dients*, which can only tend to aggravate the evil. "As all the difficulties in which Ireland is engaged, have evidently flowed from the restriction, we must naturally look forward to its removal as the final remedy: but it will be necessary also to take into consider ation, that the effects which the restriction has produced, have the remarkable property of rendering its continuance a measure of necessity it is necessary, therefore, to take into consideration, the probability of its removal being speedily effected, as well as the desirable consequences which would ensue on that event. "But as that consummation, however devoutly to be wished for, may be still far distant, it certainly should becoine a subject of inquiry, whether, during the continuance of the restriction, it is absolutely necessary that it should continue the parent of so much mischief? whether it is impossible to curb its operations? at least, whether a system different from that which is pursued might not prevent the depreciation of paper through excess? 66 It has already been observed, that so long as there was no restriction, the circulating medium could not be permanently excessive; but it does not follow that its excess must be the necessary consequence of the restriction; the restriction permits excess, but does not compel it; and it is difficult to conceive any obligation which it imposes upon the directors to issue a greater quantity of paper than would circulate, if no restriction was imposed. it continually avowed in the examinations of the English directors before the Secret Committees of the Lords and Commons in 1797, and still more distinctly by Mr. Coivilief, an Irish Bank director, in his recent examinations. It is further assumed in the Report of the Select Committee. "Sush has been the natural practice of banks previous to the restriction. Mr. Colville states it in very clear and forcible terms as to the bank of Ireland. Prior to 1797, they limited the amount of their issues as exchange rose. If prudence has not dictated such a course, necessity would have conpelled a diminution of their issues, by dings nishing the stock of specic, which could only be replaced at a loss proportionate to the existing rate of exchange; and your committee observe, that, in fact as well as in theory, the effect of such practice always was and must be the redress of the unfavorable exchange. "The general proposition which the Bank directors seem formerly with so much justice to have admitted, is, that in every commercial country the limitation of the circulating vdium is the efficient remedy for redresing it, unfavorable exchanges. In pursuing the line of conduct which this principle suggested, the directors acted for the benefit of the country as much as for the safety of ther establishment; the effect of their measures having been most powerfully to second the operation of the balance of debt in product g the means for its discharge. "As the first effect of an unfavorable exchange, arising from a balance of debt, is ' "Previous to the restriction, the directors create a demand for circulating medium.1 considered the run on them for gold as the the debtor country, and in many instaters criterion of the proper quantity of paper actually to export it, it is evident that it tre which they should keep in circulation; thated to limit the amount of the circulating the is, when the demand on them for gold was great, they considered it as a proof that the quantity of their notes in circulation ought to be reduced; and they never failed immiediately to contract their issues, and consequently to diminish the amount of the circulating medium of the country. This demand on them for gold they at-. tributed to various causes; sometimes to the quantity of their paper being too great, sometimes to political alarm, but generally to the unfavourable state of foreign exchanges; and so much attention did they pay to this last cause of demand, that in all cases of unfavorable exchange, conceiving that the gold must be flowing out of the country, they lessened their issues as a measure of precaution. That such was the practice of the banks previous to the restriction is so well known, that it is scarcely necessary to adduce particular proofs of it. The reader will find dium, by creating a demand for that medion which could not be supplied. The effects c this scarcity have already been fully exami ed§; it is sufficient now to observe, thy were there no bank, the principle by which the balance of debt, and consequent un vorable exchange, are removed, is by the hur tation of the circulating medium which they occasion. "But it is obvious that a bank mavertirely counteract this tendency by increasi the circulating medium of the country in p portion as it is demanded; and it is so ar tural that they shall be called upon to do it, that whenever it were possible we should t be surprised if such were constantly ther conduct; but fortunately for the nation, before the restriction, their interest, as a pre vate corporation, most remarkably commuted with that of the nation at large; which, n far from allowing them to increase thur The reader will find in the 5th and 15th pages of the Evidence, à remarkable instance of the fate of an expedient adopted on a similar occasion. † Page 100, Evidence before Select Committee. 