preciated currency. For instance, all subsisting con-
tracts for future payment, instead of being advan-
tageous as heretofore, will be found detrimental to
the payer-goods will be sold at a less price than
they cost, and debts will be found heavier than they
were when first incurred-people will fancy their
income lessened, and will for a time contract their
expenditure-trade will be cramped-the revenue
abridged-and more than all, agriculture checked,
and the demand for country labour of course di-
minished. It is this part of the subject which is
more immediately connected with my present en-
quiry, and towards which my attention will soon
be principally directed. For if the profits of the
farmer fall, of course the demand for labour will
be less, and that indigence which throws men upon
the parish for support, will be considerably en-
creased. I state it now, to guard against any
prejudice in the minds of my readers, as if I was
+
83
१
not aware of the consequences involved in this
measure. But the fact is demonstrable.. cart
In proportion as the demand for provision rises,
it is known that worse and worse land is brought
into cultivation. The worse the land, the more
labour does it require to cultivate it. When
therefore prices fall, the worst land, or that which
yields little or no rent, and which employs most
labour, will be the first to go out of cultivation-
and thus the demand for labour will be lessened
in a greater ratio even than the amount of pro-
duce. And this very evil which we complain of,
namely, pauperism arising from a want of em-
ployment, must be increased accordingly.
J
Admitting this to be the natural consequence of
an abrupt restoration of a sound currency, it cer-
tainly should lead us to think how the evil may be.
mitigated but the cure must not be suspended
because of the pain it gives. The correction must
come sooner or later-but there is a fallacy in
supposing that by merely deferring to set about it,
we make it more gradual. All that has hitherto
been, done has had no tendency towards correction.
We are not a bit farther from the danger, or
nearer to a remedy, than we were five years ago.
We have been deluded with a repetition of the
same stale pretence that the Restriction is con-
веро
9
The
next Session comes, and then "more last words."
But what single step has been taken to prepare for
the change? What causes now in action which
impede the measure are more likely to cease next
year than this? What attempt has been made or
is making to remove or to obviate these causes ?
If our ministers, feeling themselves on the brink
of a precipice that must be passed, are afraid to
make the leap, they ought at least to be employed
in contriving the means of descent, and breaking
the fall when it comes. Mere procrastination
does nothing.
tinued now positively for the last time.
One measure indeed has been adopted-the
Corn Bill-which is defensible only on this ground.
A sudden fall of price in this article would certainly
have the effect of depressing agriculture, and of
throwing a multitude of labourers out of employ-
ment. It is prudent therefore, on all accounts, to
interpose some check against too violent a transi-
tion, by keeping off foreign competitors for a
time. But it should be regarded only as a set-off
against the advantage enjoyed by the commercial
interest. If the paper-currency is retained to fa-
vour them, (and that is the only intelligible ground
of the measure,) lest too hasty a contraction should
embarrass their dealings, it follows as a corollary;
that some artificial stay must be applied to pre-
C
10
serve the agricultural interest also at a correspond-
ing level. But this it must be remembered is an
unnatural state of things. It extends to all the
classes and all the interests of life. Our main ob-
A
ject should be not to sustain them all or any of
them at this level, (for descend they must sooner
or later,) but to contrive that they shall all descend
as equably as possible, preserving their mutual re-
lations, as far as human art can effect it, undis-
turbed. The experiment, I grant, is a nice one,
and it requires the truest eye as well as the firmest
hand to conduct it properly ª.
a
The similarity between our present situation and that of
the country in 1698, when Davenant wrote his Treatise on
the Revenues and Trade of England, (excepting that the
abundant paper currency of which he speaks, p. 38. as hav-
ing supported them during the war, was voluntary,) is so
remarkable, that I have thought an extract from that intel-
ligent work would not be unacceptable or useless.
"Now the peace is concluded, the call from abroad for all
"´our commodities, which has hitherto held up their price,
"perhaps may cease; and if this should happen (as there is
"reason to think it will) things of our own growth must im-
"mediately sink in value, unless money can be made to
circulate in the country: for gold and silver being the
measure of trade, all things are dear or cheap, as that sort
of wealth is wanted or abounding. And in all countries of
"the world, where money is rare and scarce, the product of
"the earth is cheap; as for instance, in Scotland, Ireland,
"the Northern kingdoms, Germany, and most parts of Asia
" and America.
11
7
In the discussions that have hitherto been pub-
lished, I discover no symptom whatever on the
part of ministers, that they recognize this to be
the real problem before them. They talk of the
present prices as if they were to last for everb;
and upon this basis they build the most flattering
anticipations of future prosperity. The patient is
plethoric and bloated, and yet they reckon upon
continuance of health, without reducing the system.
At the same time they yield to the representations
"Now if the product of the land should sink in its value,
it must naturally ensue, that the rents of England, and
"price of land will fall in the same proportion. For the
YOU
2
great stock that was subsisting in credit, and the great sum
"of money that circulated about the kingdom, did chiefly
"fix so high a price upon land, and all its produce; and if
peace should diminish this price (as perhaps it will) land
"and its rents will hardly recover their former value, till
money can be made to circulate, and till credit is revived.
"And if there should be a want of specie, and of credit, the
taxes cannot answer, and there must be a decrease in all
"the King's revenues.” p. 52.
3
It was at this crisis of embarrassment that Mr. Lowndes,
in his report to the Lords of the Treasury, recommended a
debasement of the coinage to the amount of 20 per cent. by
coining 77s. 6d. out of the pound of silver instead of 62—a
fraud which was only prevented by the superior authority
and sense of justice of Mr. Locke.
See Lord Castlereagh's speech on the Finances of the
Country, Feb. 8, 1819.
ດ •
12
of the Bankers, that if cash-payments are resumed,
they must be ruined. But why must they be,
ruined? For the same reason that every man who
has pledged himself to payments beyond his means
must be ruined. The demand for time is just that:
which all men make whose affairs are embarrassed.
To press them for payment now must ruin them.
To put off the season of payment at least prolongs
their existence, and may restore them. In futurity
there is always possible good-always the chapter
of accidents, for hope to rest on. But not the
slightest evidence is offered to convince us that
their means will be more ample in future than
they are at present. The whole fabric rests on
the continuance of existing prices-that is, on the
continuance of a depreciated currency-and the
whole therefore is delusive, unless we are prepared
to make that currency perpetual.
1
The Bank of England, it seems, have lately con-
tracted their issues-but to answer the demands
of the market in the present state of the currency,
other banks will increase theirs. To keep up the
present prices, as one draws in, the other will shoot
out. Being secure against the only true test of
their soundness, and their profits depending upon
the amount of their issues, can it be imagined that
they will ever of their own accord contract those
issues, in order to hasten on the day which is to
13
probe their secrets, and to put an end to their
gainful traffic? The Chancellor of the Exchequer
indeed is in the habit of following the advice of
mercantile men as the best that can be had upon
points in which their own profits are deeply in-
volved it is not to be wondered at therefore, that
he regards the wishes of bankers as decisive of the
policy to be observed in regulating the currency.
But I address my reasoning to those who think
that the party whose interest is embarked on one
şide of a question, is the last to be referred to as a
fit judge of its merits ©.
The anxiety I feel, lest permanent legislative
measures should be attempted in this transitory
state of the currency, has led me to say much
more on the subject of the paper depreciation than
I had originally intended. Notice has been given
of a bill to alter the law respecting usury. But
surely no measure of the kind will be allowed to
The following is the remark of a man very conversant
with the world, as well as with the principles of finance.
There is hardly a society of merchants, that would not
"have it thought the whole prosperity of the kingdom de
"pends upon their single traffick.
So that at any time,
હું
when they come to be consulted, their answers are dark
"and partial; and when they deliberate themselves in as-
semblies, 'tis generally with a bias, and a secret eye to their
" own advantage." Davenant on the Revenues and Trade of
England, p. 30.
14
pašs, until we have first cleared away this mon-
strous anomaly. Our reckoning at present is all
untrue. Let it not be made the basis of farther
calculations. Let us not regulate our course by a
time-piece confessedly out of order. How to rec-
tify errors interwoven with so many civil interests,
undoubtedly requires careful thought and accurate
science, and much political firmness. Í fear it
cannot be done without severe distress to many.
If restitution is to be made, somebody must pay.
It is often necessary to throw part of the cargo
over to save the whole vessel. But so it is with
all similar aberrations. The first year in the re-
formation of the Calendar was emphatically called
"the year of confusion.”
More especially do I deprecate any definitive
regulations on the subject of the poor, while this
uncertainty continues upon a point essentially con-
nected with that question: for the local and tem-
porary depreciation we have been just considering
must, according to my view of the case, be first
got rid of, before we can venture upon any general
revision of the code against which so loud a cla-
mour has been lately raised. To the considera-
tion of that important question I now proceed:
conscious indeed of the difficulty it involves, and
of the small claim I can have to attention after so
many minds have been exercised upon it. But
15
thinking, as I do, that a sort of groundless panick
has been raised, and that much of what arises from
temporary causes-causes not hitherto drawn into
the discussion-has been attributed to the radical
and essential nature of the Poor Laws themselves
I am not without a hope, that the attempt may
prove beneficial and am at least confident, that
it will not be disapproved by the candid and en-
lightened persons to whose judgment it is sub-
mitted.
(
:
AMONG the many important aids which a writer
on this subject now possesses, and of the ad-
vantage of which I am very sensible, the first in
point of authority is the Report of the Select Com-
mittee in 1817; a publication which has tended
greatly to open the eyes of the public to the true
principles on which any reformation of the system
ought to be conducted. The other works to which
I am most indebted are Mr. Bicheno's Inquiry into
the Nature of Benevolence, and Mr. Davison's and
Mr. Courtenay's treatises on the Poor Laws, always
however acknowledging as the great storehouse of
information on this subject, Sir Frederick Eden's
State of the Poor," and Mr. Malthus's Essay on
Population as an original well-head of political
16
truth, from which succeeding writers have drawn,
and will continue to draw-
A quo, ceu fonte perenni,
Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis.
Still the view I have taken, though it coincides
with much of what all these writers have advanced,
especially with Mr. Courtenay's argument, yet dif-
fers also in some respects from all-and having
paid this tribute of respect most sincerely to their
opinions, I trust I shall be allowed to dissent freely
from them wherever the course of the discussion
leads me, without any particular mention, and
without being supposed to think lightly of their
authority.
Part of the difficulty and intricacy generally
complained of seems to arise from not sufficiently
distinguishing between the objections against the
principle and those against the practice of our
laws. Accordingly I have thought it best to ob-
serve the following method, and to inquire,
I. What Government can do towards the relief
of the poor.
II. What our own Government has done.
III. What under existing circumstances ought
to be done.
17
The first question, involving as it does the
deepest principles of political philosophy as well
as of political economy, may well be supposed to
have been imperfectly understood in the age which
gave birth to our system of Poor Laws; and
to have received so much additional light from
the improved science of modern times, as to se-
cure us from many of the errors into which our
ancestors had fallen. A strict inquiry however
into the fact will, I believe, lead to a conclusion
directly opposite. If the true office and province
of legislation has been at all misunderstood in the
formation of this system, which I think may easily
be made to appear, the error has undoubtedly
been progressive, and has grown to an excess in
our own times, far beyond its original dimen-
sions:
J
The fundamental mistake to which I allude is
the confusion of moral duty with the task of legis-
lation. That what all individuals ought to do, it
is the business of the laws to make them do,
is a plausible position, and has actually been
adopted by some of the ablest and most virtuous
men. But nothing in reality is more fallacious-
nothing less congruous with the nature of man,
and with that state of discipline and trial which
his present existence is clearly designed to be.
In the first place, it destroys the very essence
D
1
*
18
not only of benevolence, but of all virtue, to make
it compulsory: or to speak more properly it is a
contradiction in terms. An action to be virtuous
must be voluntary. It requires a living and a
free agent to give it birth. If we attempt to
transplant it from our own bosoms to the laws, it
withers and dies. It cannot inhabit an inert and
inanimate mass-and the fabled attempt of Pro-
metheus to breathe life into his lump of clay was
not more presumptuous, than the endeavour to in-
spire a code of laws with that principle which
by its very essence is inherent in a moral and ac-
countable being.
The error is fostered by the promiscuous appli-
cation of words to individuals and to the laws,
which in their proper signification belong to the
former only. We talk of mild, of merciful, of
benevolent, of humane laws. The professed object
of such laws is to do what mild and merciful and
benevolent men are disposed to do. But even
supposing them capable of effecting this, a
point which will presently be discussed, yet the
humanity is lost as soon as the act proceeds from
a dead letter, not from the spontaneous im-
pulse of any individual. And in fact this endea-
vour to invest the laws with the office of humanity,
inconsistent and impracticable as it is when at-
tempted from the purest motive, does in reality
19
often originate from an imperfect sense of moral
obligation, and a low degree of benevolence in
men themselves. Absurd as the thought is when
expressed in words, man would be virtuous, be
humane, be charitable by proxy. This however
not only the divine purpose and the declared end
of our being, but common sense itself forbids.
To throw off the care of want, and disease, and
misery upon the magistrate, is to convert huma-
nity into police, and religion into a statute-book.
We are often betrayed too into this mistake, by
the obvious inhumanity of some laws, and by the
endeavours of virtuous men to reform them, which
endeavours we properly regard as proofs of their
humanity. When a law is cruel, or unjust, or op-
pressive, the most humane persons are the first
to attempt an alteration. But the utmost they
can do is, to mitigate the law. The relaxation is
humane, but the law which remains cannot be so.
For instance, the law of debtor and creditor is per-
haps too severe--the difficulty is, how to relax it
without defeating the end of all law, prohibition of
injustice-but relax it as we will, the positive enact-
ment after all, whatever it is, must necessarily be
a coercive measure.
Another cause of this prevalent error lies in
the visionary speculations of many of the ancient
heathen writers on the subject of political philo-
D 2
20
sophy speculations imbibed early in life, and
cherished with a kind of veneration by men of
classical learning, who have not been suffi-
ciently careful to correct these early theories by
the light of revealed religion, and the improvements
of modern science. Let us hear the opinion of one
of the most powerful and original thinkers our own
country has produced upon the defects of these
writers.
"I have often wondered," says Bishop War-
burton, "what it was that could lead the reformers
"of laws from fact, and universal practice, in so
ર
fundamental a point. But without doubt it was
"this. The design of such sort of writings is to
give a perfect pattern of civil government; and
"to supply the fancied defects in real societies.
The end of government coming first under con-
"sideration; and the general practice of society
-66
66
seeming to declare this end to be only (what in
"truth it is) security to our temporal liberty and
"property, the simplicity of the plan displeased,
"and appeared defective. They imagined, that
66
by enlarging the bottom they should ennoble.
"the structure: and therefore formed a romantic
66
project of making civil society serve for all the
"good purposes it was even accidentally capable
"of producing. And thus, instead of giving us
"a true picture of government, they jumbled to-
21
"gether all sorts of societies into one; and con-
"founded the religious, the literary, the mercan-
*
tile, the convivial, with the civil. Whoever
"reads them carefully, if indeed they be worth
"reading carefully, will find that the errors, in
"which they abound, are all of this nature, and
"arise from this source from the losing, or
"never having had, a true idea of the simple plan
❝ of civil government "."
1
Laws then, it should seem, have little of direct
influence towards effecting either the improvement
or the happiness of man. They prohibit him from
injury, and they protect him from it. Active
virtue, generosity, benevolence, forgiveness, hospi-
tality, piety, all that constitutes the charm, the
beauty, the dignity of life-all that can develope
the best part of man's nature, or that can hope to
be acceptable in the sight of his Maker, must be
derived from another source. And more especially
it may be said, what the poet has applied most so-
phistically to another purpose, that the virtue of
charity
At sight of human ties
Spreads its light wings and in a moment flies.
What is thus proved to be true theoretically, and
by a kind of a priori argument, Mr. Malthus has
b Alliance between Church and State, b. i. c. 3.
