Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 062.djvu/132

126 paper, which, if improved on the principle already suggested, the two substances would be found in the same pocket without disunion.

"Anxious to see our situation ameliorated, I trust the currency may be mended without changing or impairing the national commercial character which measure, if resorted to, would resemble the policy of diverting from its course a powerful river that had long given fertility and happiness to a large district, merely because, from excessive rains, it had sometimes exceeded its natural limits, and produced partial injury."

A sounder and a clearer view of the sole legitimate control which government is entitled, for security of the public, to exercise over the issues of the bankers, cannot be found than this. The elder baronet was fully alive to the gross absurdity of the bullionists who literally make toys of their coin. He recognised to its full- est extent the salutary principle that is, after all, the only proper basis of circulation: and he would have laughed to scorn the idea of an arbitrary restricted issue, as the certain means of inflicting a paralytic stroke upon the energies and the enterprise of the nation. The total neglect of this view is the capital error of the son. He depreciates the value of real property, by depriving its possessor of the power to command at any time its cheap and commodious representative; and he forces us, under the most adverse circumstances to hunt for gold, and not improbably to humiliate ourselves in time of need, by an application to the hoarding Russian.

We entreat the public attention to the fact, that the banking system and mode of circulation suggested by the elder Sir Robert Peel, is in fact precisely that which was followed out by the Scottish banks, without failure, without complaint, and with in- calculable advantage to the country, before the late premier commenced his wanton interference with our institutions. Heaven only knows what amount of suffering we must undergo until the public mind is thoroughly roused to the evils which have resulted from a weak and imbecile confidence in the nostrums of a theoretical minister, and until the money trade is freed from its present most odious restrictions. But we cannot, and we think we ought not, to conceal our conviction that the present monetary crisis is directly owing to the Restriction Act, and that the whole empire, and Scot- hind in particular, has reason to curse the hour when Sir Robert Peel thought fit to embark on his financial crusade.

We are glad to see such men as Mr Baring and Mr Newdegate protesting in the lower House, against the iniquity of the present system, and exposing its operations in detail. It is in vain that the Chancellor of the Exchequer—whose deference to the opinions of Sir Robert Peel is so ludicrously displayed—attempts to raise his voice in defence of restriction, and to attribute to other causes the deficiency which he cannot deny. Even Peel himself, as we have already remarked, is fain to blink the question, and to escape from the attacks of his antagonists, by the stale artifice of confounding and contrasting their opinions. The memorable debate in the House of Commons on the 10th of May, has, if we are not widely mistaken, established a principle which must lead to important party results; and we would earnestly beseech those who have the welfare of their country at heart, to make this matter of the currency a leading consideration in the use of their electoral franchise.

We have already shown the manner in which Sir Robert Peel was pleased to treat the respectful remonstrance of the English bankers, and the total variance of his financial views from those which were entertained by his excellent and honoured parent. We now take leave to draw the attention of our readers to a rather remarkable passage in Mr Alison's late pamphlet, entitled "England in 1815 and 1845."

We need hardly state our reasons for declining to criticise that work. We agree entirely with the views entertained by that eminent writer; and we should be happy indeed, could we state our own arguments with a force and a precision at all commensurate with his. Sir Robert Peel, however, in the course of the year 1845, thought proper to make this pamphlet the subject of his remarks, and concluded, more suo, with a sneer at Mr Alison,