NOTICE BY THE AUTHOR TO THE PUBLIC. IT may naturally be asked by the public, and particularly by my more immediate Constituents, why I have not stated in Parliament the opinions I have given on the important questions examined in the following sheets, and offered to the House the remedial measures therein proposed? Unquestionably it would have been my duty to do so; but, unfortunately, my health is at present totally unequal to such an exertion. Indeed the fatigue and anxiety I have experienced in composing this Letter, is more than, at this moment of writing it, I am well able to bear. I hope I shall not be supposed presumtuous in thus venturing to pronounce on the causes of our distress and the remedy to be applied. I do not pretend to have more discernment than others, or to have myself made any particular discovery: I have availed myself of all the information which has been furnished to the public by means of the ability, science, and practical experience of others, and I have thence formed the conclusion stated in this Letter. It is indeed no recent opinion of mine on the source of our misfortunes; I have recorded it in successive sessions on the journals of the House of Commons; and by the elaborate resolutions placed thereon, as well as by various publications, I have at least shown an anxious and laborious attention to the subject: my opinion is, if possible, still further confirmed by our recent misfortunes, and in that opinion I cannot but think the public very generally begin to participate. I abstain from all remarks on the currency measures of this session, because I wish to direct the public attention to an investigation of the source of our misfortunes, instead of discussing the palliatives that have been attempted; all of which have been, in my opinion, not only futile, but injurious; manifestly so as respects the country circulation, and most unpardonably hasty and unjust towards the Country Bankers: if I am right, they will see in the following sheets the solution of their difficulties and their failures. I am sure, if they follow up the inquiry, and carefully examine the question as it has been treated by other authors, far more ably and fully than by myself, they will come to the same conclusion that I have done. ΤΟ THE RIGHT HONORABLE THE EARL OF LIVERPOOL, &c. &c. MY LORD, THE various difficulties the country has experienced in the course of the last ten or twelve years, are so unprecedented during a period of profound and general peace, and altogether in their nature so extraordinary,-the causes stated by your Lordship and your colleagues to have produced them, so insufficient and unsatisfactory, that the public mind is more than ever directed to an investigation of the real sources of phenomena so alarming, and productive of consequences so fatal. I pretend not to any superior discernment, still less to have made myself any particular discoveries; but availing myself of information derived from persons whose judgment, knowlege, and experience, are much superior to my own, and combining therewith a constant and earnest attention to circumstances, I have long since formed an unhesitating opinion, in common, I believe, with many other persons whose authority ought to have weight with your Lordship, that all our embarrasments are attributable to one cause-that cause removable and the dreadful pressure of which being taken off, the country would immediately become prosperous and happy. In venturing to state this opinion, I address myself directly to you, my Lord, because you hold the highest and most responsible situation of any man in the kingdom: I ask you to reflect on the different periods of distress that have occurred since the peace, and to consider whether any or all the alleged causes have been sufficient to account for those unexampled miseries we have encountered; and if not, whether it is not your duty more fully to examine those causes which have been suggested by others? The memory will at once lead you to the years 16-20-21-22, and the beginning of 23. The causes stated by your Lordship have been -transition from war to peace-redundancy of supply-excess of population-over-trading, speculation, &c. &c. Now, my Lord, however these causes may have appeared adequate to you at the time, I do think you must now see ample ground to doubt of their sufficiency; and I do entreat your Lordship to sift the subject closer I think the public have a right to expect that you should do so. The firmness and good sense of the people will carry us through all dangers and difficulties, so long as they believe the Government take a right view of circumstances, and have courage to follow it up: but I am sure they begin to apprehend that you do not see your way clearly; that you know not where the source of our misfortunes lies, and consequently how to apply a remedy: or otherwise, that you too pertinaciously adhere to some erroneous course you have fallen into. I venture then to declare to you, my Lord, my firm belief, that the sole cause of all our difficulties has been, MISTAKEN LEGISLATION RESPECTING THE CURRENCY; a measure of value created wholly inapplicable to that in which all public and private money engagements have been formed during nearly a quarter of a century, consequent and continual fluctuations in the quantity and value of the currency, and a frequent withdrawing or contraction of the quantity below that amount which is indispensably necessary to the immense demands of the country, the means of distributing the vast products of our national industry, and the payment of the wages of labor. The distress we now experience -the crisis we have escaped-the dangers that await us-have confirmed this opinion: never were cause and effect more apparent, or such melancholy proofs given in exemplification of their connection: a third time is the country now involved in misery from the same cause. I beg you, my Lord, to consider whether the withdrawing or contracting of the currency in 14 and 15, with a view to the resumption of cash payments at the old standard, or measure of value, did not produce the distresses of 1816? Whether