ZZ
shewn to be deducible from the actual constitution
of things. And in this lies the great merit and
the everlasting value of his work. It was natural
indeed to think that all truth would be harmonious
and consistent-that the universe was not con-
structed upon a plan so preposterous, as to tempt
to the execution of that which is abhorrent to the
very nature and end of our being. It is the high
distinction of the Essay on Population to have de-
monstrated, that such is the fact that all endea-
vours to embody benevolence into law, and thus
impiously as it were to effect by human laws what
the Author of the system of nature has not ef
fected by his laws, must be abortive-that this ig-
norant struggle against evil really enlarges instead
of contracting the kingdom of evil that it not
only must fail, but that it involves great mischief
both during the attempt and in its consequences.
The obloquy which has been directed against
the author arose not merely from the shallow views
and prejudices of his opponents, (to say nothing of
the more malignant motives of some adversaries,)
but partly also from the order in which this dis-
covery was presented to the minds of men. That
such was the constitution of things he seemed to
have proved. But then it appeared to militate
against some of the most sacred truths-as the
goodness of God, and the duty of benevolence in
23
He
man. He was driven therefore by his assailants,
to reconcile the system with those truths.
has accomplished this purpose completely but
during the interval, the vulgar prejudice struck root
and took a rank growth, which it will yet perhaps
In
require some time and industry to subdue.
the mean time however. he has let in a ray of
light upon all kindred speculations, which so-
phistry and prejudice will never again be able to
exclude from the world. And further, as it is
of the nature of one happy thought to elicit
others, so has he found in a contemporary writer
not only an advocate, but an able and ingenious
expositor of the whole system-one who has
beautifully developed the high moral and reli-
gious blessings which lay involved in this germ,
and has dissipated that gloom which in the eyes
of many candid persons still seemed to hang over
the discovery. Instead of a lurid Tartarus, he
has opened to our view those bright regions of
virtuous activity and religious hope, to which truth,
and truth only, can ever lead us. But I must be-
ware how I yield to the attractions of this capti-
vating theme. To have said less of one to whom
the world owes so much and whom it has requited
so ill, would not have accorded with my own feel-
2
C
• See Sumner's Records of the Creation, vol. 2.
24
ings-and what has been said is perhaps the more
excuseable, because I shall have occasion in the
course of this inquiry to combat some part of his
reasoning, as it is connected with our own Poor
Laws.
Before I quit this branch of the subject, however,
let me appeal to the experience of those who have
taken an active part in the formation and manage-
ment of charitable associations, in proof of the prin-
ciple above maintained—that charity and law have
scarcely a single point of contact. They are of he-
terogeneous origin: and as far as they enter into the
compound of any system, they draw opposite ways.
Such at least is the fruit of my own experience. In
proportion as these institutions assume a settled, an
organized, and a permanent character, in the same
degree precisely does the administration of them
become more a matter of police than of humanity.
In the same degree does the application to them
approach to the nature of a claim, and the execu-
tion of them require sagacity in detecting impos-
ture, and firmness in repelling the expectations even
of real want. And with whatever feelings of ardent
benevolence and sanguine hope of relieving distress
persons may have engaged in them, the due fulfil-
ment of the office of administrator of such funds is
found to involve a continual suppression, not an in-
dulgence of the feelings of humanity. I
say this
25
not with a view to disparage such institutions, for
they are often called for by local and temporary
circumstances, and as such, especially when su-
perintended with calm discretion, have done the
greatest good-much less to detract from the
merit of those excellent men who have formed and
conducted them-but to illustrate by a familiar
example the truth of that principle which, in its
abstract form, seldom meets the observation of
men, that charity cannot be the basis of a perma-
nent legislative measure. For these very institu-
tions themselves, useful as they are and even
necessary upon occasion, in proportion to their
permanency and systematic execution, have a ten-
dency to defeat their own purpose.
Another lesson also this example may serve to
teach us the folly and injustice of that obloquy
which is commonly associated with the name of
Overseer. The office is essentially one not of
charity, but of prudence. It is to be exercised
undoubtedly in a manner consistent with hu-
manity-but its proper business is to see that the
provisions of the law are carried into effect. There
is a querulous sensibility, fostered by sombre de-
scriptions, in verse and prose, of Workhouses and
Village Poor, which tends only to breed dis-
content, and to propagate the most erroneous
notions of the duty of Government, and the de-
E
26
}
fects of civil institutions. When we hear these
doctrines from the mouths of seditious dema-
gogues, we feel only indignation and disgust: but
the offence against reason is really as flagrant,
though not so alarming, when these false opinions
are insinuated, by means of the heart, into the
weaker intellects of persons unaccustomed to deep
reflection, not with a view to awaken active bene-
volence, but to make them repine at the evils inci-
dent to social life.
How best to remedy those mischiefs which our
own Poor Laws have been supposed to create, will
properly become the subject of the Third part of
this inquiry. But it belongs to the part now in
hand to state, with what limitation I conceive the
principle of separating humanity from law must
be taken. And for this purpose I will premise the
objection which is collected from the argument
of Mr. Malthus against the laws as they now are,
and which it is my intention in some degree to
combat.
The objection is, that by holding out a promise
of food and employment to all that may be born,
we profess what it is impossible in the nature of
things to perform-and that as far as this promise
operates, it obstructs the natural check which
would otherwise preserve the balance of popula-
tion that we do therefore force population arti-
27
ficially, and crowd life with greater numbers than
can be adequately provided for.
Now the force of this objection lies wholly in
the phrase promise of food and employment. And
it is material therefore to inquire, first, whe-
ther the language of our Poor Laws really amounts
to this—and, secondly, whether some relief for the
poor may not permanently be provided by law,
which shall not amount to an encouragement to
population.
Some writers, I observe, are not content with
the simple phrase food and employment, but
in their zeal against what they conceive to be
a vicious system, describe the parish relief as a
support, a means of obtaining the gratification of
his natural wants without any exertion on his
part. Mr. Malthus, I think, occasionally uses
language almost amounting to this-and certainly
the common strain of declamation, caused perhaps
by the actual practice at this moment in many
places, assumes that the pauper is to be as well off
as the independent labourer. But whatever the
fact may be in some districts, arising from sudden
pressure and mistaken execution of the laws, the
description as applied to the ancient and established
system of our Poor Laws is overcharged. And as
d Bicheno, chap. ii. p. 131.
E 2
28
far as we may collect from the history of a century
and half, the laws were not so executed, and had
not that effect upon the minds of the lower classes.
It is notorious that the fear, or pride, or virtue, or
whatever it may be called, which kept the labourer
from the parish, was an active and powerful prin-
ciple, till far within the time of living memory. I
contend therefore that neither the language of the
laws, nor their effect, justifies this construction.
And the cheering inference I draw is, that it may
be possible to provide by law for preserving life,
without encouraging the propagation of it.
This is the only answer to which, as it strikes
me, the argument from the principle of population
is open-and I do not think it has been sufficiently
attended to in the discussion of the question. The
portion of relief necessary for this purpose may
always be afforded out of the surplus stock of
society-provided the demand be occasional only,
and not of a nature to increase indefinitely by
being satisfied.
There surely is a condition of life, which nature
impels men to preserve, and which we are bound
individually wherever we can to assist in preserv-
ing, which yet is not so valuable to the possessor
as to make him wish to transmit it to posterity,
though he may instinctively cling to it himself.
There are, I should suppose, many gradations be-
29
tween that degree of support which merely keeps
men alive, and that which renders life truly com-
fortable. In the latter case the disposition to
increase must exist in full force. In all the other
cases it must suffer a diminution greater in pro-
portion as they approach the extreme case, in
which I conceive it would not exist at all. The
law therefore, it should seem, might hold out the
certainty of this bare means of preserving life in
any civilized state of society, without entailing a
continually increasing demand for it-a conse-
quence which it has been demonstrably shewn
would multiply misery and distress, and in the end
defeat itself. It would follow also, that in pro-
portion to the moral improvement of society, in
proportion to the prevalence of a taste for the com-
forts and decencies of life among the lower orders,
in proportion as those things which are not literally
necessaries are habitually and universally held to
be so-in the same proportion might the rate of
allowance be safely raised, and something more
than bare subsistence of the lowest kind be af-
forded to those who from any cause were rendered
unable to support themselves.
The rule of allowance then must be relative to
the state of society-the standard rising in pro-
portion to the rise of that moral standard-and
always, I should say, keeping below rather than
30
above the mark, for many reasons. First, because
it is the safest side, the errors on this side ending
with themselves, whereas those on the side of in-
dulgence have a tendency to increase in a geo-
metrical ratio. Secondly, because men are more
prone to err on this side than on the other, and
much greater individual virtue and firmness is
requisite to resist the temptation to this kind of
error. Thirdly, because error on the side of rigour
is more easily corrected than error of the opposite
kind. Fourthly, because the error of indulgence,
tends to disturb and alter the standard itself by
which it is measured, and thus to blind the judg
ment of mankind against all future correction.
It is the more necessary to dwell upon this view
of the question, because the practice is almost uni-
versal among those reasoners who build on the
Principle of Population, to represent the object of
our Poor Laws as radically inconsistent with that
principle their argument 'continually assuming
that the support extended is to be such as will
necessarily encourage propagation. It is not so
much with Mr. Malthus himself, especially in his
later editions, as with the political economists
e "It cannot but strike the labouring classes themselves,
"that, if their main dependence for the support of their chil-
"dren is to be on the parish, they can only expect parish
"fare, parish clothing, parish furniture, a parish house, and
31
who adopt his views, that this error seems to
prevail. And accordingly among many of them
nothing is more common than to exaggerate the
nature of this parochial support, as if it placed a
man in a situation equally desirable with that of
the labourer who supports himself, and left him
nothing to wish for beyond what that fund sup-
plies.
How far this error may have been generated,
and be still kept in countenance by some recent
enactments, and still more by the lax use of the
discretion vested in magistrates, and by an ex-
tension of that discretion even beyond what is
"parish government, and they must know that persons living
in this way cannot possibly be in a happy and prosperous
"state." Malthus's Additions, p. 79. Surely this detracts
greatly from the necessity which the author still thinks there
is for a total though gradual abolition of the Poor Laws.
He has not disguised, but has with his usual candour stated
the other causes which have forced population within the last
twenty years. It is on the comparative influence of these causes
in encouraging population that the question about retaining the
Poor Laws turns. Mr. Courtenay is inclined to attribute no
such influence to them; which is perhaps carrying it too far,
although Mr. Malthus himself, in his Appendix to the edi-
tion of 1806, has these words. "I will not presume to say
c
positively that they tend to encourage population,” p. 547.
My own opinion decidedly is, that whatever influence of this
kind they possess is to be ascribed to the recent extension
and lax administration of them, and not to their original
principle.
32
authorized by law, will be more properly the sub-
ject of consideration under the Second head of this
enquiry. When I come to a review of the origin
and progress of these laws, and of the circum-
stances under which they were first formed and
since modified, I think it will manifestly appear,
that our ancestors are not chargeable with that
ignorance of the true province of legislation, which
is so generally imputed to them-and that the ori-
ginal principle is not so vicious and unsound as
most of these writers represent it to be. That the
practice ought in some points to be corrected, and
the law changed, it will be my endeavour to shew
under the Third head.
Meanwhile the argument derives some support
from the natural law of self-preservation, which is
universally allowed to supersede the positive re-
straints of other laws; and, provided that principle
be the genuine and sole motive (which it seldom is
even when pleaded) to render a violation of property
excuseable. The fear is, that if openly avowed, it
would in practice be extended beyond the case of
literal necessity. But supposing it confined within
those limits, the general provision by law for the
maintenance of life bears a strong analogy to it,
and may be allowed to rest on the same foundation,
although it militates equally against the abstract
principle of legislation, and is proved by expe-
33
rience to be liable to the same perversion in
practice.
Let me dismiss the present branch of the argu-
ment then with the hope that indigence arising
either from infirmity, age, infancy, great number
of children, and even accidental failure of employ-
ment, may possibly be relieved by law-not fully
and adequately to our feelings-yet permanently
and systematically, without necessarily extending
the evil—and that in proportion to the improve-
ment of society, this relief may safely be afforded
on a more liberal scale.
The next attempt which our laws have made
for the relief of the poor, and which is even more
at variance with reason and sound policy, is to
regulate the price of provisions and the wages of
labour. The former of these attempts has been
long ago abandoned, and therefore is now wholly
unworthy of notice. The latter, though abrogated
by law, yet strange to say, has subsisted, and to
"Mr. Malthus admits, that notwithstanding the Poor Laws,
even under their late indulgent administration, our population
will probably be found at the next census to have been re-
tarded by the difficulties of the times; and that this effect
continuing for some years, together with the increased de-
mand that may soon be expected from abroad, the labouring
classes will probably be restored to full employment and
good wages. Additions, p. 64.
F
34
this day virtually subsists, in practice. And here
it may not be without its use, especially as we are
prone to boast of our superiority in legislative
wisdom over those of a former age, to point out
how the case stands in regard to these laws. In
the first place, whatever defect there may be in the
fundamental law for the relief of the Poor passed
in the 43d of Elizabeth, it has certainly been
heightened in a great degree by the 22d Geo. III.
c. 83. and the 36th Geo. III. c. 23. and still more
by the practice of magistrates exceeding the dis-
cretionary power vested in them. On the other
hand, the letter of Queen Elizabeth's law for the
regulation of wages, [5. Elia. c. 4.] founded as
it was in ignorance, yet produced little harm,
being disregarded in practice: for the preamble of
2. James I. c. 6. which revives that law, expressly
declares that it had not been duly executed,
<C
whereby the rates of wages for poor artificers,
"labourers, and other persons, whose wages was
"meant to be rated by the said Act, have not been
"rated and proportioned according to the plenty,
"scarcity, necessity, and respect of time, which
"was politickly intended by the said Act." Thus
while our ancestors erred in principle, they were right
in practice-but our practice has been erroneous,
even after the legislative error had been amended:
for this absurd and impracticable policy has been of
late years formally authorized in large districts of
35
the kingdom, by a regulated table of wages corre-
sponding with the price of provisions, and supply-
ing the deficiency of payment out of the Poor Rate.
But the evil tendency as well as the illegality of
this practice is now pretty generally admitted; and
it would probably be a waste of time to dwell any
longer upon the topic. If however Government
can do nothing directly to assist the holder of a
commodity for which there is no adequate demand,
it may still perhaps remove some obstructions
which retard the natural cure. A simplification
of the law of settlement, and a freer scope given
to the circulation of labour, are among the more
obvious measures, and to these accordingly some
attention will be directed in the Third Part.
In the mean time I cannot but think that if the
true value of our currency were restored, the effect
would be an improvement of the condition of the
labourer. In theory it is true, that if each shilling
is worth more, fewer shillings will be given for his
labour, while the demand for it continues the same.
But it is long before pure theory takes effect in
these transactions. And during that interval he
would certainly be a gainer. We have seen that
when money fell in value, his wages did not pro-
portionably advance, even during a time when the
demand for labour was at the highest. The differ-
ence went to swell the profits of the employer.
F 2
36
+
And this not merely from avaricious motives in
the employer-the nominal amount being the
same or even greater, he no less than the labourer
might well be ignorant of the real truth: for the
power of names in perpetuating error will hardly
be disputed. Is it not then reasonable to conclude,
that if money were to rise in value, some time
would elapse before the difference would be dis-
covered and still more before it would be met by
a proportional diminution of wages? Habit is a
powerful agent in this class of life-and though
habit ultimately settles into a coincidence with in-
terest, yet it is not so versatile as to follow up the
variations of interest very quickly. The gain to
the labourer would undoubtedly be a loss to the
employer-as his loss before was the other's gain.
But we are not to suppose that the profits of em-
ployment are so nicely balanced, as to bear no
abridgment to leave no debateable ground for the
rival interests to contend in-even for a short in-
terval. And it is only for an interval that we have
to provide the true problem before us in all such
cases being, how best to alleviate the distress
arising from a want of employment, until the
natural demands of trade and agriculture shall
again absorb the surplus labour.
:
The last point I shall consider, to which the
37
agency of law has been applied, but with a failure
more notorious than any other, is the employment
of those who are able and willing to labour, but
who have no work.
The framers of the Act, 43d Eliz. and of all
succeeding Acts on the same subject, appear evi-
dently to have assumed that the labour of a man
properly directed must always be adequate to sup-
port him. If therefore he was not hired voluntarily,
the parish officer was to provide him work. Work,
merely as an employment of time, is undoubtedly
better both for him and for the publie than abso-
lute idleness-but this does not seem to have been
the object in view. It was clearly supposed that
his work might be so profitable as to repay the
charge of his subsistence.
