of editorial persuasion with the author's modesty, the editor was beyond measure happy to announce, the public might expect the plan to be developed, in several succeeding numbers of the Literary Gazette.

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Those who take any interest in the great question referred to, and had heard of this announcement, felt no little anxiety for the great epoch which was to be the birth-day of this admirable scheme of national policy, this plan, which was to place England on a more "prosperous basis than ever she or any other nation enjoyed." The important day, Saturday, October 7, 1826, at length arrived, and the following was the plan for " a new system of currency, which, as far "as the editor's judgment went, was perfectly calculated not only to "remove the distresses of these times, but prevent the recurrence of "similar evils."

First, That Government shall make all the notes which are to form the new currency. Second, They shall be issued by one bank. Third, Every body may obtain an unlimited amount of these notes, by depositing security in money in the funds, or freehold property, receiving only half the value of the deposit in notes. Fourth, A register of the amount of the notes to be kept for publie inspection.

It is quite foreign to our intention to enter into what are called the details of this notable scheme; we mean only to say enough to caution our readers against wasting any of their precious time on this very weak writer or his plans. But here is the essence of the scheme; an unlimited issue of notes for which a security may be given; and we venture to assert, that a proposition displaying more unmixed ignorance of the real circumstances of the country, the causes of late events, or the real nature and operation of a currency, has never before, even in this day of expedients, been brought into notice.

To understand the pernicious consequences which might be expected to follow from the adoption of such a proposition, or any part of it, it is, fortunately for us and our readers, unnecessary to enter into any thing like a general history of our national currency. One or two points only need be brought to the recollections of our readers: no one need to be told, that the essential qualities of money which forms a national currency, are being the representative of value, "the instrument which men have agreed upon to facilitate the exchange of one commodity for another." This instrument, as we all know, has been in various ages, and in different countries, cattle, gold, salt, or beads, or any other transferable property, which has been found to be adapted to the circumstances and convenience of the people among whom it has been introduced. But there is one vital point to be borne in mind, that the value of all these, or any other imaginable kind of currency, must be exactly in proportion of the abundance or quantity of that currency to the real property it may represent.

For example, suppose a community with 100,000 ounces of gold as a circulating currency, and the proportion was settled of an ounce of gold for a quarter of wheat, and a sudden increase of gold, from

any cause, were to take place, so as to double the amount of that currency, a relative change in the value of each would ensue, and a quarter of wheat would then be of the value of two ounces of gold. If in Abyssinia, where salt has supplied the place of any other currency, an increase of that article had taken place, a proportion would have been maintained between salt and the property it was offered to purchase, and a rise in the markets would have taken place, corresponding to the increase of such a currency, whether gradually or more suddenly brought about.

We all know, that in our own country, and in Europe at large, such a rise has followed the great increase of the precious metals by the mines of Spanish America and the trade with Africa. Who does not remember, that in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, wheat was about five shillings a quarter, and 13l. 6s. 8d. a year was called a competent exhibition and support." for a student of law? but then no student can forget, that the best Malmsey was five-pence a quart, and the finest red wine, in any quantity, at three-pence! Well may we sing, "Oh the golden days!"

Now, how has it come to pass that we have seen wheat at a hundred shillings the quarter, and that wine, which fires the blood only with rage and nausea, brings the manufacturer (wine merchant) six or seven shillings the quart, and you cannot mend your market? No other reason for these changes can be given but the great alteration which has taken place in the amount of European currency: the gold and silver have increased; their relative value to commodities has of necessity diminished. And why have we seen wheat in this country at a hundred shillings the quarter for years together, and those, too, years of abundance, while it was at forty on the continent? Because our paper currency having increased to an amount much greater than before, its relative value to a quarter of wheat was less; and while in this or any other country a gold currency of twenty millions may be supposed to bring the wheat to forty shillings, a paper currency of forty millions would elevate it to eighty.