1 Report of the Select Committee, page 4. § In the first chapter. Issues at such a time, compelled them most remarkably to diminish them, and create a scarcity or limitation of circulating medium much greater than the balance of debt, or unfavorable exchange, could otherwise have occasioned. The interests of the nation and of the bank, though requiring the adoption of the same measure, that is, the lichitation of the circulating medium, were founded on different motives; it was the interest of the nation that the circulating medium should be scarce, in order to encourage and compel an increase of exports in lieu of money to discharge the balance; it was the interest of the bank that their outstanding notes should be few, in order to diminish the run upon them for gold; so far, therefore, from there being any danger of the bank counteracting the efficacy of the balance of debt the public were secure that the bank would facilitate its operations; for the balance of debt, if left to produce its own effect, could limit the circulating mediumn only in the amount of the debt to be paid: but the operations of the bank limited it much more, perhaps to double that amount; and by the superior scarcity, that is, value of circulating medium which they thus created, they redressed the exchange in a still shorter time." This writer has a large capital of information, great clearness and readiness of statement, and has issued an important and good essay of exchange for circulation in the literary market. ART. LVI. A Letter to the Right Hon. Lord King in Defence of the Conduct of the Directors of the Banks of England and Ireland; with Remarks on the Cause of the great Rise of the Exchange between Dublin and London, and the Means of equalizing it. By HENRY BOASE. 8vo. pp. 52. LORD King justly observed in his celebrated pamphlet (see A. R. vol. II. p. 359) that the obligation to pay in specie would impose on the discounts of the bank the expedient limitation; and that the forced circulation of notes, an overstocking of the money market with disemployed capital, and a consequent rash and speculative buying-up of commodities, would all result from tolerating the mischievous privilege of a compulsory tender. The proprietors of bank stock gain by their patent paper: if a British minister could be venal, they could af ford to give fifty thousand pounds to such a minister for the continuance of the restriction: the extra-profits of the concern would justify a still higher offer, and of course every pretext will be seized to make the restriction perpetual. But the public suffer grievously by this coinage. At Michaelmas 1797 the amount of bank notes in circulation was little more than ten millions, and the price of bullion was five shillings for the ounce of silver. About a year after, the amount of bank notes in circulation was twelve millions and a half, and the price of silver bullion five and threepence the ounce. In 1800 the habitual circulation of notes was fifteen millions, and the average price of bullion five and sizpence. In November last, the issue of notes had ascended to seventeen millions and a half, and bullion to five and ninepence. It may safely be prophesied that when the issue of notes shall amount, which it perhaps will do this very summer, to twenty millions, the price of bullion will be six shillings the ounce of silver. What does this prove? Certainly that the multiplication of symbolic money diminishes, as in other cases of plenty, the value of symbolic money; and that paper no longer bears the same relation to metal when it is abundant as when it is scarce. With bullion, the foreigner can still buy at the old rate the produc tions of this country; but the Englishman, with his paper, cannot buy them at the old rate; but pays more for them. The restriction therefore defrauds every individual who lives on the fixed and settled income of funded, bonded, or mortgaged property, of all the loss incurred by that appreciation of produce, which results from the distinct values of our paper and our bullion. Such appreciation is a vast tax on the people to eurich the proprietors of bank stock. This author advances the unaccountable proposition that the scarcity of mo ney in London is a proof that no more notes have been issued than are wanted. We must copy so perverse a piece of theory. "That the quantum of bank notes is increased nearly double since the restriction, does not prove an excess: half the quantity might be excessive, or double the amount a deficient supply. Your lordship fully admits this principle, in admitting that the only standard of the requisite quantity of currency, is the bona fide demands of trade. And it must, I think, be as readily admitted, that as the transfer of goods and property is made only through the medium of currency, (whatever the symbols of it may be) there should be a sufficiency of currency to meet all the merchant when his returns are delayed beyond the expected period, and when vanced with the expected profit : he is his returns do not replace the capital ad then not able to undertake so soon or so much new enterprize as he projected. It would not be prudent so to do: he can incur (thanks to his credit) a debt at his banker's, or his friend's ; but money is scarce with him, though he has plenty of scarcity of money in London announces notes to pay all his acceptances. The that the last year's trade has been unpro demands of business; otherwise trade becomes stagnant, and the nation suffers unnecessary loss. This is therefore a criterion to which we may fairly appeal, in proof that there has hitherto been no superabundance of bank notes; and it is a proof within the reach of almost every body. Ask then your solicitor whether, since the year 1796, there has generally been a facility of selling or mortgaging lands, or whether there has not, en the whole, been much difficulty, on account of the scarcity of money, i. e. of bank notes? Ask the merchants, who uniformly discount at the bank of England, whether, on the average, they have been restricted to a less sum, than was needful for their busi-fitable, that the capitals of the country ness, and have in consequence, been obliged to solicit the discount of bills of exchange from private bankers and friends? Ask the bankers whether they have not, during the same period, much oftener refused to discount for their customers, than desired more applications? Ask the several descriptions" of brokers in the various departments of the money market (I mean bill-brokers, stockbrokers, &c.) whether there has not been for the last seven years, nine days of " scarcity" to one of " plenty of money;" and that plenty also momentary, and not excessive? I am persuaded, that from candid and intelligent men, totally unconnected