The subject is now much better understood. It
is well known that if his labour were profitable, it
would be hired by private employers. But they
have already too many labourers on their hands.
If then he is employed in producing more of those
commodities, of which there is already too much,
he aggravates the embarrassment. Or again,
should his work when employed by the parish
be more profitable than that of the hired labourer,
a supposition utterly improbable, he throws that
labourer out of employment-if it is less profit-
able, his efforts are still hurtful to the other pre-
38
cisely in the same degree in which they tend to
support himself.
It is clear then that, if employed by the parish,
it ought to be on some work in which private ca-
pital is not embarked, nor likely to be embarked.
The work may in that case be useful, and make
some return for the food he receives. But expe-
rience abundantly proves, that extraordinary skill
and assiduity in the superintendant are necessary
to make such work only moderately expensive-
and that individual adventure, with half the talent
and industry and capital requisite in the other case,
will effect more.
Neither can the employment of these surplus
labourers in tilling the ground, and thus actually
raising food, be regarded as an adequate resource,
even admitting that ground could be had for the
purpose. For the case itself supposes that the
demand for the produce of land is so much lessened
as to discourage cultivation, and consequently to
throw some labourers out of work. These la-
bourers, if fed, as they must be, constitute part of
the market for that produce. They are consumers
of provisions, and therefore cause part of that de-
mand which is already found to be insufficient.
How then, by withdrawing this demand and mak-
ing them support themselves, can we expect to be-
nefit the market? If the farmer employs already
39
as many hands as his. profits will bear, must not a
diminution of those profits tend to throw more
men out of employ? and thus to run a round of
fruitless exertion, without the slightest tendency
to escape from the circle? The whole subject has
been ably discussed by Mr. Davison, and few
readers will, I imagine, refuse to subscribe to his
conclusion," that no real supply of productive em-
66
ployment can be furnished by legal arrangement,
"when the trade of the country itself fails to
"furnish it."
Whatever therefore is done in this way, must
be regarded not as a permanent resource on which
increasing population may reckon, but as a tem-
porary palliation of distress, till either trade shall
revive, or population lessen-and the circumstances
under which the system is conducted ought clearly
to be such, as powerfully to stimulate all the
parties concerned to extricate themselves from
the situation, and to seek for some other means
of support.
1
II. If I were to take a review of all the legislative
measures on record for the regulation and relief of
the poor, together with the circumstances under
which they were severally enacted, the attempt
f Considerations on the Poor Laws, p. 24-31.
40
would be tedious and useless. But to judge aright.
of the merits of any law, it is highly important and
even necessary, that the peculiar circumstances of
the times in which it passed should be well con-
sidered. On this account I shall confine my atten-
tion chiefly to those Acts of Parliament which are
the cardinal points of the system, and enquire dili-
gently whether the times in which they were framed
do not support the general argument I maintain—
namely, that the distress which occasioned them
arose out of temporary causes, not out of the es-
sential principles of civil society, and that among
these causes depreciation of money was the prin-
cipal.
That in every stage of society there will be po-
verty and distress, every one knows-and that this
poverty and distress, when unable to relieve itself,
ought to be relieved by others, is also a Christian
maxim. Accordingly in times anterior to the Re
formation, almsgiving was regarded as an indis-
pensable and almost daily duty and one of the
chief employments of the parochial clergy was
to collect and distribute these alms. The old
notion that monasteries were the main support
of the poor is, I believe, pretty well exploded.
Theirs was an ostentatious, wasteful, lazy bounty,
not unlike the charity exhibited in the Scripture
parable of the rich man, and which rich men in
41
1
•
fact exercised in those times, at their castle gates,
as well as the monasteries. So unfounded is
the opinion that these institutions were friendly
to the poor, that the appropriations of livings,
which formed a great part of their endowments,
were at length restrained by law 5, because they
lessened the fund of charity in those parishes-and
it was expressly stipulated that, in all such cases,
provision should be made for the support of a resi-
dent vicar, and for the relief of poverty. Neither
is it true, that the poor ever had a legal right to
maintenance from tithes. A proportionate allot-
ment to that purpose was formerly matter of eccle-
siastical regulation, but never in this, nor I believe
in any other country, sanctioned by municipal law.
1
In these times however we find severe laws were
passed against vagrancy and mendicity. One of
the first is that of 23. Edw. III. which prohibits
the giving of alms to beggars; and many more
statutes in that and the four following reigns prove
that strong coercion was necessary to suppress the
practice-while they imply also that the vagrants
might reasonably expect a bare maintenance in
their own neighbourhoods. Still it is probable that
the great depreciation of the coin in Edward the
8 4. Hen. IV. c. 12. See Eden, State of the Poor, vol. i.
p. 345.
1
Ꮐ
42
Third's reign, and which more than once provoked
the remonstrance of the Commons, heightened the
distress, and it is certainly not unworthy of remark,
that the first severe laws on this subject were
passed in a reign" more remarkable than any other
for that base policy.
To come down then to later times, the following
statutes are worthy of notice as leading the way to
the final formation of the system in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth.
1496. 11. Hen. VII. c. 2. Enacts severe pu-
nishments against vagrants.
1504. 19. Hen. VII. c. 12. Ditto.
c. com
1531. 22. Hen. VIII. c. 12. Preamble com-
plains in terms almost extravagant, of the great
and daily increase of beggars prohibits begging,
except by licence from a Justice, and then only
within the Hundred.
1536. 27. Hen. VIII. c. 25. Directs the of-
ficers of every place to collect alms, and the clergy
to enforce the duty of giving to the local fund for
relieving the needy, and setting the poor to work.
All other almsgiving punishable by a forfeit of ten
times the amount of the alms given. Collectors
to be paid. Casual alms by travellers, to blind,
sick, aged, or impotent persons allowed.
¹¹ See Lord Liverpool, on the Coins of the Realm.
43
་
1546. 1. Edw. VI. c. 3. Directs officers to
provide cottages for impotent persons, and to find
work for those who are able.
Against vagrants this Act is the consummation of
cruelty. Any vagrant, man or woman, able to work,
who lived idly for three days, was to be branded
with a red-hot iron on the breast with the letter
V, and to be adjudged the slave of any person in-
forming against him, for two years. If no one
should demand such loiterer, [that is, if there
should be no demand for his labour,] he was to
be conveyed to the place of his birth-there to
be nourished and kept in chains or otherwise,
either at the common works in amending high-
ways, or as the slave of any individual for two
years. The employer might cause his slave to
work by beating, chaining, or otherwise-he might
feed him with bread and water, or with refuse meat
of any kind-if he ran away for fourteen days
during the two years, he was to be a slave for life-
if a second time, to suffer death as a felon.
It should be added that the worst part of this
Act was repealed within three years.
1552. 5. and 6. Edw. VI. c. 2. Two collectors
of alms to be appointed in each parish, who are
gently to ask and demand of every man and wo-
"man what they of their charity would be con-
"tented to give weekly towards the relief of the
G 2
44
"poor," and to register the sum in a book. If
any refuse, the minister and officers shall ad-
monish him-and if he be still obstinate, the
Bishop is to interfere.
1562. 5. Eliz. c. 3. Justices in Quarter Ses-
sions may (on certificate of the Bishop that any
one refuses to contribute) assess him.
N. B. This is the first compulsory Act for
relieving the Poor.
1572.
rected.
1576.
14. Eliz. c. 5. General assessment di-
Overseers first mentioned.
}
18. Eliz. c. 3. Gives the first plan for
setting the able Poor to work. County Houses of
Correction first ordered.
1579. 39. Eliz. c. 3. Authority first given to
Overseers to raise the rate upon occupiers of land,
the assessment having been before personal.
1601. 43. Eliz. c. 2. Act for the relief of the
Poor-a digest of all former laws, and the basis of
the law as it now stands. To endure only to the
end of the next Session of Parliament. Continued
in the same manner 2. Jac. I. c. 25, 21. Jac. I. c. 28,
3. Car. I. c. 4, and made perpetual 16. Car. I. c. 4.
W
Before I proceed to examine the Acts of the
next century it may be well to consider some of
the leading opinions which have been entertained,
as to the causes of this great legislative measure,
:
45
of
The people of the time speak only of the in-
creasing idleness and depravity of the lower orders,
and the extortion of the rich. Some ascribe the
unusual distress to the decay of tillage, and the
purpose
practice of enclosing arable land for the
pasture and yet the price of meat rose in a much
greater ratio than that of corn. Others speak of
the great size of the metropolis-and in 1581, a
proclamation was made to check it. Lord Bacon,
in his panegyrical treatise entitled Observations on
a Libel, published in 1592, where his object is to
set forth the flourishing state of the kingdom,
reckons the fifth blessing of the Queen's reign to
be, "great population and multitude of families"-
and, for proof of the fact, he refers to an Act
passed a few years before, and which has only
been repealed in the present reign, prohibiting
the erection of cottages without annexing four
acres of land. The dissolution of monasteries I
have already spoken of a reason which is justly
rejected by Sir F. M. Eden, who seems himself
inclined to attribute much to the rapid increase of
manufactures. Yet he adopts a division of his
work, viz. from the Conquest to the Reformation,
and from thence to the Revolution, founded, as it
appears, on the prevailing prejudice. The Reform-
ation certainly coincides pretty nearly with the work-
ing of the mines in America, and therefore in point
46
of time the division is a convenient one. But in
proof how little the change of religion and how
much the change of prices had to do with the
subject, it may be observed, that about the same
time with the statute of 27. Hen. VIII. similar
regulations respecting the Poor were adopted on
the Continent-in particular in the year 1531, by
the Emperor Charles V. in the Netherlands¹—a
country abounding in wealthy monasteries-but
like England populous and commercial, and sooner
affected than many others by alteration in the va-
lue of money. One thing is certain, that this in-
crease of poverty cannot be attributed, as has been
the common theme of modern times, to the Poor
Laws themselves. They grew out of the state of
things, as every one must admit, and could not
have been in that age the cause of it. In fact
the dreadful severity of the laws against mendicity,
and the precarious support of the Poor from alms
in their own residence, cannot have held out any
encouragement to thoughtless and improvident
matrimony-although Harrison says there were
people in his time who thought the kingdom too
populous, and complained of early marriages *.
But amidst all these surmises we have some
i See Anderson, Hist. Comm. II. 55. quoted by Sir F, Eden,
vol. i. p. 83.
K
* Chap. 19.
"
47
strong matters of fact, which support the opinion
I advanced in my former Letter, that the depreci-
ation of money was the chief cause. I speak not
of that depreciation which arises from debasement.
For although the fraud of such a transaction is
glaring, and the distress and iniquity produced by
it very extensive, yet it soon ceases; the fact is
acknowledged and payments and contracts pre-
sently adjust themselves to the new value. It is
when the depreciation is caused by the increase of
the commodity a cause which individuals do not
perceive, and which shews itself in no other way
but by the increase of prices paid in coin of the
same kind, that the error naturally prevails, and
baffles all the ingenuity of men to detect it. Like
the tide, it steals on silently, unobserved and un-
suspected, insinuating itself one after the other
into all the hidden creeks and channels of life, till
at length we find ourselves unexpectedly sur-
rounded, and unless we rise together with it, in
danger of being overwhelmed.
Why the labourer is the last to obtain redress I
have already endeavoured to explain. But suppos
ing the depreciation to be constant and progressive,
by the time this tardy justice has apparently been
conceded to him, or even long before it, a farther
* First Letter, p. 30 and 35.
48
advance of price has taken place, and so on succes-
sively while the same cause continues in operation,
ever mocking his hopes like the rainbow, still re-
tiring as he advances, and leaving him far behind
the golden shadow he is pursuing. In the mean
time, all those who derive profit from labour, are
accumulating vast wealth-their success stimulates
others to embark in schemes of improvement-
and life begins to wear a new embroidery, woven
by the humble toil of beings who are left to grovel
on the earth, and to perish obscurely when their
work is done, destined never to enter upon the
fruits of their own labour'.
Sic vos non vobis fertis aratra boves. Notwithstanding
the deteriorated condition of the lowest class, all above
them were rapidly advancing in the command of comforts
and even of luxuries: and as might be expected, when
the profit emanates from underpaid labour, the immediate
employer was the chief gainer. Of the effects produced
on this class in country life, Harrison gives a lively de-
scription. "So common were all sorts of treene [wooden]
"stuffe in old time, that a man should hardlie find foure
peeces of pewter (of which one was peradventure a salt)
"in a good farmer's house; and yet for all this frugalitie,
(if it may so be justly called) they were scarce able to
"live, and paie their rents at their daies without selling of a
"cow or an horsse or more, although they paid but 4 pounds
" at the uttermost by the yeare. Such also was their povertie,
"that if some one od farmer or husbandman had beene at the
“ale-house, a thing greatlie used in those daies, amongst 6
sc
1
49
The following sketch of the state of the kingdom
in 1592 from the pen of Lord Bacon will not, I
hope, be thought a tedious commentary on this
doctrine. After speaking of the improved tillage,
which even supplied corn for exportation, and the
cheapness of grain compared with its usual price
a few years before, he proceeds thus:
66.
"There was never the like number of fair and
stately houses as have been built and set up
"from the ground since her Majesty's reign; in-
"somuch that there have been reckoned in one
"shire that is not great, to the number of thirty-
"or 7 of his neighbours, and there, in a braverie, to shew
"what store he had, did cast down his pursse and therein a
"noble or 6 shillings in silver unto them, (for few such men
"then cared for gold, because it was not so readie payment,
" and they were oft inforced to give a penie for the exchange
"of an angell,) it was verie likely, that all the rest could not
lay downe so much against it: whereas in my time, al-
"though peradventure 4 pounds of old rent be improved to
40, 50, or even 100 pounds, yet will the farmer, as another
<<
palme or date tree, think his gaines very small, toward the
"end of his terme, if he have not six or seven yeares rent
lieng by him, therewith to purchase a new lease, beside a
"faire garnish of pewter on his cupboard, with so much
"more in od vessel going about the house, three or four
"feather beds, so manie coverlids and carpets of tapestrie, a
"silver salt, a bowle for wine, (if not a whole neast,) and a
“dozen of spoones to furnish up the sute." Descript. of
England, chap. xii. p. 188.
H
50
"three, which have been all new built within that
"time and whereof the meanest was never built
;
·
"for two thousand pounds. There were never
"the like pleasures of goodly gardens and orchards,
"walks, pools, parks, as do adorn almost every
"mansion-house-there was never the like number
of beautiful and costly tombs and monuments
"which are erected in sundry churches in ho-
"nourable memory of the dead.
of the dead. There was never
"the like quantity of plate, jewels, sumptuous
"moveables and stuff, as within the realm. There
"was never the like quantity of waste and un-
66
..
<6
66
ઃઃ
profitable ground in need reclaimed, and im-
*
proved. There was never the like husbanding
"of all sorts of grounds by fencing, manuring, and
"all kinds of good husbandry. The towns were
never better built nor peopled; nor the prin-
cipal fairs and markets ever better customed or
frequented. The commodities and ease of rivers
"cut by hand, and brought into a new channel;
"of piers that have been built; of waters that
"have been forced and brought against the ground,
ઃઃ were never so many. There was never so many
"excellent artificers, nor so many new handy-
"crafts used and exercised; nor new commodities
"made within the realm; sugar, paper, glass,
66
copper, divers silks, and the like. There was
never such complete and honourable provision
51
*of horse, armour, weapons, ordnance of the
.. warm
It is true the writer subjoins that, besides the pro-
clamation before mentioned, and the Act of Parlia-
ment about cottages, there are "sundry other tokens
"of the surcharge of the people:" among which I
fear must be included, though it did not suit the
author's purpose to acknowledge it, the misery
and the crimes of the common people. Certain
it is, that the kingdom was in a most disorderly
state, and that crimes of every description abounded.
Strype" has preserved an interesting memoir on
this subject, written by a magistrate of Somerset-
shire in 1596 and Harrison in his Description of
England, reckons the annual executions at 300
or 400.