We do not touch upon these principles as any novel way of considering the subject, nor as our own peculiar view of it; all our readers, at least all who were baptized and breeched, any time before the last coronation, know them as well as we; we refer to them to point out that the very vain and pretending writer in the Literary Gazette is wholly ignorant or forgetful even of these simple and initiatory principles.

It may be worth while to remark, that the scheme of this writer, bad and shallow as it evidently is, is not by any means a new one. The plan of causing bankers, who are issuers of notes, to give an adequate security in real property, has been talked of a thousand times, in and out of Parliament, any time these thirty years last past. It is, moreover, the point, that the great politico-economical missionary from the better side of the Tweed, Mr. M'Culloch, has so stoutly maintained, and lectured upon in taverns, and Literary Societies, and London Institutions, without end; and finally embodied

and imprinted for the use of the public, in the Edinburgh Review for last June, No. 87, article "Commercial Revulsions!" This part of the plan in the Gazette, that of giving security for all the notes issued, is the only thing of sufficient dignity to entitle it to be called a plan, and that, we see, is the mere repetition of stale and exploded notions.

But however, new or old, one simpleton's plan or the other, let us view, in the first place, the immediate consequences which would, in all probability, follow the adoption of such a scheme. There cannot be any doubt entertained that it would prove some security, that the paper we held in our hands was worth something; it would be some satisfaction to know, that we were the ten-thousandth part owners of a farm, and that, upon a demand of payment, we should be referred to a piece of land, meadow or arable, two yards by three and a half. But nothing can display a narrower or meaner view of the subject, than to suppose that the greater part of the evils which has been lately attendant on our unsettled currency, has been the result of incompetence to pay the notes when demanded.

This has been no doubt a dreadful effect; dreadful is it to remember the innocent holders of the notes driven to poverty and despair, while they learn that the issuers never were worth a crown piece, or a change of linen, in the whole course of their lives! This has been bad enough, but, viewed as a national evil, it has not produced one tythe of the misery or embarrassment which has been caused by the sudden changes which have characterized the system. Merchants, dealers, fair and honorable traders, with warehouses filled with goods for which perhaps they were under engagements to pay, saw themselves robbed of nearly the whole, by the decrease in value, brought about by these sudden changes over which they had not, nor could have, any earthly control. For these evils, great and acknowledged as they are, the boasted security does not pretend to provide, nor find any remedy; while we will briefly point out, the destructive manner in which they would, in all probability, be aggravated and multiplied by an adoption, even a very partial one, of such a measure.

The plan in the Literary Gazette proposes an unlimited issue, subject to the deposit of sufficient security, and to the payment of a smaller interest than is at present charged, which interest is to be applied to the abatement of the national burthens. In the absence of all particulars, we can only suppose that the lowness of this rate of interest would make it sufficiently worth while for the borrowers to avail themselves of the plan. Admitting this, what would be the first results? A most enormous issue of these notes: where is the man, in short, possessed of any property, who would not borrow and issue upon such terms?

Here is the landlord of an estate worth 10,000l. may buy another estate of 5,000l. value, by pledging the former, receiving the rent for both, and pocketing the difference between the Government interest and the rent of his new estate. Here, also, is the three-per-cent.

lord, with 50,000l. in the funds, he may buy an estate, value 25,000l., and pay for it in the new notes, receiving the interest for his stock and the rent of the estate at the same time! It is proceeding on the supposition, that the terms would be highly favorable to the borrower, or the plan could not amount to any thing. The same thing is done now, as this weak writer proposes to effect by his cumbrous and illassorted machinery. If a full amount of interest and security be to be given, we may borrow all the gold and silver of Europe on the

same terms.

But the truth is, he means to cause a very large issue of paper, and sees such a very little way into the question as to suppose, that an increase of currency is necessarily an increase of wealth; that is, if a man gives a bill, to pay which he must sell his estate, he is worth two estates, one in reality, the other in paper. But what would be the certain effects of such an issue of paper as is proposed? An enormous nominal rise in the price of every article of intrinsic value. Here would, indeed, be competition in trade, the joint stock schemes, and all the effects, ten times more aggravated, of Lord Liverpool's "wildness of speculation."