with each other, one uniform answer would be received to all these inquiries; and I know of no more substantial and unequivocal evidence for establishing the real matter of fact. It undoubtedly would prove beyond all rational dispute, that on the average at least, there has been no excess of Bank of England notes." The scarcity of money has nothing to do with the greater or less issue of notes. General scarcity is made up of individual scarcities. Money is scarce with a have been scattered without yielding their due increase, that our bread has been sown on many waters without germinating any where; and for this loss and the consequent difficulty of realizing punctually the usual purchases and sales, If the last year's crop was bad it may be a fresh issue of bank notes is no remedy. right to sow the land again; but the act of sowing, like the issue of bank notes, is not any diminution of this deficiency. Money is scarce when the nation has ro longer the capital it had to conduct its affairs with. Bank notes are not capital, the transfer and subdivision and remoral they are mere machinery for facilitating of capital. The proportion which capi tal bears to the demand for its employment constitutes the plenteousness cr scarcity of money: but for every note issued an equivalent deposit is made at the bank; so that the capital of the coun try is not at all altered by the issues; though it may be increased by the pro fits of the bank. ART. LVII. Two Letters addressed to a noble Lord on the Manufactures, Agriculture, and apparent Prosperity of Scotland; with a fw Strictures on the Speculations, Morals and Manners of the Nineteenth Century. 8vo. pp. 55. WHILE infidelity gasconaded at Paris, a member of the Legislative Assembly proposed to institute an order of public orators, whose office it should be to withdraw the attention of the people from a mischievous solicitude about future existence, and to direct their care to a wise use of the present. Medical and statistical homilies concerning physical education and scientific farming were to supersede the liturgies of theologists and the renunciations of christianity. Volney printed a civic catechism, and atheism aspired to priesthood and the mitre. These two letters are such sermons as such a church would produce; not that they meddle with religious opinions; but they moralize about agriculture, ma nufacture, commercial speculation, and national expenditure, without any other apparent drift than to recommend a pru dent mean between bootless timidity and rash speculation, between the caution, which foregoes all chance of profit and advancement, and the spirit, which ex poses security and forfeits ultimate advantage. The observations are natural; the reflections just; the style eloquent; the topics popular; but the wherefore, the cui bono, is still to seek in both disserta tions. Glasgow set up cotton-mills in 1783, and in 1793 had overtraded, and was visited with diffusive failures. Who does not know, who does not regret so orderly a misfortune, which reduced the master-weavers to clerks, and the weavers to soldiers? The growth of manufactures in Glasgow, and the consequent increase of population, created a contiguous demand for the productions of agriculture, which induced many graziers to turn farmers. The augmentation of rents enabled several landlords, hitherto obscure yeomen, to occupy houses in Edinburgh, and partake the luxuries of the metropolis. Who does not agree with the author in thinking those country gentlemen unwise, who began to live beyond the means which temporary causes of income produced? Distilleries resulted from the new demand for spi rits, which the augmented earnings of the poor naturally occasioned, Who does not agree with the author in lamenting the occasional mischief of the worm of the still? In the second letter, the author quits Glasgow, and its neighbourhood, for Edinburgh; and proses, with a similar pitying despondence of tone, over the symptoms of increased prosperity, we must not say, but of increased expenditure and circulation in the metropolis. Houses expand, without a sensible increase of inhabitants; frugality va nishes, without a sensible increase of capital; fornication kisses, without a sensible increase of children; splendour coaches the street, and alights at the prison-door. Probably these phænomena are new in Scotland, and there. fore seem to merit remark. They are here noticed with wholesome admonitions worthy of the pulpits of religion. ART. LVIII. Thoughts on the Formation of the late and present Administrations. By LORD ARCHIBALD HAMILTON. 3d Edition. 8vo. pp. 70. IN the formation of ministries, so much attention ought to be paid to the wish of the crown, as is requisite for the defence of regal authority. By every constitutional politician, at least, this maxim must be acceded to. The king, therefore, should always be allowed to place, in the cabinet itself, some representative of royalty, some devotee of the crown, so as to secure a timely notice of any measures hostile to the privileges, the prerogative, or the influence of the king, which parliamentary jacobins might think it a duty to suggest. Beside this interference of precaution with the composition of the cabinet, which the interests of the constitution imperiously require, the king cught also to have a personal influence on the selection of his advisers, proportioned to his skill as a judge of merit. If, like the marquis of Lansdowne, he perceived with intuitive penetration, the adapted destination of men, and immediately beckoned each of his distinguished subjects to the performance of that public part in society, for which nature and education had exactly fitted them; he would deserve a wider range of trust. over public appointments, than if he were a sciolist in discrimination, an imprecise critic of human capacity. The king who selects a Pitt to superintend his finances, a sir William Jones to overlook the judicatures of Hindostan, a Watson to preach toleration among the episcopacy, deserves more personal (or