A few extracts from this more homely but not less
honest writer, whose first edition was published in
1577 and the second in 1586, may serve to com-
plete the picture, over which Lord Bacon has
spread so rich a colouring.
"The number of merchants is so increased in these
"our days, that their only maintenance is the cause of
"the exceeding prices of foreign wares, which otherwise
"when every nation was permitted to bring in his own
"commodities, were far better, cheap, and more plenti-
fully to be had." He goes on to notice that sugar
"Annals, iv. 290.
66
in Observations on a Libel.
H 2
52
which was fourpence a pound, now cost half-a-crown :
raisins or corinths that might be had for a penny, now
cost sixpence, and so on. They have sought out, he
says, the East and the West Indies, New Spain, Cathay,
Moscovy, and Tartary, "but alas! I see not by all their
"travell that the prices of things are any whit abated."
In the chapter on Diet, he has the following
passage, written it will be remembered about 30
years after the Sermon of Latimer, from which an
extract has been already given º.
"The bread throughout the land is made of such
"graine as the soile yeeldeth, neverthelesse the gentilitie
"commonlie provide themselves sufficientlie of wheat
"for their owne tables, whilest their household and
"poore neighbours in some shires are inforced to con-
❝tent themselves with rie, or barleie, yea and in time of
"dearth manie with bread made either of beans, peason,
❝or otes, or of altogether and some acornes among, of
"which scourge the poorest doo soonest tast, sith they
66
are least able to provide themselves of better. I
"will not saie that this extremitie is oft so well to be
"seene in time of plentie as of dearth, but if I should I
“could easilie bring my triall. For albeit that there be
"much more ground eared now [1577] almost in eyerie
“place, than hath becne of late yeares, yet such a price
"of corne continueth in each towne and market without
any just cause (except it be that landlords doo get
Q
• Description of England, chap. v. p. 163. fol. ed.
» First Letter, p. 14.
53
"licences to carie corne out of the land onelie to keepe
"up the prices for their owne private gaines and ruine
"of the commonwealth) that the artificer and poore
66
laboring man is not able to reach unto it, but is driven
"to content himselfe with horsse-corne, I meane, beanes,
66 peason, otes, tares, and lintels: and therefore it is a
"true proverbe, and never so well verified as now, that
"hunger setteth his first foote into the horsse-manger.
"If the world last a while after this rate, wheate and rie
"will be no graine for poore men to feed on, and some
"caterpillers there are that can saie so much alreadie".",
In the chapter on the Poor he says there is no
commonwealth at this day in Europe, wherein
there is not great store of poor people, and those
necessarily to be relieved by the wealthier sort,
which otherwise would starve and come to utter
confusion. He divides them into three classes;
1. The impotent, including fatherless children,
aged and incurably diseased. 2. Casually disabled
persons. 3. Thriftless poor, viz. vagabonds, &c.
The same division is observed by Dalton in his
Justice of the Peace, A. D. 1635. Of this division
it is observable, that no account is taken of those
who are able and willing to work, but have no em-
ployment. Men seem to have presumed, as the
legislature has for many ages, that such labourers
must of course be able to support themselves, if
{
¶ Description of England, chap. vi. p. 168. fol. ed.
54
•
#
properly employed. When Harrison wrote, no
provision had been made for setting this class to
work. It could not however escape notice that
many well-disposed persons were reduced to dis-
tress either by inadequate wages, or by want of
employment: and he attributes it angrily to co-
vetous landlords, who by enclosing commons, and
raising their rents, made many beggars.
66
"Hereupon it followeth, that although the wise and
"better-minded do either forsake the realm for altoge-
"ther, and seek to live in other countries, as France,
"Germany, Barbary, India, Moscovia, and verie Cale-
"cute, complaining of no room to be left for them at
"home, and do so behave themselves that they are
worthily to be accompted among the second sort; yet
"the greater part commonly having nothing to stay
upon, are wilful, and thereupon do either prove idle
"beggars, or else continue starke thieves till the gallowes
"do eat them up, which is a lamentable case." He
then proceeds to enumerate no less than 14 sorts of
vagabonds', upon the authority of a treatise on that
subject, published by Harman in 1566.
66
What he says of emigration and the causes of it
reminds one forcibly of Goldsmith's querulous de-
r Viz. rufflers, uprightmen, hookers or anglers, roges,
wild roges, priggers of pransers, palliards, fraters, abrams,
freshwater mariners or whipjacks, dummerers, drunken
tinkers, swadders or pedlers, jackemen or patricoes; besides
nine female varieties.
55
dication of the Deserted Village, and of the general
strain of that poem as well as of the conclusion of
his Traveller. That he viewed the change of cir-
cumstances in his own time with the same heart-
felt concern as Harrison, there can be no doubt ;
and the more we enquire, the more circumstances
do we discover which neither writer seems to be
aware of, that conspired to produce a strong re-
semblance between the two cases.
It must not be overlooked, that besides the rapid
growth of commerce, and the general taste for im-
provement, which caused an extensive demand for
labour, and of course increased population, the
powerful impulse of war also was applied in the
same direction; and Harrison remarks that those
who grudge, as many did, at the increase of the
people, would in case of foreign invasion find that
a wall of men is far better than stacks of corn and
bags of money. I mention this now, because it is
one feature more of resemblance between that age
and our own.
They might be the less inclined to advert to the
medium of commerce, as the cause of this de-
rangement, because one of the first measures of
Elizabeth's reign was to set that affair right: and
Lord Baconjustly commends the policy, as having
rectified the abuses of former reigns. "For who
"believeth not," he says, "that knoweth any thing
56
"in matter of estate, of the great absurdities and
"frauds that arise of divorcing the legal estima-
"tion of moneys from the general and, as I may
"term it, natural estimation of metals, and again
"of the uncertainty and wavering values of coins,
a very labyrinth of cousenages and abuse, yet
"such as great princes have made their profit of
"towards their own people "."
66
In order however to make the operation of this
cause still more evident, I have compiled from the
ample-materials of Sir F. Eden's volumes, a short
comparative view of prices of provisions, and rates
of wages, digested into tables, confining myself
in the former to the price of meat and corn, and
in the latter to the wages of ordinary country la-
bour. To these it is necessary to prefix some ac-
count of the changes our coin has undergone from
the time of Henry the Seventh, in order that the
prices may be really as well as nominally ex-
pressed by a common measure.
1464. 4. Edw. IV. The pound of silver was
coined into 37s. 6d. This practice continued till
1527, when Henry the Eighth lowered the standard,
coining the pound of silver into 45s. In order
therefore to compare the prices of the first period
with those of the second, an addition must al-
• Discourse in praise of Queen Elizabeth.
57
ways be made of one fifth. From the latter part
of Henry the Eighth, to the last year of Edward
the Sixth, the greatest possible confusion prevailed
in our currency, by means of debasement and ab-
surd regulations directing silver coins to be taken
according to a prescribed relative value with gold,
different from the actual value. The following
extract from Folkes's Table of Coins will serve to
shew to what an excess of folly and iniquity this
practice had grown.
A. D, 1527. The value of the pound sterling, in
money of the present day, was
1543.
1545.
1546.
1551.
£ s.
d.
1
7 635
1 3 31
0 13 111
0 9 33
0 4 73
•
During this period no reliance is to be placed
on the account of prices which may appear inci-
dentally in contemporary writings: for the actual
payments must of course have been governed by
the intrinsic not the nominal value of the currency.
Nothing however can exceed the embarrassment
caused by these measures throughout life. All
commerce, says Lord Liverpoolt, was nearly at a
stand. Government issued proclamations to keep
* Coins of the Realm, p. 90, &c,
I
58
up the value of the debased coin, which were not
obeyed. To enforce obedience, Parliament passed
a law for inflicting penalties on those who should ex-
change any money at a greater value than the same
was declared to be current for by his Majesty's
proclamation. And then indeed it was most true
(what Mr. Vansittart told the House of Commons,
and what the House of Commons solemnly re-
solved in 1811) that the coins did pass according
to their nominal value in all lawful transactions.
It was at length discovered that no effectual re-
medy could be applied, but a total reformation of
the coins of the realm-a measure which was un-
dertaken and nearly accomplished in the last year
of Edward the Sixth, neglected by Queen Mary,
but finally completed in the first year of Elizabeth,
when the pound of silver was coined into sixty
shillings. To this instructive example I will only
subjoin one remark, that the arbitrary deprecia-
tion was enforced at the very time when (like the
present) the natural cause of depreciation, from a
growing increase of the medium of commerce, was
also in the full tide of its operation.
}
A slight inspection then of the rates of wages as
settled at different periods, and of the prices of
some principal articles of food, will convince us
that during the 16th century, the condition of la-
bourers was in a constant course of deterioration,
1
59

£. s.
1459.
Wheat, per Quarter 0
3
PRICE OF PROVISIONS.
PRICE OF LABOUR.
Value in present || Daily Wages appointed 11. Hen. VII. Value in preser
Money.
A. D. 1495.
d. £. 8. d.
40 50
Money.
L. 5. d. £. s. d.
From
A Mower, with diet 0
Ditto without
0
410
0 53
0 0
60 0
60 0 94
1500
Average of ditto...
0 5 2 0 8 0
A Reaper or Carter
with diet
0 0
30
0
0 44
to
1511.
Average of Barley 0
3
40
40 5
0
Ditto without
0 0
5 0
0
....
0
71
1500.
An Ox
0 11
80 18
01
A Sheep
0 1
8
02 64
Woman Labourer,
or other Labour-
ers, with diet 0
Ditto without ..
0
0
2 0
0 33
...
0
0
40
0 0 61
1531.
A large Ox
A Sheep
1
0
Wheat, average
0
Barley
0
6 2 4 GR
8
5 4 0 7 32
1 16 9
2 10 10 3 10%
No account of the
Wages of labour
till 1575.
2
40 3
2
1533.
Beef and Mutton,
per lb.
0
0
0 0 0
0.748
1.549.
Best fat wether
4
4 0 5 0
...
1550..
Best Wheat....
0 13
40 15 61
1560.
Wheat, from
to
0 8
0 083
1 6
01 9 53
1575.
Beef, per lb.
Wheat
0 0 1 0
10 0 1
0 1
1 0.1059
08
Labourer without
diet
0 0
800 81
081
1587.
Wheat, from
1 0 01 0
to
40 04 2
Co Co
8
8
...
1589.
Wheat
0 18 60 0 19 11
Barley
0 13
40 13 10
Thresher, ditto 00 800
0 81
Ditcher, with diet 0 0040
0
41
A Wether
0
6
1590." Sheep
0 6
8 0 6 10
80
6 10
Thresher, without
Labourer in a gaṛ-
0
0 0 6 0 0
0
6/1/
6층
​Wheat
1 1
Barley
0 13
0 1 1 81
40 13 10%
1593.
Wheat, exportation
price......
1 0
0
0 1 0 8
Barley
0 12
0 0
0 12 49
den
0 0 30 0
0 3TT
0 0 50 0
Ditto in an orchard 10
Thatcher
Labourer in York-
shire.
Summer, with diet0
40
0
0 43
0 54
0
2
0 0 0.2
0 292
without 0 0
Winter, with diet 0 0
without... 0 0
5 0 0 0 51
1
10 0 0 1 3
400 41
2.8
1596.
Wheat.....
Rye
Beef, the stone
...
2 2 0
2 3
1
4
4 0 1 4 91
0 1 9 0 1 99
0 15 0 10 15 6
In Chester.
Servant Carpenter,
or Thatcher, with
diet
Smith, or Sawyer
...
In Chester.
The same as in
1593.
0 0 1 0 0
0 0 2 0 0
17.
20.2
A fat Wether
1597.
A fat Bullock
5 19
6 6 3 6
A fat Sheep.....
0 14
6
60 14 11%
4
1598.
Wheat
0 18
00 18 7
1599.
Ditto
1 7
01 7
11
1601.
Labourer, without
diet
4.
0 0 10 0 0 10
108%9
60
1
In the foregoing table there are not many years
in which the price of labour is recorded. In the
table of provisions therefore, those years have been
chosen which coincide with them, or nearly so,
but this table is made fuller, because the price of
provisions fluctuates with the seasons, but the price
of labour is more stationary.
The following table, abstracted from the compo-
sitions for purveyances, exhibits the increasing
prices of animal food through the latter part of the
16th century".

Value in
Value in
Composition
for an Ox.
present
Money.
Composition
for a Sheep.
present
Money..
£. s.
1527. 18. Hen. 8.
0 19
d. £.
61
s. d. £. s.
d. £. s d.
6 10 0
3
10 4
3
1544. 35. Hen. 8.
1
5
4 1
9 50
3
0 0
3
5
1548. 2. Edw. 6. 12
13
43
200 4
0 0
4
1550. 4. Edw. 6.5
0
0%
0 12 0x
1551. 5. Edw. 6.
2 17
7 3
6 11||0 5
5
40 6
1555. 2. Mary.
2 19
19
0
3
0
5 0 4
1558. 5. Mary.
4 6
8
4
8
8
0 4
404
010 4 1
1560. 2. Eliz.
5 10 0
0 5
13
8
0 10
0 0 10 4
1587. 29. Eliz.
7 0 0 7 4
8
0 12
6 0 12 10
From the slightest inspection of the tables it
will appear that during the first twenty years of
"Eden, App. No. IV.
× I have not reduced these prices, concluding that they
relate to that confused state of the currency mentioned in
page 57.
1
ما حو ا د
61
that century the wages of a country labourer were
at least three times as great as during the last
twenty years, if measured by the quantity of food
they would purchase. For instance, in the first
period a sheep at 20d. was equal only to about
4 days labour at the lowest rate-in the second,
reckoning a sheep at 10s. and a day's labour with-
out diet at 10d., which is the highest ever men-
tioned, it was equal to 12 days labour. Again, in
the first period, a quarter of wheat at 5s. 3d. was
equal only to 13 days labour at the lowest rate:
in the second, taking the average price, as I find it
from Sir F. Eden's larger table to have been, at
17. 12s. 10d. it was equal to 39 days labour at
the highest rate-and in each period the price of
barley appears to have been something more than
half that of wheat, or nearly in the ratio of 4 to 7.
It will be said perhaps that manufactured commo-
dities were cheaper in the latter than in the former
period: which is true: but when the whole wages
of a man's labour were barely sufficient to keep
him from starving, his share of these commodities
must have been next to nothing-and it was surely
no alleviation of his misery to see others obtaining
such advantages at a cheaper rate, and thus de-
pressing him still lower than ever in the compa-
rative scale of social life.
62
Neither can the ordinary solution, of stagnant
trade or interrupted credit, be applied here.
1
During a great part of Elizabeth's reign the ge-
neral improvement of the country, as we have seen,
was rapid, and the demand for labour increasing.
Towards the conclusion indeed, namely, from 1587
to 1597, a series of bad seasons and scanty crops
heightened the distress, and in some years, espe-
cially 1596, to such a degree as to produce general
alarm-and this cause undoubtedly accelerated the
formation of the Act which passed for the relief of
the poor in 1601. Something also is to be attri-
buted to the continental wars maintained by Eli-
zabeth, which like all wars, created a demand for
men while they lasted, and threw a multitude of
idle hands upon society when they were over. In
these respects, (for in our time also three if not
four years of extraordinary scarcity have been felt)
as well as in the rapid increase of foreign trade
and domestic manufacture, that age bore a striking
resemblance to the present, and may well be sup-
posed therefore to have witnessed similar changes
in the condition of society; but the change of
prices also, not so great indeed in our own times
as in those, yet, equally unperceived as to its
cause, must have contributed largely to the ge-
neral distress of the poor. At the close of that
63
reign prices became more settled: and if we may
look upon the multiplication of the medium of
commerce, as having now reached its acme, or
nearly so, we also may confidently expect a general
amelioration of the state of the lower classes,
without much positive interference on the part of
Government, and certainly without abolishing that
legal provision for the support of indigence, which
if not injurious or impracticable, every one must
allow to be incumbent on us.