enlarged issues did not restore prosperity in 17 and 18? Whether withdrawing the currency in 19 did not produce calamity still more appalling? Whether enlarged issues did not again give us prosperity in the end of 23-24 and beginning of last year? And whether the flight of gold towards the end of last year, and necessary caution of the Bank in largely contracting its issues, have not occasioned the full of prices and then of credits, and then the failures of banks and commercial houses, and the consequent miseries we now endure? I cannot see how this plain and distinct view of events, so connected and so recent, can fail to convince; but in the multiplicity of arguments and views, and adjustment of difficulties and seeming contradictions, the obvious and plain truth is often concealed and overlooked by the most able men; they conceal it, as it were, from their own views by the variety and rapidity of their thoughts, and the extensive range their ideas take. Mr. Huskisson, in his Speech of the 23d of February last (page 25), though drawing a very different conclusion from me, has himself stated the simultaneous occurrence of our distress and contraction of the currency, as also our returning prosperity with its expansion; and he observes, how intimately our commercial prosperity and the state of the currency are connected. He says we have alternated from excessive depression to over-trading and excessive speculation; that the depression has been coincident with contraction of the currency, and our prosperity and speculation with its expansion: but he, as I contend, mistakes cause for effect. He takes a review of the different periods I have adverted to; and he goes over them in a manner, I should have thought, calculated unavoidably to elicit the truth, and to have established in his own mind a different view of the case from that which he adheres to. The stagnation and embarrasment of 16 and begining of 17, were followed, he says, "by a state of unusual commercial activity; in like manner, the depression of 1822-23 (he should have added also 20-21) terminated in the extraordinary spirit of speculation which marked the autumn of 1824, and spring and summer of 1825. It is not irrelevant (he says) to compare these two periods, each commencing with commercial distress and each ending in over-trading; each marked in the first instance by a great contraction of our paper circulation and the accumulation of a vast amount of gold in the coffers of the Bank; and, in its second, by a great expansion of our circulating credit and by the re-exportation of most of the gold which the Bank had previously accumulated. This comparison (Mr. H. observes), whilst it connects itself with the question now under our immediate discussion, is calculated to throw some light on the important question of the currency, which at this moment occupies so much the attention of Parliament and the country." He goes on further to observe, that, in the autumn of 1825, the Bank was again driven to take precautions by contracting its circulation, in order to protect its remaining treasure of gold; and concludes by emphatically saying, " and what has since occurred is known and felt by all." I shalt revert to this part of his Speech of the 25th of February again. But in the mean time let me avail myself of this concurrent statement of events, on the part of the Right Hon. Gentleman, to justify my entreaty to your Lordship to examine them, and see whether I am not right in deducing from them the inferences I do, and insisting on then with so much confidence and perseverance. I should have thought, I say, Mr. Huskisson must have followed his statement of these several periods to the same conclusion I have come: but so far from it, he aims, it seems, at a further reduction of our currency to check the spirit of speculation, overtrading, and over-credit, which he thinks causes the mischief, and produces those alternations so destructive of the best interests of the country. These alternations, I contend, my Lord, on the contrary, this alternate distress and prosperity, depression and speculation, are the effect instead of the cause of the measures adopted respecting the currency from 1815 to the present time. Can there be a doubt, I repeat now, that the very first commencement of our difficulties-the first fall of prices and depression of agriculture and commerce in 15 and 16, were caused altogether by the contraction of the currency? Such futile reasons as were then given, surely cannot satisfy now. In the August of 1817, a great augmentation of Bank paper took place, says Mr. Huskisson, greater by three millions than the corresponding month of the preceding year, and a like augmentation of country paper: the price of agricultural produce rose again as before, and a short period occurred of universal commercial activity. "In the beginning of 1819 the treasures of the Bank (the gold) were very much reduced, and then the amount of their notes was again contracted: this contruction was followed by a great depression of commerce and prices, in the subsequent years." The fact is, as soon as the credit currency has increased to the extent necessary to carry on the vast and complicated concerns of the country,vast and complicated beyond that of any country that ever existed in the known world-that instant the gold begins to disappear, and the Bank is driven, as the Right Hon. Gentleman says it was, in the autumn of 1825, to take precautions, by again contracting its circulation, to protect its remaining treasures; and then again calamity ensues. -- Now what is the reason that the gold thus takes its flight? The Right Hon. Gentleman speaks of the exchanges, which I think tends only to embarras the subject: cause and effect are here again confounded. The reason why the gold disappears is, that the credit currency, when carried to an extent adequate to the necessities of the country, constitutes a medium of exchange and measure of value different from, and of lower value than, the measure of value created by the act of 1819: the gold will only stay so long as it can command commodities within a range of |