In the first year, after such a pushing out of paper, glorious would be the times for the holders of any real property; all agricultural distress would vanish like a misty exhalation. Oh, the happiness of wheat at 201. the quarter, lean ewes at 157., and cabbages at 3s. 9d.! The weekly bills, if she trusts so long, of the landlady of this simple, though we dare say hungry, writer in the Gazette, would show the unequivocal prosperity of the times; and would be curious as historical contrasts to the expenses of living in former times. He would nominally spend as much in one week, as would have dined the corporation of London, positively, aldermen and common council, and beadles to boot, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. To a quartern loaf, 10s. 6d.; to a pound of single Gloucester cheese, 12s. 8d.; to a lamb's fry, for your literary dinner party, 17s. 6d.! It is very true that his income would bear some, though not a just, proportion to this change. Affairs would gradually adjust themselves. We should soon have the editor apologizing, that in consequence of the wholly unexpected rise in the value of every thing, he must beg his readers' indulgence when he announces the price of the Gazette, although somewhat reduced in size and quantity of matter, could not in future be less than 4s. 6d.!

But, perhaps, it may be hastily enquired by some one, where would the harm of this be, acknowledging, as you do, that a corresponding change would take place in every thing, labour, as well as the expenses of living? If it brought about such high prices, surely some benefit must result, as our best times in England were the high price times. This has some truth in it, though it also contains a gross delusion. Supposing the amount of the currency could be fixed, or subject only to slow and gradual changes, there would be no harm in such a state of affairs. It would not matter if bread nominally fetched a guinea a pound, in consequence of an abundant

circulation, or standard of reference; or if a good capon fetched, as it used, only a penny, in consequence of a more limited currency.

The great, the pressing, the most overwhelming evil is, the variation of amount to which a paper currency exposes us. Contrive any scheme to prevent this, and a paper currency is possibly the best. But who has ever done this? And, least of all, has the Literary Gazette schemer done it. The unavoidable result of this want of steadiness, is an entire unsettling of the transactions of men, of the value of property of any kind, interrupting, in consequence, every rule and practice of trade; and, above all, rendering it an impossible thing to make any prospective bargain or agreement whatever.

A very great part of the most important transactions in our affairs are of a prospective nature. Leases, annuities, mortgages, borrowing monies at interest; in a word, almost every fixed engagement may be considered, more or less directly, as influenced by such changes as we are now referring to. We earnestly beg of our readers to let this important, this most vital, consideration guide them in weighing whatever plan or proposition for meddling with, and exchanging, the currency, may be brought under their notice, let it spring from whatever quarter it may.

Let us just glance at its operation in such cases. Supposing the plan of the writer in the Literary Gazette to be carried into effect; he would allow but half the amount of deposit to be issued in notes. This would permit half the entire amount of our national debt, and half the entire value of our land and buildings, to be represented in a circulating currency! We may reckon that in the first year, for example, a hundred millions of paper would be issued. We have already conjectured the effects on the prices of provisions, and on all kinds of intrinsically valuable commodities; but the results in this case, though decidedly prejudicial the lower classes, (for the price of labor has at no time increased in a corresponding ratio,) would be trifling, compared with its influence on all fixed bargains.

We will, as we wish to close this article, refer to but one case, that of the public creditor. He has agreed to receive 51. for a year's interest on 100l. lent to the Government. That 51. was of value just in proportion to the amount of the currency, at the time he made the bargain. Suppose he could have bought two quarters of wheat with his year's interest. Is it that proper maintainance of faith with the public creditor, which we hear talked of so much, to reduce the value of the currency, as that he who still nominally receives the same interest can only purchase one quarter of wheat with it? It is also very clear, as we have already hinted, that in proportion as an excessive issue of paper would defraud the public, as well as private, creditor, so there is no doubt, it would as unjustly release the debtor. A man who had before, in order to pay his contribution to the public burthens, sold a certain proportion of the produce of his labor or capital, would now be able to discharge his share by the sale of half the former quantity. In this manner would the meaning and intention