The review of proceedings in the Seventeenth
century will not detain us so long. They are nei-
ther so numerous, nor so important, as those we
have been considering; but taken in conjunction
with the circumstances of the times out of which
they sprung, they will, I apprehend, be found to sup-
port the reasoning hitherto employed. The change
in the value of money during this century was not
great; and accordingly the state of the poor does
not seem to have excited so much attention, till
towards its conclusion, when other causes, which
are also powerful, were in full activity, viz. the
cessation of foreign war, which had been main-
tained by a prodigious effort-by an incessant de-
mand for men-by an exhaustion of present, and an
anticipation of future means-and this, accom-
panied by some years of failing harvest.
64
Neither does it appear that the mistaken lan-
guage of charity had crept into the legislative
enactments of this period. The preambles ge-
nerally set forth the great increase of the poor as
a national evil, as a growing burden on the public
-and when they speak of the degree of support
requisite for them, it is "to keep them from pe-
rishing." The same error indeed respecting the
benefits of compulsory employment, seems to have
prevailed, notwithstanding the palpable failure of
all attempts of that kind: and wages continued,
at intervals, to be regulated by the magistrates,
whose edicts however were generally the conse-
quence of the existing practice, instead of the
cause of it; or, if ever they interfered with the na-
tural order of things, were of course disregarded.
ماء
As to the principal legislative measures, they
were long confined to a continuation, from time to
time, of the 43d of Elizabeth, viz. by 2. Jac. I.
c. 25. 21. Jac. I. c. 28. 3. Car. I. c. 4. till at
length it was made perpetual by 16. Car. I. c. 4.
The usual complaints occur in the writings of that
age, of the increase of poverty, vagrancy, and
crimes. But there is no proof whatever that the
Poor Laws contributed towards it, (to vagrancy they
must certainly be at all times a check,) nor indeed
that these evils did increase, beyond their propor-
tion to the increased population of the country.
65
The preamble to the Act passed in 1662, for the
better relief of the poor", may be produced in sup-
port of these opinions. It will of course be remem-
bered that the country at that time was fallen into
a state of languid repose, after the distraction and
unnatural exertions of civil war and revolutionary
government.
"Whereas the necessity, number, and continual
"increase of the poor, not only within the cities of
"London and Westminster, with the liberties of
"each of them, but also through the whole king-
"dom of England and dominion of Wales, is very
66
great and exceeding burdensome, being occa-
"sioned by reason of some defects in the law
<<
concerning the settling of the poor, and for want
"of a due provision of the regulations of relief
"and employment in such parishes or places where
they are legally settled, which doth enforce many
66
66
to turn incorrigible rogues, and others to perish
'for want, together with the neglect of the faith-
"ful execution of such laws and statutes as have
CC
66
cc
formerly been made for the apprehending of
rogues and vagabonds, and for the good of the
poor for remedy whereof, and for the preventing
"the perishing of any of the poor, whether young
u 13. and 14. Car. II. c. 12.
K
66
or old, for want of such supplies as are neces-
sary, May it please, &c."
I would here observe that a very fallacious ar-
gument, as to the continual increase of pauperism,
is often drawn from the preambles of successive
Acts of Parliament, and from the language of
writers at different periods, all complaining of the
same thing. Hence if in the course of a century
for instance, after four equal intervals of time, the
same language has been repeated, each complaint is
often construed, not in reference to the years im-
mediately preceding, but in reference to the com-
plaint last made-which was perhaps 20 or 30
years before-and it has been rashly concluded that
the increase in the last period is compounded of
the increase in all the preceding periods accord-
ing to the well-known prejudice,
Ætas parentum, pejor avis, tulit
Nos nequiores, mox daturos
Progeniem vitiosiorem.
But that this inference is unsound will, I hope,
be admitted as soon as it is pointed out. We
might in the same way infer that the age in which
the last Act against vagrants or felons passed, ex-
ceeded all that had gone before in the number of
such offenders; for they invariably set forth the
67
great increase of the offences as a reason for the
new law. It must however be evident to every re-
flecting mind, that with regard to all political and
moral evil, there are what Mr. Burke calls " ups
"and downs" in society; and the increase which
is lamented relates to the period of time within the
experience or observation of the author-perhaps
consisting only of a few years, and by no means
extending back to the period of the former enact-
ment. Some allowance too must be made in all
these cases, for the common propensity to exag-
gerate the evil of our own time, as compared with
that of past ages, especially of the age immediately
preceding. And if these precautions be duly
taken, I am confident that an attentive examination
of the proofs on record will convince any candid
mind, that the opinion of the progressive increase
of pauperism, as caused by the original principle
of the Poor Laws themselves, is erroneous, But
to return.
The object of this law [13. and 14. Car. II.
c. 12.] is to restrain migration, and to establish
Workhouses in London and Westminster. About
thirty years after, however, it was found necessary
to pass a law facilitating migration, by making
strangers not removeable until actually chargeable,
* 9. and 10. W. c. 30,
K 2
68
provided they brought a certificate from the parish
to which they belong. The preamble of this Act
also is worthy of attention, as illustrative of the
state of society at the time, and as indicating a
just notion of the advantages to be derived from
a free circulation of labour.
66
66
.
"Forasmuch as many poor persons chargeable
to the parish, township or place, where they live,
merely for want of work, would in any other
place where sufficient employment is to be had,
"maintain themselves and families, without being
"burdensome to any parish &c. . . but not being
"able to give the expected security
they are
"for the most part confined to live in their respective
parishes . . . . . though their labour is wanted in
65
65
many other places," &c. After many abortive
regulations for about a century, the affair of cer-
tificates, for the purpose of preventing removal,
was at length given up, and in 1795 it was enacted,
that no person should be removeable, until he
actually became chargeable. This concession was
made on the score of humanity; but though the
principle was mistaken, yet as the law coincides
with sound policy, it is a great improvement.
In reviewing the operation of the Poor Laws
during this century, it must be allowed that one
bad effect was soon discovered, namely, that they
held out an inducement to indigent persons to
69
:
leave their families to the support of the parish.
So early as 1609, a law was passed for the correc-
tion of this practice and since that time it never
has prevailed to any great extent. That the poor
still suffered severely in case of scarcity, or want
of work, we are not surprised to find. In 1622, a
pamphlet was published entitled "Greevous Grones
"of the Poor," complaining that the law was not
executed—that in many parishes no rate had been
raised for their relief, and that they were turned
adrift to beg. This surely is no evidence of the
evil effect of the law itself. In times of scarcity,
or after the cessation of war, it is obvious that dis-
tress will increase-but to shew that nothing is too
absurd for men to assign as the cause of any un-
looked for movement in society, it may be ob-
served that a serious attempt was made by a writer
in 1673 to prove that the distress of the labouring
classes was the consequence of the introduction of
stage coaches, instead of the old mode of travelling
on horseback 7.
As it is always of use in such enquiries to have
some idea of the price of provisions, I have sub-
joined an account taken from the Eton College
books, of the average price of Wheat in every ten
years of this century. Of the price of meat, which
z Harl. Misc. viii. 524. Eden i. 189.
70
is equally important, I have not been able to find.
any account. The bushel is that of the nine gallon
measure.
1600 to 1610
average
£. se d.
1 17 10
1610 to 1620
2 1 1/
1620 to 1630
2 5 22/20
1630 to 1640
1640 to 1650
1650 to 1660
1660 to 1670
2 14 9
2 1 1/1/2
2 9 59
2 8 10
}
1670 to 1680
2 10 8
f
1680 to 1690
1 19 1
1690 to 1700
2 16 10/1/2
From this it appears, that the three principal
legislative measures adopted in the course of the
century coincide with periods of the greatest scarcity
of corn, viz. 1. that of 16. Car. I. in 1640-
2. that of 13. and 14. Car. II. in 1662-3. that of
8. and 9. W. during the concluding ten years of
the century. In this latter period indeed all the
causes already enumerated" were acting in power-
ful combination; and the effect is perceptible in the
general anxiety excited on the subject of the Poor-
a subject particularly noticed by the king as a great
and growing evil, in his speeches to three succes-
sive Parliaments b
That the pressure towards the close of the cen-
Page 63.
b Viz. 1698, 1699, 1700.
#
f
M
tury arose chiefly from the stagnation of trade, the
disbanding of the forces, and the lessened employ-
ment, after a war of unexampled exertion, I am the
more inclined to think, because upon a comparison
of prices of provisions with the wages of labour,
that great disparity does not appear to exist
which marks the close of the sixteenth century.
Our information is more scanty indeed on these
points in the latter than in the former period.
Such as it is, I have selected from it a few pro-
minent articles.
1610. Wages settled by the Magistrates in Rutland.
With diet. Without diet.
d.
d.
Man Reaper.
4.
8
Other Labourers, in Summer
1651. In Essex. Labourer
3
7
Winter
∞ ∞
2
6
8.
14
Mower
. 10.
18
Man Reaper
Woman ditto
. 12
22
•
. 8
14
1661. Ditto.
Labourer, in Summer 8
14
Winter
6.
12
Man Reaper
. 10.
18
Woman ditto
8
14
1685. In Warwickshire.
Labourer
4
8
Man Reaper,
6
12
Woman ditto
4
N. B. The average price of Mutton was 2d. per lb.
72
Thus it appears that during the Commonwealth
the wages of country labour were considerably.
higher than in the following reigns. But as the
rule usually observed was, to consider the diet as
half the wages, (the same rule which prevailed in
the early part of the sixteenth century,) the con-
dition of the labourer was nearly the same at all
times. Pauperism therefore, under these circum-
stances, must have arisen chiefly from want of em-
ployment a want severely felt during the inactive
reign of Charles the Second, and still more after
the cessation of King William's war with France.
To this cause Davenant, writing in 1698, attributes
the heavy Poor Rate. "In time of peace," he says,
<<
we pay as much to the Poor, as to the mainte-
"nance of Government, and for our protection."
Locke however, in his zeal to promote parish
schools, is disposed to attribute almost the whole
to idleness and laxity of morals, alledging that be-
fore the French war, in the reign of Charles II. the
charge was nearly as great. Much, I doubt not,
was owing to this cause, and to the careless admi-
nistration of the laws in that reign. Certainly after
the general establishment of Workhouses in the
next century, the charge was much reduced.
The best evidence on this point would un-
• Trade and Revenues of Great Britain, p. 72.
73
doubtedly be a statement of the annual amount
of the Poor Rate during the whole period. But
this it is impossible to obtain. The amount of
a few years is occasionally mentioned—but that
generally by computation-and not always from
the best authority. Still, as it is the only informa-
tion we have, it must not be neglected. The fol-
lowing sums, Sir F. Eden candidly observes, are
not to be considered as possessing greater autho-
rity than the passages in the various authors from
which they are extracted.
1673. Computed by a writer, Harl. Misc. viii. 524. £840,000.
-1677. Andrew Yarranton. See Eden, i. 196.
1677. Richard Haines. Ibid. 198.
1685. Davenant.
1698. R. Dunning.
Ibid. 249.
608,333.
700,000.
665,362.
819,000.
3
1700. Leslie, Divine Right of Tithes. Ibid. 264. 1,000,000.
This table, scanty and unsatisfactory as it is, yet
will be found fully adequate, when compared with
the average amount of the Poor Rate more than
fifty years after, viz. £730,135, to confute the
prevailing notion that the burden has been uni-
formly increasing, through the natural and ne-
cessary operation of the laws themselves.
The legislative measures of the Eighteenth cen-
tury, although more numerous than in former
L
74
times, and on that account represented by some
writers as proofs that the system is wrong, and
progressively burdensome, yet appear to be not
more than are usually called for in a free country,
to meet unforeseen evasions and abuses, and to
incorporate the lessons of experience into the laws.
The first important Act is that of 9. Geo. I. c. 7.
restraining the orders of Justices for relief, which it
seems had been obtained with too great facility
under the law that first pointed out to the pauper
that mode of proceeding. This Act also promotes
the formation of Workhouses, an expedient which
was very generally adopted and encouraged by
Government from the commencement of this cen-
tury, as the appropriate check to the growing evil.
From Sir F. Eden's collections it appears that
almost all the zealous authors of reform, and they
were not a few, agree in the principle of erecting
Workhouses, although there is some difference in
their plans of detail, and management. The no-
tion that their labour might even be productive, at
least so far as nearly to support themselves, seems
very generally to have prevailed-and even Defoe,
whose sagacity first saw through the fallacy of all
compulsory schemes of labour with a view to profit,
yet lays it down as a fundamental principle that
€ 3. and 4. W. c. 11.
75
"no man in England, of sound limbs and senses,
can be poor, merely for want of work." If this
were true, the greatest part of our difficulties and
embarrassments would be at an end.
Still we find that the effect of Workhouses in
the first 30 years of that century was considerable.
Sir F. Eden has given several very instructive cases,
particularly those of St. Andrew's, Holborn-
Chertsey-St. Paul's, Bedford-Hemel-Hempsted,
沪
​Hertfordshire-Maidstone-Chatham-Tunbridge
-St. Martin's, Leicester-Bristol, and many others.
The similarity of these cases, in districts of widely
different character, is striking. In all of them a
great reduction of the annual charge of the poor
appears to have been effected during the first four
or five years. After that, whether the administra-
tion became more negligent, or the terror which
they first created and which greatly reduced the
number of paupers had begun to abate, certain it
is that these institutions soon became very unpro-
ductive, and the Poor Rate again crept on till it
equalled or exceeded its former amount. No-
thing indeed is more natural than such a history
of human establishments. They spring out of
some strong necessity, or some prevailing opinions
of the age. They are nursed with care in their
a Vol. i. p. 269-285.
L 2
76
infancy, and actively superintended by some bene-
volent and patriotic men-and while the zeal lasts,
while the authors of them are flattered with ob-
serving their success, and are enabled to point to
the fruits of their own exertions, no symptom of
decay appears. But a life so precarious is shorter
even than the life of man-it is commensurate not
with the existence, but with the activity only and
the perseverance of individuals-and seldom lives in
full vigour through half a generation. Before the
year 1776, the rates had risen in most places to
three times their amount after the Workhouse sys-
tem was established. Great allowance is certainly
to be made for the change of prices, that of wheat
more especially, and for the increase of population
from 5 millions, as it is supposed, to 7 millions
within the space of 50 years: but theory never
perhaps was verified so promptly and unequivocally
by practice, as in the early declension of these in-
stitutions, and in their utter inefficiency when left
to themselves, or, which is nearly the same thing,
to any body of rules however wisely framed.
Still as an economical mode of support by rea-
son of the number thus lodged and fed together,
and especially as deterring lazy applicants for paro-
chial relief, by the conditions they hold out of con-
finement, labour, and personal controul, they are
highly useful in all populous places. And with
the advantage of that periodical resuscitation and
inspection which all such inert masses require, they
will be always found necessary appendages to the
systematic charity of the country.
Although from the year 1735 downwards, the
subject occupied the thoughts of some of the ablest
and most public-spirited men, and plan upon plan
was promulgated, partly through the press, and
partly in the House of Commons, yet nothing
important was done till Mr. Gilbert's Act in
1782, [22. Geo. III. c. 83.] by which Work-
houses were new modelled, and a superior class of
Guardians of the Poor provided.
The preamble of this Act shews that it was con-
ceived in the false spirit of humanity before noted;
and the object of the framer seems chiefly to have
been, permanently to increase the comfort of that
situation, and to invite rather than to keep off the
poor from having recourse to such a mode of sup-
port.
"Whereas notwithstanding the many laws
now in being for the relief and employment of
"the poor, and the great sums of money raised
"for those purposes, their sufferings and dis-
"tresses are nevertheless very grievous,
"and notwithstanding 9. Geo. I., &c. . . . . ..the
Poor, in many places, instead of finding protec-
66
66
•
78
"tion and relief, have been much oppressed,
"For the remedy, &c."
In the same spirit it proceeds [clause 35.] to
extend again the discretion of Justices in ordering
relief, which had been restrained by 9. Geo. I.
c. 7. And about 14 years after, the same Gen-
tleman introduced into Parliament the Bill, which
has tended more than any other enactment to
spread the infection of pauperism through the
body of the people-legislating still upon the false
assumption of a right to support, and upon the
mistaken basis of active benevolence.
<<
"Whereas," it declares, "the 9. Geo. I. c. 7.
[confining relief to the Poor-house] has been
"found inconvenient and oppressive, inasmuch as
"it often prevents an industrious poor person from
"receiving such occasional relief as is best suited
..
to the peculiar case of such poor person, and in-
"asmuch as in certain cases it holds out conditions
"of relief injurious to the comfort and domestic
“situation and happiness of such poor persons,
&c.
