The currency question : considered in relation to the Act of the 7th & 8th Victoria, chap. 32, commonly called the Bank Restriction Act / by George Combe.

  • George Combe
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The currency question : considered in relation to the Act of the 7th & 8th Victoria, chap. 32, commonly called the Bank Restriction Act / by George Combe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/56 (page 12)
    to opinions they have not weighed, is most injurious to the welfare of the country, and to their own weight with Parliament and their fellow-citizens. They appear to do this at the instigation of those of their members who, apparently, are the least capable of leading them to sound conclusions. Do they not perceive that gold is recommended as a currency, and also as a security for bank-issues, by the following advantages ?—1st. It cannot be increased and diminished in quantity arbitrarily ; 2ndly. It is accepted as a standard of value, and as a medium of payment by all trading nations, foreign and domestic; and 3rdly. While held as a security for paper-issues it yields no return itself, and thus removes the temptation to increase the issues for the sake of the double profit—first, the revenue of the security ; and secondly, the interest on the notes issued. In this instance the Edinburgh Chamber has made no attempt to grapple with the principles of the currency question ; and, appa- rently from not comprehending these, they have drawn erroneous inferences from the few facts and figures which they quote. It is absurd to be always assuming that, in a question such as this, the Legislature, which has no separate or sinister interest, after the most anxious inquiry and deliberation, makes and maintains laws designed to impede or injure commerce. The causes, we repeat, which regu- late the phenomena of currency and exchange, are as completely natural and as certain in their operations as the force of gravitation itself; and it is folly to ignore these in the way exhibited in this memorial. It is only by omitting the principles, or misinterpreting the facts, that confusion can be created on this subject; and how can we expect effect to be given to the petition of persons who obviously do not know what or wherefore they are asking ? [From the Scotsman of November 28, 1855.] In two former notices we dealt with the principles of the currency question. We shall now advert to the facts on which the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce found their petition. They inform Lord Palmerston that— “ Your memorialists strenuously opposed the passing of the Act 1844, as an unsafe and an unwise interference with the business of banking, and directly calculated, in the event of a scarcity of food, war, or any other emergency, re- quiring an export of gold, to give rise to commercial embarrassments and arousing panics; and when in 1847 these actually began to appear, they denounced the Act as the cause, and the Government was at length constrained to suspend its operation—thus substantially acknowledging the correctness of the views of your memorialists.” It would be difficult to condense into the same space a greater collection of fallacies and misstatements than this paragraph contains. The Chamber commence by acknowledging that “ a scarcity of food,” “war,” or “any other emergency,” may require “an export of gold.” This is solid sense ; and we ask them, how do these events come to require an export of (jold ? Obviously, because we are in debt to