apparently personal) weight and sway, than the king, who, when a Beattie and a Gibbon are competitors for his patronage, gives a pension to the poetaster, and passes over the historian. Combinations to overawe the personal inclination of the king, and to encroach on the patronage of his favouritism, are only meritorious, in proportion to the abuse. of such patronage. But beyond that influence, which the crown needs for its official protection; and that influence, to which it may accidentally be entitled by the sagacity of the reigning sovereign; no concession can be expedient. For any possible undesirable bias in the sovereign, or his contiguous superintending private advisers, the British constitution has one acknowledged and sufficient remedy-the parliamentary dictation of ministers. This was formerly accomplished, in cases of obstinacy, by withholding the supplies. It is no longer wise, if it were practicable, to resist the grant of taxes; the stockholders, not the advisers of the sovereign, would be the sufferers; the public service, not the hangers on of the court, would be the victim. It is become necessary, therefore, in order to restore the practical constitution of Great Britain, and to preserve its antient spirit, to devise a new method of propping parliament in the dictation of ministers. This may best be accomplished surely, by separating the civil list into its national and personal grants. Lord Archibald Hamilton sees the grievance, and puts it strongly. In our opinion, he is too precautious in the indication of remedy. He would be content that parliament should accomplish its end this time, by obscure compromise, without providing, for the future, definite methods of repeating its interference with success. He may have said enough for his allies, but hardly enough for the people; he is more the temporary partisan than the perpetual patriot; let it not suffice to get at the place of pilgrimage, a road should be made for arriving there at pleasure. The following passage will describe the character of lord A. Hamilton's sentiments: any The justice or propriety of the exclusion of Mr. Fox, in particular, forms uo part of the question, as far as relates to constitutional ground; because such justice or propriety cannot constitutionally be estimated by the royal mind; nor does there appear to be argument, which can justify or condemn it in this point of view, that would not apply with equal force to Mr. Pitt, or to any other man. The object of our inquiry does not relate to the person excluded, but to the principle of exclusion; and, in the present case, not to exclusion, in concurrence with the house of commons and the country, but in direct opposition to both. 46 It is a principle in the British constitution, that the king can do no wrong--upon what grounds? Surely, that no wrong may be done without responsibility existing somewhere. Accordingly, every act of executive power is supposed to proceed, and constitutionally speaking, does proceed, from responsible advisers of the crown. Not a peerage, a pension, or grant of any kind, which can affect the public, emanates from the royal authority, that is not subservient to this principle; the very speeches from the throne are subject to this rule, and are uniformly eated accordingly. "To such an extent is this principle inherent in the constitution, that it would be indecent and improper to suppose, that the executive authority was, in any case, exerted, but under this salutary maxim; and hence the constitutional check, which the house of commons enjoys over the executive power, in the appointment or continuance of im proper ministers, is, in fact, over the advisers of the crown, and not over the crown itself. An opposite doctrine would violate the whole spirit of our government; it would presume responsibility in the royal person. On the other hand, it is equally clear, that the choice of its own ministers is the just and constitutional prerogative of the crown, subject to no exception or restraint. "It must be evident, therefore, that neither of these two opposite and contending powers, which the constitution acknowledges, can be pushed to the extreme, in the other. The business of government, and theory or in practice, without interfering with all its duties, must be suspended, if the crown and the two houses of parliament were to per sist in an obstinate adherence to the full legal exercise of their respective rights, whenever they did not concur in their approbation or dislike; and nothing less than universal confusion could ensue. The crown might have thus continued Mr. Addington, for ever, as minister; and the house of commons might, for ever, have denied him their support. stitution supplies a remedy to this evil; and "Happily, however, the spirit of the conthe usual practice of the crown has been con formable thereto. This remedy, or rather preventive, is composed of two ingredients: a responsibility, attaching somewhere, for all acts of executive power; and a constitutional right in the house of commons, to refuse support, which, in its spirit and effect, is a power of rejection. This responsibility was not instituted, merely to punish wrong when committed, but to prevent wrong from being done, and wrong, in such a case, can only be prevented, by excluding private partialities, personal feelings, and court intrigue, from having any influence in the appointment of the public servants. "Were the king of England to nominate his footman minister, (I purposely suppose the most objectionable case possible), surely some person must be responsible for the outrage; and there does not appear any reason, why the same responsibility should not attach to a capricious exclusion, as to an unwise appointment. "It seems therefore that, consistently with the constitution, neither appointment nor exclusion can rest upon any other than pub lie grounds; and that, to impute the exclusion of Mr. Fox, in the present instance, to private prejudice, or personal feelings, in the royal mind, is to libel and traduce the kings |