""
In this career we were rapidly advancing. For
in the next year, 1796, Mr. Whitbread attempted
to pass a bill empowering magistrates to fix a
9. Geo. III. c. 25.
2
་ ་ C
1
سلام
79
minimum of wages for country labour. He ad-
mitted, what indeed is evident on the face of our
Statute-book, that all former laws had in view not
to protect the labourer but the employer, by making
it penal to pay or to receive any higher wages than
those settled by authority; yet he thought the hard-
ship of the lower orders, whose wages had not kept
pace with the change of prices, such as to justify a
deviation both from modern theory and from an-
cient practice. This measure indeed was not al-
lowed to pass but Mr. Pitt, who opposed it, pre-
pared a plan the next year for amending the Poor
Laws, one leading principle of which was, to offer
a premium for large families to make the parish
allowance in such cases a right and an honour-
that "those who had enriched their country with
"children might feel that they have a claim on
"their support."
f It is remarkable also of Mr. Pitt's bill, that it expressly
sanctions the practice, now universally condemned, of making
up the deficiency of wages out of the Poor Rate, viz.
<<
LIV. "And be it further enacted, That if any poor per-
son, residing in any parish under the authority of this Act,
" and not being able to earn the full rate of wages usually
"given in such parish, or the parish or parishes united there-
"with, shall with the previous consent of the person or
"persons appointed to the management of the Poor of any
"such parish or united parishes, contract and agree to work
"at any inferior rate or wages, which wages shall not be suf-
80
A
Happily indeed this plan was laid aside-and the
subject was neglected during the long war which
from that time absorbed almost every other thought
and care. But can it fail to excite our astonish-
ment, that when such were the erroneous views of
our ablest and most enlightened statesmen, down
to the very period of the publication of Mr. Mal-
thus's work, yet people should still be found who
dispute the praise of originality to that work, and
others who as pertinaciously deny its utility?
When it is manifest that this very error was
the rock upon which all former projects, and all
legislative measures split-when it is one that lies
in the mid channel of our navigation, and yet had
been only occasionally perceived, by hasty and
transient glimpses of men who never dreamt of the
importance of what they saw, can we regard him
as having rendered small service to mankind, who
first erected a blazing beacon upon it?
"ficient for the maintenance and support of such poor person
ર
singly, or in conjunction with his or her family, it shall
" and may be lawful for such officers of the Poor, with the
approbation of one or more Justice or Justices of the Peace
"in the district, to make up such deficiency as may be neces-
<<
*
sary for the support of such poor person and his or her
"family, (regard being had to the earnings of such family,)
"out of the Rates made for the relief of the Poor, without com-
"pelling such poor person to be employed in any school of
industry, or in any other manner, under the authority of
"this Act."
81
war.
It has been observed by more than one writer
that the principal laws for the relief of the Poor
have been framed under the pressure of some tem-
porary distress, arising either from bad seasons, or
unusual stagnation of trade, or the termination of
In such cases people are apt to take alarm,
and not regarding the evil as temporary only, to
contrive, if possible, how to obviate the recurrence
of such distress in future. Hence the failure of
most plans whereas, if limited to the occasion,
they might often be wise and beneficial, even
though militating against the principles of perma-
nent legislation. Thus employment under Over-
seers, especially in works not likely to be undertaken
by individuals, is an excellent resource. Even the
notorious failure of Workhouses, as places of pro-
ductive labour, is no argument against their use on
such occasions; for the very history of that failure
tells us, that upon their first establishment, and
for a few years after, they were found to succeed.
If then a change in the value of money be al-
lowed to operate, as it has been my object to prove
it does operate, to the necessary depression of the
labourer, and of course to the increase of claims
upon parochial support-if moreover, this cause,
though not confined like scarcity to a single season,
be yet of a temporary nature, and in a certain
M
82
scries of years may be expected to have run out its
force, we ought steadily to keep in view this im-
portant feature of the case, and to be careful how
we make provisions to bind posterity, founded upon
the limited experience or the peculiar circum-
stances of our own times. When we complain,
that our labourers have lost the spirit of inde-
pendence, and prefer the certain pittance of parish
allowance to the earnings of laborious industry, we
ought to recollect how ill-requited that industry
has been, even when most willing and most pro-
ductive. We ought to bear in mind, that "hope
"deferred maketh the heart sick;" and that when
the utmost diligence and frugality, even in times.
of plenty, was still unable to do more than to
provide a bare subsistence for the majority of
labouring men-when even their ordinary fare
was a kind of short allowance, hardly admitting of
retrenchment-the first unfavourable season must
needs place them in a situation of absolute penurÿ
and dependence. It was not choice but necessity
that drove them to that asylum. And when they
had tasted of its eleemosynary succour, scanty as
it was and ought to be and most sparingly ad-
ministered, still the difference was not so great be-
tween wages and alms-between their present lot
and their former condition-as to make them look
83
back with regret upon that condition, or to strive
eagerly for its recovery.
i
A comparison of the price of provisions with
the price of labour in the first twenty years of the
18th century and the last twenty years before the
termination of the war would exhibit nearly the
same melancholy reverse of fortune to the labourer,
as we found in comparing the reign of Henry VII.
with that of Elizabeth. The price of provisions
advanced about fourfold, while that of labour was
not even doubled. Generally speaking the first
might be said to have become as seven to two,
the second hardly as three to two. And can we
wonder, that the support of helpless parents and
relations was no longer provided out of the dimi-
nished wages of the labourer, when they were be-
come insufficient to feed his own children? All the
impotent were of course thrown upon the public-
occasional sickness and loss of work had no other
resource and at length, in difficult and dear sea-
sons, health and strength and industry united, in-
stead of spreading its sheltering wing over others,
was scarcely able to feed and to clothe itself.
It cannot then be matter of surprize, that with
a population almost doubled since 1750, and under
the pressure of all these causes progressively in-
M 2
84
creasing, the following increase of parochial allow-
ance should have been rendered necessary.

Money
raised.
Militia
Expended Expended
on in law and and other
the Poor. removals. charges.
Number re-Number re-
lieved per- lieved occa
manently. sionally.
Population
including
Army & Navy.
Average of
1748, 1749,
1750...... £730,135 £689,971
1776...... 1,720,316 1,521,732 £35,071 | £137,655
Average of
1783-4-5. 2,167,748 1,912,241 91,996 163,511
6,467,000 a
7,743,000 b
8,241,800
1803. 5,348,204 4,077,891 190,072 1,034,105 419,667 305,899 9,633,284 d
Average of
1813-14-15. 8,164,496 6,129,844 327,585 1,834,523 516,819 423,158 10,791,115
a Estimated population of 1750.
4
Allowing 52,500 for the annual increase from 1770 to 1780.
© Taking 1784 as the year, and allowing 72,200 for the annual increase
from 1780 to 1790.
d Allowing 289,706 for two years increase from 1801.
* Taking the population the same as in 1811.
From these materials, combined with the prices
of provisions, Mr. Courtenay has deduced several
important results in the Appendix to his valuable
treatise. I shall adopt nearly the same method,
in order to shew that the increase of pauperism
has not corresponded with the increased prices and
population, but has fallen considerably below it. :
Between 1750 and 1776, the price of wheat had
risen from 35s. to 48s. The advance of price
would thus account for an increase of about one
third, making the charge for expenditure on the
85
•
Poor 920,000l.: and the population being increased
about 18 per cent. brings an addition of 165,6007.
making 1,085,000/. as the total charge: so that
the actual increase during this first period of 26
years is from 1,085,000 to 1,521,732, or 41 per
cent 5.
Between 1776 and 1785 wheat rose from 48s, to
58s. or about 21 per cent. Hence the propor-
tionate charge in 1785 would be 1,852,272: to
which must be added 63 per cent. or 123,484/.
for the increased population, making 1,975,7567.
instead of 1,912,2417.-a difference though slight,
yet marking a diminution of the burden.
period, it will be remembered, includes the whole
American war. Upon the next are thrown the
natural consequences of the termination of that
war; together with a fall in the value of money
far exceeding what had hitherto taken place.
This
During the third period then, viz. between 1785
and 1803, the price of wheat had risen from 58s.
to 63s. or about 9 per cent. which price must not
be taken as the average, but as exclusive of some
years of most severe scarcity, when the price was
much higher. Hence the proportionate charge
7
* An error seems to have crept into Mr. Courtenay's cal-
culation of 16 years for 26. The advance of this period is
not so rapid as he supposes. The per centage of popula-
tion also ought to be reckoned upon the last price of wheat,
in order to give the true result.
86
:
1
would be £2,084,339-to which add 17 per cent,
for the increased population, and the amount will
be £2,438,670, instead of £4,077,891; so that the
actual increase of charge in this period of 18 years
appears to be no less than 67 per cent.
From 1803 to 1815 I have no particular account
of the price of wheat. That the rise was very con-
siderable is well known: but taking it only at 90s,
per quarter, the proportional addition to the Poor
Rate would be 43 per cent., or £1,753,454: mak-
ing a sum of £5,831,345: to which add 12 per
cent., or £699,656 for the increased population,
and the total will be £6,531,001, exceeding the
actual charge by £401,157: besides which, I be-
lieve the price of wheat is taken too low at 90s.
Hence it follows that during this last period the
burden of the Poor Rate in proportion to the po-
pulation was growing less-in other words that
pauperism was decreasing-a phoenomenon only
to be accounted for by the great increase of em-
ployment both from trade and war; because during
the whole time the depreciation of money was
rapidly progressive.
From the same documents is collected a table
exhibiting in a more compendious form the pro-
portions subsisting between the amount of poor
rate, the population, and the number of paupers at
the several periods specified.
87
TABLE OF PROPORTIONS.

MONEY.
PAUPERS.
Expend-
Money
Law, Militia,
ed on
raised. the Poor.
&c. &c.
Relieved perma-
nently.
Total
Expend.
Relieved
occa-
In the Out of the
Work-
Work- sionally.
Total Popula-
tion.
relieved.
house.
hse.
1776. 17 15
3
1
16
7/1
1785. 21
19
9.
11
21
8
I
1803. 53 40
19
10
53
3
8
3
77
9
1815. 81 61 32 18
82
4.
9
4 9
10
บ
That the fall in prices after the year 1813 ope-
rated favourably towards reducing the Poor Rate,
is proved by the following statement.
Number permanently relieved, (not including the children
of persons out of the House.)

1813.
1814.
|
97,223 94,085
1815.
Out of any Workhouse...... 434,441 480,140 | 406,887
In any Workhouse.....
Relieved occasionally....
88,115
440,249 429,770 | 400,971
Total relieved...... 971,913 953,995 895,973
It appears also that the expenditure independent
of the maintenance of the Poor (which in the last
period is about of the whole) has increased in a
far greater ratio than that allotted to the main-
tenance of the Poor.
In 1803, the total money raised amounted to
88
11s. 1d. per head on the whole population-in
1813-14-15, to 16s. 1d. per head-being an in-
crease somewhat less than as 1 to 1. But the
money expended on the Poor did not increase in
so great a ratio. In 1803, it was 8s. 44d. per head
on the population-in 1813-14-15, only 11s. 41d.
per head-a difference which certainly does not
equal the difference in the price of provisions,
being only an increase of about 1 to 1, whereas
the price of wheat was certainly increased as 1 to
1 during the same period.
Another important view of the question is ex-
hibited by comparing the amount of the Poor Rate
with the assessments for the Property tax: from
which it appears that the average of the Rate
throughout England and Wales was, in 1804,
2s. 10d. in the pound on the whole rental; whereas
in 1815, notwithstanding the vast increase of po-
pulation and the advance of prices during that in-
terval, (the rental of the kingdom being taken at
38 millions in the former case, and at 52 millions
in the latter,) the Rate was no more than 3s. 1åd.
in the pound, for the average of the three years
1813, 1814, and 1815, and only 2s. 10 d. in the
pound for the year 1815 alone.
The general inference from all these statements
is, that the comparative increase of the Poor Rate
89
is by no means an index of the operation of the laws
in promoting pauperism. On the contrary, if due
allowance be made for the increased action of those
causes which create poverty, namely increased po-
pulation, loss of employment from the fluctuations
of commerce or the vicissitudes of peace or war,
and still more the inadequacy of wages to the ad-
vanced price of provisions, it will be found that the
ratio of pauperism has been continually decreas-
ing. So little ground is there for maintaining
that the spirit of industry and self-support is lost,
that it is demonstrably proved to have been in-
creasing in force during a great part if not the
whole of this period. If its force had remained
only the same, under the weight of counteracting
causes continually increasing, the progress of pau-
perism must have been proportionate to the in-
crease of those causes: But it falls much below
that proportion. The necessary conclusion there-
fore is, that the spirit of independence has really
been acting with increased energy.
Instead therefore of suffering despondence from
a review of this eventful period, it may well serve
to kindle an emotion of national pride in the past,
and of well-grounded hope for the future. It surely
must convince us, that there is a moral elasticity
in the character of this people, which though borné
down by the accumulated pressure of many dif-
ficulties, is yet unbroken and unimpaired-waiting
N
90
only for the removal or the abatement of those
difficulties to spring again into action, and to re-
assume its former elevation. This view is not
more encouraging to our national hopes, than it is
agreeable to the kindest and best feelings of our
nature. For the stronger the spirit of independ-
ent industry is found to be, the more safely may
liberality be exercised in the rate of subsistence.
afforded to the Poor. Precisely in proportion to
their slowness in resorting to it, may the scale of
bounty and indulgence be raised and a surer in-
dex of the prevalence of this spirit cannot be found,
than in the fact which our investigation has clearly
established, that the progressive diminution of
wages far outran the progressive application for
parish relief and that when this vortex had by
degrees absorbed all the aged, the helpless, and the
infirm, it was stern necessity alone, and not laży
indifference or choice, which compelled at last the
hardy labourer himself to assert a privilege, which
nature has conferred only upon orphan childhood,
decrepitude, and disease.
III. TIE survey thus taken of the principles of
legislation on the subject of the Poor, and of the
laws which have actually passed concerning them,
has already cleared the way, or rather anticipated
91·
much of what otherwise would fall under the Third
head. If the alarming pressure of the Poor Rate
arise, as I have endeavoured to prove, not from the
principle of the laws themselves, but from tem-
porary causes, our enquiry need only be how to
adapt our proceedings to the existing circum-
stances of the country. All plans for a gradual
abolition of the laws, besides the objections, in-
surmountable as they seem to me, which have
been urged against them ", must under this view
of the subject be regarded as needless.
The project for fixing some limitation to the
assessment, although countenanced by the report
of the Committee, appears to me less admissible
even than the plan for total abolition. To allow
of assessment at all, except on the score of neces-
sity, is absurd: but if there be necessity, which is
just as likely after the limit has been reached as
before, then to suppose because an arbitrary bar
has been fixed, (on a principle of policy and not of
inability to exceed it,) that the demand can be in
practice rejected, is still more absurd. The efficacy
of this plan is expected to lie in the reaction upon
the whole class of paupers, who, finding that the
same sum must be divided among a greater num-
ber, it is supposed will exert themselves to keep
down the number for their own sake. How they
卜 ​Sce Mr. Courtenay's Treatise, sect. îi, iii. iv.
N 2
92
are to effect this, is not explained-Is it supposed
that the body of paupers in a parish will act upon
the principle of a garrisoned town-calculate their
stores, and regulate their consumption accord-
ingly? Upon no other principle can I conceive a
prospective operation. And as to the retrospec-
tive operation, if it leads to the extinction of life,
it is horrible--if to the bare preservation of it, it is
a limitation which ought to operate at all times,
and not merely when the rate has reached a certain
maximum. The parochial allowance will naturally
be more sparingly administered, in proportion to
the increasing demand-and this check, not the
positive institution of an arbitrary limit, is the
proper corrective of such an evil.
The idea seems to have been suggested by a
few anomalous cases, such as that of Wombridge
in Shropshire, a parish in which, from the employ-
ment created by mines, a disproportionate popula-
tion had been bred, greater even than its whole rental
could support when that employment failed. Such
cases undoubtedly deserve attention and relief-but
they are so rare and improbable, that they may
well be provided for by special clauses, without
suffering the possibility of their occurrence to in-
terfere with the principle of the law itself. The
expedient of allowing a proportion of the charge
out of the county rate, when it exceeds a certain
poundage on the rental of the parish, is an obvious
93
and easy remedy. I say a proportion, because if
the whole of any excess beyond a given point were
allowed, it would create indifference in the parish
as to the expence, after that point had been
reached.
Indeed some provision of this kind seems in
reason and equity to be called for, in order to pro-
tect landed property from the consequences of
failure in commercial speculation-the profit of
which, when it succeeds, is communicated but in a
slight degree to the immediate precincts of the
establishment, although it is sensibly diffused over
the general district-while that degree of profit,
whatever it be, which the landed proprietor in the
immediate vicinity enjoys, would still be com-
pensated by the risk of incurring a heavy burden
that must be borne, before application can be
made to the county for relief.
Having said so much on the duty which I con-
ceive to exist in society of preserving life, as far
as that is possible, and on the inconsistency, as
well as impracticability, of creating different de-
grees of legal title to this subsistence, arising out
of early or late marriages, moral character, non-
subscription to a fund, or any other default, espe-
cially that most unreasonable of all causes, a maxi-
mum in the aggregate of parochial allowance, I have
only one remark more to make on the general prin-
94
ciple, which however appears to me decisive-
namely, that unless we do undertake in every
instance to support life, vagrancy and mendicity
cannot be punished. No demonstration in science
appears to my mind more conclusive, than that if
we deny to any human being the means of support
ourselves, we have no right to deprive him of the
chance he may have of finding it elsewhere. Nor
would it be easy to produce an example of cruelty
from the institutions of the most savage nations or
the most barbarous times, to be compared with a
law, which should fix an individual to a spot, and yet
not provide for his sustenance-which should im-
mure a prisoner, however abandoned, and yet re-
fuse to supply him with bread and water.
The difficulty seems to be, how to provide for
administering a more humane and liberal rate of
relief, without encouraging idleness, waste, or im-
provident marriage.
In the first place a check upon the discretionary
power of a single Justice seems absolutely indis-
pensable. It is not to be wondered, that with the
high authority before them of legislation founded
upon a mistaken principle, they should misconceive
the duty that belongs to themselves in their official
capacity. Under the popular clamour too that has
been raised against the rigours of parish controul,
95
and the parsimony of overseers, it is natural for
men so placed in society to lean to the side of indul-
gence. Neither must it be suppressed, invidious
as the argument may appear, that their indulgence
is in general exercised without personal sacrifice.
Their interest is not set in the scale against their
liberality, as it is in the case of a parish vestry—
and it is no mighty effort of benevolence to bestow
the alms of other people. Incredible also is the
slowness, with which even in enlightened times the
best established theorems of political economy are
adopted into general practice. Will posterity be-
lieve that the age which developed the fundamental
principles of that science, gave birth to a regula-
tion, widely sanctioned by magistrates, the object
of which was to place at all times the same quan-
tity of food, however diminished the supply might
be, within the reach of every individual? Leave men
to judge from their feelings, and of course they
will err on the side of benevolence-especially men,
who live in affluence themselves, and who naturally
wish that others should partake of the same com-
forts. "The Squires of Norfolk," says Mr. Burke,
writing in the scarcity of 1795, "the Squires of
"Norfolk had dined when they gave it as their
66
opinion that wages ought to rise and fall with
"the market of provisions." The sarcasm is ap-
plicable to a much more numerous class, who have
96
continued, up to the present hour, not only to pro-
fess this principle, but to enforce their observance
of it by orders upon the Parish Rate.
It is therefore one of the wisest provisions of
the New Bill that it proposes to restrain the discre-
tion of a single Magistrate, and to make two Jus-
tices necessary for many acts to which one was
before competent. If the concurrence of three
were required it would perhaps be still better.
But on the other hand, I would vest in some such
local authority the power not only of ordering
relief, where it appeared to have been improperly
withheld, but of levying a fine upon the parish
convicted of this breach of duty. It must be a
positive breach of duty to justify the interference
of the Magistrate at all, (for as a question of discre-
tion arising out of the circumstances or character
of the individual, the parish must be a better judge
than the Magistrate) and if a breach of duty, it
should not only be rectified, but the offending
party also punished.
The appointment of select vestries, and of per-
manent assistant overseers, will undoubtedly be of
great service, especially in populous parishes. The
sick, the aged, the impotent, the orphan children
will doubtless receive more than a bare sustenance.
from the kindness of those who take the lead in
parish affairs---but it will be spontaneous and not
97
compulsory. Any denial of subsistence, any abuse
of power, any act of positive inhumanity, should not
only be restrained but punished: but the magis-
trate ought never to be empowered to enforce
charity. A discretionary power might also be vested
in the magistrate, after personal inspection, as to
tlie accommodations of a workhouse or of any
parish house; and it would be well if no order
for relief out of the house were valid, except on
the ground that there is not sufficient room for the
pauper within it.
In times of scarcity, or of unusual stagnation, a
class of applicants is always created, who cause much
greater difficulty. In the case of scarcity, nature
dictates that the allowance should be shortened in
proportion to the exigency-of the degree of which
exigency the price is the surest index. The absurd
notion also of a right to a full supply of wheaten
bread must be steadily denied or disregarded. The
case therefore is a painful one, but not perplexing.
It is the stoutest not the kindest heart that is
then wanted: and all we have to do is, to wea-
ther the storm as well as we are able, taking
additional care to be vigilant and strict in keeping
all members of the community within the bounds
of duty.
In the other case, when the demand for labour
fails, as it naturally does after a war, or any defal-
98
cation of trade, workhouse employment is undoubt
edly better than none. Employment on roads also is
a resource always at hand-and those undertakings
should be sought out, which are in their nature oc-
casional, and which least interfere with established
interests. The object in all such cases is, not to
make the labour profitable, but useful-not to enter
into competition with private demand, but to sup-
ply in some measure the want of it. Care there-
fore must be taken not to offer a temptation to re-
main in this service, whenever any opening presents
itself of another-much less to break down the line
of separation between them, and by blending wages
with alms, or parochial with free labour, to con-
found the two conditions of life, between which all
theory and all experience teaches us that we cannot
too strongly mark and maintain the difference.
As far as possible too, in this kind of employ-
ment the labourer should be paid according to the
work done, or to the hours actually employed-
and notwithstanding the expence, an overseer or
taskmaster should be hired to superintend-if for
no other reason, yet to render the employment
less attractive. An excessive supply of labour,
so controuled, and scantily paid, will by degrees
be brought to a level with the demand-whereas,
if adequately paid, or indulgently treated, it must
have a strong tendency to perpetuate or even to
propagate itself.
99
The
It is, I presume, under the contemplation of
such occasional redundancies in the supply of la-
bour, that in the proposed Bill a provision is made
for purchasing parish land to be cultivated by pau-
pers, and even to be let to them as tenants.
policy however, of such a step, seems very ques-
tionable. It then becomes a sort of out-door
workhouse and supposing it always to be in cul-
tivation, it furnishes no resource for the expected
emergency. If not always in cultivation, but
kept in reserve for seasons of distress, it is a posi-
tive deduction from the national wealth at all other
times.
Besides, it seems to recognize (what is most
hostile to sound policy) the class of poor as a sort
of permanent body-as possessed of positive rights
and interests in their corporate capacity—an error
which naturally arises out of the certainty that
there always will be poor in the land. But these
poor are merely the aggregate of individuals, who
from time to time may have lost their station as
component members of society-they have no
political relation whatever they are essentially de-
pendent upon the charity of others-and they
should not be taught to expect any legal rights
or exclusive advantage arising out of that situation,
By the nature of things theirs is a lower condition
than any employment however menial-and it is
02
100
an inversion of the order of things to make it the
title to privileges of any kind.
The provision for loans to labourers, especially
of the manufacturing class, who are accidentally
thrown out of employ, but whose full wages are
more than sufficient for their support, is one of
the best features of the proposed Bill. They may
be available too in a case which is peculiarly ein-
barrassing-when work fails in one district and
must be sought in another-and yet the labourer,
if his means are exhausted at home, cannot enter
upon this most reasonable of all enterprises, with-
out incurring the distress and the penalties of a
vagrant.
This topic naturally leads to a consideration of
high importance, although it is not included in the
Bill now before Parliament-the law of Settlement.
Probably it is intended to form the substance of a
distinct measure-certainly it is one which requires
more knowledge of law, and more practical ac-
quaintance with the administration of this branch
of it, than I can pretend to have, to justify any
confident opinions upon the subject. But the
comparatively recent origin of this law, which is
not earlier than the reign of Charles II. and the
very complex and inconvenient form to which it
has since grown, may well excite a doubt, whether
101
there be not something fundamentally wrong in
its principle. Supposing for instance, that birth
were considered as the first ground of settlement,
and residence for a term of years without having re-
ceived parochial relief, the second-a residence in-
dependent of all conditions of service, or hiring, or
occupation of a tenement-the law would undoubt-
edly be much simplified, the free circulation of la-
bour promoted, and no hardship, that I can foresee,
be caused, except in those parishes to which manu-
facturing establishments draw a population, dispro-
portionate to the property thus made liable to assess-
ment. The ordinary fluctuations of demand and sup-
ply between different districts, must be allowed to
balance one another-any slight local pressure being
fully compensated by the great public advantage
attending a free circulation-and no injustice being
involved in the principle of the measure, because
the risk is from the beginning the same to all.
But against the possible excessive burden from
manufactures or other causes, a provision might
easily be made, and ought in justice to be made,
out of the county rate. For although the in-
creased value of property in a single parish bears
no proportion to the increased risk and actual bur-
den caused to that parish by the influx of manu-
facturing labourers, yet to a large district, such as
a county, the general increase of wealth subject to
102
assessment, which flourishing manufactures create,
may be said to correspond pretty well with the in-
crease of pressure arising from their occasional
failures, and from the standing charge of their sick
and impotent population. At the same time, to
guard against prodigality or carelessness in a
parish, it should be provided, that the aid from the
county fund should issue according to the princi-
ple of proportion to the parish charge, not by way
of supplement after a certain point of expenditure
had been reached.
Of the measures recommended with a view to
remedy the evil by their indirect operation, the
institution of parish schools is the first in import-
ance, in practicability, and in efficacy. Nothing
however of this kind can be successful or durable,
from the influence of law or of rules only. There
must be a presiding mind on the spot to invigorate
such institutions, or even to keep them alive-a
mind which acts from a sense of duty, and with a
perfect conviction that this duty is one of perpetual
and personal obligation that it is a debt, "still
"paying, still to owe," for the liquidation of which
no sinking-fund can ever be provided. To the
clergy of course this duty especially belongs-and
there is every reason to think that a sense of its
high importance is daily spreading among them.
103
It is the moral amelioration, not the productive,
industry of the children from which the public be-
nefit is to be derived-a benefit which cannot be
exhibited in the balance of an account, and which
from its being incapable of reduction to any me-
chanical standard, will of course be always ques-
tioned, and often overlooked. But a spirit of in-
dustry, of self-respect, of moral decency must be
promoted by such discipline-and the mere habit
of looking to the possession of certain decencies
and comforts as necessary, which are not literally
necessary, cannot but create, as we have already
observed, that prudential check upon marriage
which, whether deliberately imposed, or adopted
only through habit and custom, is absolutely es-
sential to the well-being of society.
Of the proposal next in point of importance,
the plan of parochial benefit societies, I must pro-
fess, what I feel after an unbiassed examination of
all that has been said in their favour, a decided
disapprobation. They appear to me radically
wrong in several material points. A poor man
should not be expected to save for another-it is
quite enough, and it is quite as much as we can
ever expect to do, to make him save for himself.
The unreasonableness and the unfairness of this
mutual guarantee in that class of life, and for the
104
purposes there intended, have been so clearly de-
monstrated by Mr. Davison, that nothing remains
to be added to what he has said, and no language
can express the same reasoning so happily and so
forcibly as his own.
In Mr. Courtenay's plan, which was laid before
Parliament last year, it is proposed that the parish
should assist in the formation and support of the
fund, so as to lower the quota of each contri-
butor. It does not appear what degree of irre-
gularity in continuing the contribution shall sub-
ject the contributor to the forfeiture of his in-
terest in the fund: but such a forfeiture is, I
believe, an essential article in all funds so con-
stituted; and it is one of the many objections
that lie against them. Change of residence may
render the payment burdensome, or a loss of
employment impossible. In neither case can the
money already deposited be withdrawn-and thus
after years of toil and frugality the ground on
which his hopes are built may be cut from under
his feet, and his hard-earned savings go to the sup-
port of some neighbour more fortunate than him-
self. Indeed the principle of speculation and
gaming which such schemes involve is altogether
i Considerations on the Poor Laws, p. 13-24, especially ·
p. 18-21.
105
incongruous with the simple and sober habit we
are most desirous of forming.
As an auxiliary to Saving Banks, a parish fund
protected by trusty persons, and guaranteeing to the
contributor the safe conveyance of his deposit to
the Bank, might be of considerable use. But it is
the principle of the Saving Bank itself, that is the
freest from all objections, and speaks the plainest
and most direct language to the understanding of
the common people. In them there is no calcu-
lation of contingencies-no balancing of motives—
no mutual envy and suspicious vigilance-no re-
jection of a sickly applicant-no ale-house meetings,
no cabals, no debates-no anxiety lest another
should reap what we are sowing--no doubt in short
entertained, but a sober certainty, that every shil-
ling so saved is laid up for the benefit either of
the depositor himself, or of those who are no less
dear to him than himself.
$
The mere unrestrained power of withdrawing
his deposit invests him with the character of a
proprietor, and tends to nurture all those qualities.
which naturally spring from the possession of pro-
perty-prudence, frugality, self-respect, dread of
mendicity and dependence.
1
Now that I have touched on this subject, I may
perhaps be permitted to suggest that the provisions
P
106
of Mr. Rose's Act for the regulation of these
Banks are capable of great improvement. The
object is to hold out the means of preserving and
nursing an infant stock, till it is become of suffi-
cient size to need no such gratuitous care.
It may
then be placed either in the public funds, or in the
hands of agents whose profession it is to manage
the property of others and no reason can be as-
signed, why this property should not pay propor-
tionably for its management with all other property.
Certainly it is against all reason to create an Un-
funded Government Debt, bearing a high interest,
in order to provide an investment for such accu-
mulations-which is in fact taxing the country to
pay a premium to those who have already profited
largely by these institutions. That no such induce-
ment is wanted to encourage depositors experience
has abundantly proved-the security of their princi-
pal, with an entire controul over it, being quite suf-
ficient, without the temptation of a high rate of in-
terest. At the same time it is unfair to the esta-
blished bankers, to intercept what would naturally
and reasonably be confided to their management,
and what can as well afford to pay for that manage-
ment as any other fund. The risk also and re-
sponsibility is thus lightened to the trustees of the
Saving Bank; and when the depositor's account
has reached its known maximum, he may after
107
removal of the sum, begin a fresh account, and re-
peat the operation as often as he pleases-the
main object of such institutions being, to generate
and encourage a saving habit, not to restrict its
operation to any fixed sum within the year.
Upon this principle a Bank was instituted, and
continued to flourish in this place, until the recent
Act made it necessary to alter its regulations, in
order to participate in the advantages thus offered
by Government. The author of that Act, though
full of active benevolence, was never I believe
distinguished by very comprehensive views, or any
strong capacity for legislation. And I cannot but
think that, without disrespect to his memory, and
with considerable advantage to the public, a revi-
sion of the whole scheme might take place upon
the principles above suggested.
It is in the active superintendance of institutions
such as these that the benevolence of country Gen-
tlemen may most effectually be employed-cer-
tainly not in lending a ready ear to the complaint
of paupers, and in signing a hasty order for relief
out of the property of others.
There is however another channel through
which the generosity of the more enlightened
class may safely and most reasonably be employed.
It may require more firmness of character and
more personal sacrifice than that of enforcing
P 2
108
abundant parochial relief-but as it is a more
manly line of action, so is it also more truly liberal
and more charitable-I mean that of advancing
the wages of those labourers whom they employ,
not covertly but avowedly, tendering in the first
instance that equitable compensation for their la-
bour, which by the slow operation of the principles
of human society must one day or other take place.
To be foremost in extricating these humble in-
terests from the difficulties in which they are en-
tangled, instead of leaving them to force their own
way, whatever offence may thus be given to the
class immediately above the labourer, is an exer-
cise of generosity and independence worthy of the
station they fill. To give nature her fair chance—
to help and expedite that instinctive process which
tends towards a cure, but which is impeded by
some indolence of the system or some perverse
habit of the diseased patient, is agreeable to the
soundest and most enlightened practice. Unlike
the ordinary interference of authority in matters of
traffick, which commonly is founded on false prin-
ciples, counteracts nature, and leads to embarrass-
ment and confusion, such a measure does no more
than quicken the march of justice, and smooth the
way for her passage.
While that disproportion exists between the
wages of agricultural labour and the profits arising
109
from it, the gain rests with the employer. If by a
rise of wages his profits are much lessened, the worst
land will go out of cultivation-less corn will be
grown-and when free foreign competition is again
let in, the difference of profit may be considerable.
The loss however which during the existing lease
falls upon the farmer, must soon be transferred to
the landlord, supposing the demand for produce
not to increase, or to be supplied at a cheaper rate
from abroad. The country at large however seem
convinced that foreign competition ought for a time
to be excluded. Meanwhile an opportunity will be
afforded for directing the surplus of agricultural la-
bour into some new channel: but the labour that
is retained ought surely to be paid adequately by
its own employer, and not be driven to solicit ex-
traneous and indirect assistance. Let this natural
state of things be once restored, and the several
interests will speedily settle of their own accord
into the right places.
There is now no scarcity of subsistence: it is a
civil not a physical embarrassment we labour un-
der-and the advance of wages, would have no
tendency, as in times of scarcity, to increase the
evil. The wages are in fact advanced, but not
charged to the right person-nor measured by the
true standard. They are measured by the standard
of parochial subsistence and are therefore either
110
A
too low for wages, or too high for alms. It is of
the last importance that a marked difference should
exist between the two things.
In taking my leave then of this investigation, I
cannot but express some satisfaction at finding,
that no violent remedy seems to be called for, but
that the chief benefit will arise from knowing our
constitution more accurately, and from discovering
the true seat of the disorder. The steps too that are
most necessary to be taken, are those which fall in
with the acknowledged duties of man, and carry
the reward of virtuous action along with them. At
the same time, although a close inspection into the
nature of legal relief has taught us that this gra-
tuitous mode of support is necessarily of itself en-
croaching and insatiable, and requires in the na-
ture of things to be kept down to the lowest stand-
ard, yet we also find that all the improvements of
life, whether in arts, in morals, or intellect, tend to
lessen this state of abject poverty, and provide
scope for the freer expansion of our benevolent mo-
tives-motives which we are continually called
upon, in all systematic bounty, to moderate and
restrain. For it is a fundamental truth never to
be lost sight of in these inquiries, that whatever
tends to improve the general fabric of society, to
raise the tone of manners, or to acquire a more
complete dominion over the powers of nature,
111
tends also to elevate the whole system of social
life, and to render the lowest order in that system
superior both in dignity and in enjoyment to the
natives of a country, in which, as in India and
China, the only source of wealth consists in the
redundant supply of human labour.
1
THE END.
BAXTER, PRINTER, OXFORD.
}

REFLECTIONS ON THE PRESENT MERCANTILE
DISTRESS EXPERIENCED IN GREAT BRITAIN.
A Pamphlet, under the above title, has just been published by
Don Alvaro Florez Estrada, a Spaniard, whose name must be
familiar to all who have any acquaintance with the recent history
of the Peninsula, both as a politician and a public writer. M.
Estrada rejects all attempts to account for the prevailing distress
which have hitherto been offered, and attributes it to the
alarming diminution in the amount of specie imported annually
into Europe, which could not fail to follow the independence of
the country whence the precious metals are chiefly derived.
From the official situations filled by M. Estrada, he had
opportunities of obtaining the best information as to the amount
of gold and silver imported into Spain. The following particulars
are, he says, founded on data taken from documents preserved in
the financial department in Spain, and whether strictly accurate
or not, are the best which are to be had. During the five years
previous to the invasion of Spain by Napoleon, and the period at
which the greatest produce was obtained from the South Ameri-
can mines, the mint of Mexico alone, he says, furnished annually
23 millions of hard dollars, and it may be fairly estimated that, in the
remaining mints, corresponding to the other five great divisions of
the same Continent, including 29,000 marcs of gold, obtained in
Peru and Chili, a similar amount was coined. The mines or
washeries of Brazil also produced about 39,000 marcs of gold per
annum. So much for the amount of gold and silver formerly im
ported into Europe. England is the only point in Europe wher
specie can now be landed; and, he says, he thinks he is not mis
taken, when he affirms, that the sum total of the specie, re.
cently imported, has not been more than one eighth of that for-
merly brought across the Atlantic, or, in other words, seven or
eight millions of dollars. The annual importation of precious
metals, brought over to Europe, and obtained from the united
mines of Spain and Portugal, under the old order of things, was
equal to sixty millions of dollars, which, for the last five years
only, would leave a deficiency of not less than 180 millions. If
the calculation is carried back to 1810, when the working of the
mines first declined, the deficiency will be found inmense. M.
Estrada observes, on the other hand, with regard to the export-
ation of specie from Europe to the East, that-
"Within the last thirty years, it is confidently affirmed, that
the amount exported has even exceeded the one imported.
"It is a fact," he elsewhere observes, "that the exportation of
silver, since the independence of South America, and the wars
which led to it, has continued as before. On what grounds,
therefore, can that greater or even equal abundance of precious
metals in Europe be argued, when, merely to pay for the single
article of tea, for example, consumed in England and the whole
of the neighbouring Continent, it has been found necessary,
annually, to export, possibly, more than one-half of the total
amount of silver produced in the New World?"
M. Estrada contends that Europe will never be able to attract,
by means of her commerce and industry, the usual supplies of
gold and silver. Spain, he says, never drew over the produce of
the mines by her manufactures, or through the monopoly she
held of the industry of other nations. She drew over the trea-
sures of the New World by means the most oppressive-by first
demanding the price of the lands from which the ores were to be
taken, and then requiring one-fifth of the tota! nett produce of
the mines as a return for the privilege of working them-a tax of a
most extravagant kind, owing to the great risk attending this pur-
suit, and the circumstance of the capital not yielding such a pro-
fit as has generally been thought, The Spanish Govern-
ment brought over the whole of the gold and siver, by com-
pelling the successful miners to take to the respective Mints a
quantity of the precious metals, equivalent to that of the quick-
silver it sold to them, for the purpose of amalgamating the
ores-usually the whole amount they were able to obtain in a
pure state. Most of the great miners were Spaniards, who were
in the habit of sending home their newly acquired property, as
fast as they were able to accumulate it. M. Estrada enters into
a detail of the other oppressive measures resorted to by the
Spanish Government to effect its object, such as the mercantile
monopoly, the prohibition of the planting and cultivating articles
of the most usual consumption, congenial to the soil of America,
the prohibition of manufacturing, the appeals to the superior
tribunals in Madrid, &c. &c. But now that independence
is established, and oppression can no longer be resorted to, com-
merce can alone draw over the precious metals, and the com-
merce and industry of Europe are unable to draw over any con-
siderable portion of them. America produces the most precious
and choice articles, as well as most in general requisition, whilst
the inhabitants, scattered over the surface of an extensive region,
do not require a single article that renders them dependent on us.
Their natural productions being of greater value, and more in
quantity, and commanding in Europe an infinitely greater num-
ber of consumers than the less estimable productions of the Old
World can find in America, how is it possible to prevent the ba-
lance of commerce being in favour of the latter?
We have thus given an exposition of the views of M. Estrada.
He supposes that the continued exportation of the metals, at the
old amount, and the diminished importation, have raised their
value quoad other commodities, and introduced derangement into
the commercial world. He instances a yard of cotton cloth,
which a few years ago sold for half-a-crown, now selling for
sixpence; a workman, two years ago, earning 2s. 6d. a-day, now
earning 8d.; the decline of landed property one-third in value,
within the last two years. Provisions, being articles of the first
necessity, and, consequently, always in demand, must be the last
to rise in price, in a country like this.
T return from the Mint states, that in the year
1823, there were 13,209lbs. 1oz. 13dwts. 17grs. of
gola imported; the value of which in money was
£617,197 1s. 9d. In 1824, there were 100,385lbs. |
7cx. Idwt. 23 grains imported; the value in money,
£4,690,516 15s. 2d. The gold monies coined du-
ring the same periods were as follows, viz.-1823,
£759,748 108.; 1824, £4,065,078.
1
1
PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS.
QUARTERLY AVERAGE OF CORN.
An Account of the Average Price of each sort of Grain, in Great
Britain, in each Quarter, from January 5th, 1815, to January
5th, 1825.

Year.
Wheat Barley. Oats.
Beans.
Quarters ending....
s, d.
s. d.
s. d.
8. ẽ dà…
February..
59 6
29 7
21 5
36 6
1815
May....
69.8
29 10
23 11
35 9
August......
67 11
30 11
25 8
36 0
November...
57 2
27 11
21 8
33 2
February...
53 9
24 2
17 8
29 7
1816 May
64 11
25 2
18
4
29 6
August..
76,5
30 1
22 8
34 7
L
November
9
··44
27 6
46 4
February..
100 10 50 9
29 8
58 0
1817
May
102 8
*
50 10
33 9-
47 6
August.
96 11
49 3
36 4
49 10
November
79 7
42 0
25 - 5
45 9
February.
86 0
45 6
27 2
49.7
1818
May
89 6
51
4
13 11
54 6
August.....
83 7
49 9
34 1
62 11
November.
80 2
59 7
33 5
74.7
February...
77 7
60 6
32 8
67 10
1819
May
73 7
45 7
27 10
50.2
August..
74 11
39
26 4
47 8.
November.
..
65 11
30 7
24 1
46 0
February..
63 4
32 5
22,4
42 4
1820
May
69 10
35 1
24 5
42
August..
71 11
36 5
27 1
44 5
November
58. 3
28. 7
21 1
39.4
February.
54 5
25 0
18 6
326
1821
May
....
52 9
23 8
17 10
299
August..
52 7
24 8
19 3
30 9
November
68 8
29 10
21 0
31.2
February.
49 0
19 11
16 4
22 6
1822
May
45 2
18 2
16 5
21.6
August.
42 11
19 0
18. 9
26 0
November
38.10
28 10
19 1
26 1
February,
407
28 3
17 9
25 7
1823
May..
52 9
32 8
23 3
30
August...
59 9
32 9
24
33.5
November
48 8
26 10
20 8
34 1
February
...
61 11
33 6
23 7
38 11
1824
May
64 7
35 3
24-4
38 .2
August.....
59 6
33 11 27 2
37:4
60 10
5
38 6 20 10
41 6
November
Office for Corn Returns:
WILLIAM JACOB,
Receiver of Corn Returns.
* Averages of Wheat for the year 1819, 728. 3d.; 1820,
65s. 10d.; 1821, 548. 5d.; 1822, 43s. 3d.; 1823, 51s. 9d.; 1824,
628. Aggregate Average of the six years, 58s. 3d.
It may not be unsatisfactory to the public, to learn,
from the following official statement, which has been laid
on the table of the House of Commons, that the gross
amount of the Exports for the last year has exceeded
that of the Imports by the sum of twenty-one millions
sterling. The balance of trade being thus decidedly
in favour of this country, the existing apprehension
of Gold being exported, may be safely dismissed:
YEAR ENDED 5TH JANUARY, 1825.
Total Official Value of Im-
ports into Great Britain
Total Official Value of Ex-
ports from Great Britain;
viz.-
British and Irish Produce
and Manufactures
Foreign and Colonial Mer-
chandize
£51,718,006 17
£41,729,485 17 9
63,225,272 7 6
11,506,685 9 10
EXPORTATION OF GOLD AND SILVER.
An Account has been presented to the House of Come
mons of the quantity of Gold and Silver exported in the
last ten years, which cannot fail to be interesting at this.
moment. The total export of Gold has been-
GOLD.
SILVER.
OUNOLS.
DWTS.
OUNCES.
DWTS.
In 1814
288,121 17
2.699.933
18
1815
346,050
12
6,421,818
1
1816
11,703
6,814,083 18
1817
176,423
8.322,770
16
1818
1,37,976
17.777,366
H
1819
93,223 2
7,356,086
1870
39,570 12
5,550,467 6
1871
13,829
0
4.674,157.
17
1822
284,277
16
14.658,251
14
1873
296,476
15
1824
1,134,507 13
11,724 019
8,705.977
5
14
The value of the gold and silver exported in the last
year, at the standard prices of those metals, may be.
Of this
taken in round numbers at 6,500,000l. sterling
large export, the greater part has been to France,
viz-of gold, 907,048 ounces; of silver, 4,083,978.
Holland stands next to France in the quantity of gold it
has received, 108,864 ounces having been sent thither in
1824; Brzil next in the quantity of silver, 2,314,607
ounces having been sent thither on account we suppose,
of the loan transactions. It thus appears that of the
gold exported in the least year mine elevenths were sent
to France, and one eleventh to Holland. Of the silver,
nearly one-half was sent to France-and the total vaine
sent to that country was about four millions and a half
sterling. These accounts do not exhibit the imports.
(which are not to be ascertained at the Custom-house),
but it is quite impossible that any considerable import
of specie could have been going on at the time of so large
an exportation.
CORN TRADE.
An account of the average price of all sorts of Grain in cach quarter,
from the 5th of January, 1823, to the 5th of January, 1826.
Quarters ended.
1825.
February 15
Wheat. Barley. Oats.
S. તે. S. d. 8. હે.
40 7 28 3
Rye. Beans. Pens.
S. d. S. d.
8. d.
17 9
99 10
25 7
30 7
May 15..........
52 9
32 8
23 3
29 7
30 4
34 2
August 15
59 9
32 9
21 6
36 8
53 5
36 1
November 15………………..
48 8
26 10
20 8
29 3
31 1
32 5
1824.
February 15
61 11 33 6
23 7
42 3
58 11
38 1
May 15....
64 7
35 3
21 4
13
5
38 2
36 8
August 15
59 6
33 11
27 2
40 3
57 4
38 6
November 15…………..
60 10
38 5
20 10
34 4
11 6
41 0
1825.
February 15
66 4
38 3
23 2
39 11
39 11
44 1
May 15
67 11 37 0
23 11
38 1
36 10
37 7
August 15
November 15........
67 9 38 9
61 9 41 4 26 3
25 3
41 9
41 10
41 6
41 I1
46 3
54 10
WM. JACOB, Receiver of Corn Returns.
Office for Corn Returns, February 15.
PRICE OF CORN.-The average price of the hectolitre of wheat, in
francs and centimes, was as follows, at the undermentioned times and
places:
F.
0.
Lubeck, December, 1815, per hectolitre
7
59
Stettin, January 15, 1826...
9 02
Hamburg, January 6, 1826 ...
9
34
Trieste, January 15, 1826
.10
11
Dantzig, December 30, 1825
10
88
Civita Vecchia, December, 1825
..11
80
Antwerp, December 31, 1825
Naplos, December, 1825...…………………………………………………………………………………
………..13
39
.15
43
France, January 31, 1826.
Tuscany, December, 1825.…………………………………………………………………… ...14
04
16
03
Genoa, January 7, 1826
.16
07
Santander, December <- 1825.
.20
.65
Nice, January 15, 1826......
.23 83
England, January 17, 1826
26
bushels, six gallons, and a very small fraction.
Note. The hectolitre contains, of the new Imperial English measure, two
69
:



4
!
NON
CIRCULATING


6
L
کو
A 585971
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
3 9015 06446 6603
ARTES
181
SCIENTIA
LIBRARY VERITAS OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
PLURIBUS UHOL
TUEBOR
SI QUÆRIS PENINSULAM-AMŒNAM.
CIRCUMSPICE
Super ))
1884
RECEIVED IN EXCHANGE
FROM
Duke University
1

1.4.