On this page
-
Text (3)
-
No. 435, Jpi* 24, 1858.] THE LEADER. 717
-
PHILIP PATERNOSTER. Philip Paternoster. ...
-
A MONTH IN YORKSHIBE. A J/onf/t in Torks...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Coins, Currency, And Banking. A Treatise...
foundry convinced that he is the bearer of joyful tidings to all who suffer from the ancient inconvenience of a limited command of money . Grant him but a trifling fulcrum , and Papyrus will undertake to move the whole commercial world . Turn a deaf ear to Crisis , and a continually recurring tightness in the money-market will vex you like an avenging plague . Shrink from the close columns of Restnctor , and see the precious metals for ever vanishing from your empty grasp . Tell them not of Mrs . Macaulay ' s favourite boarding-scliool young lady ,
who can giggle at Mr . Pitt ' s notions of political economy , or sneer at poor Sir John Sinclair , or prove to you that our great historian had a right to call John Xaw a dreamer and Chamberlayne " a fool , " upon the strength of a few lessons in Mr . Marcet ' s Catechism . Your true currency theorist is determined to discover new worlds by the sheer unassisted force of a great mind , and is generally as independent of Adam Smith , or Say , or Ricardo , as an ancient Chaldee shepherd of Copernicus and Newton . We have been for some time in the
habit of collecting such books and tracts upon the subject as have come in our way , and have found it a wearisome and a melancholy task . It is capable of the easiest proof that more than one-half of the writers on the subject of the Bank Charter have no correct knowledge even of its provisions ; and a much larger proportion have but the vaguest idea of the functions of that institution . The Bank of their dreams is not in Threadneedle-street , London , but " anywhere out Of the world . " Here is a gentleman who , in the topmost of a heap of currency pamphlets at our side , tells us that his " thoughts and speculations have arisen from frequent musinsrs
when the writer has been alone , in . the almost untrodden wilds of the Western World , when the silent majesty of nature has surrounded him with , an impressive , awful solitude , and when the sublimity of the primaeval forests , " & e . & c . All these things are very absurd , but they are also very mischievous . The loose theories , raw speculations , contradictions , and eternal controversies of such writers have created in the minds of ordinary readers an impression that the currency is necessarily a subject of great mystery ' and perplexity . A notion is abroad that a sensible man will do well to leave such
matters to idle theorists , and troulle his head only with the money which he gets and spends . But not to speak of the fact that the history even of the latest times contains numerous examples of wrong and misery being inflicted upon whole nations by the roguery or ignorance of the issuers of money , whielv never could have been inflicted if a few simple principles had been popularly known , it is quite evident that all persons who do not live in caves and feed on roots have abstractedly as much interest in this subject as in most of those about which we ordinarily think and talk .
There is , in fact , no branch of Political Economy which is better settled , or more certain in its teachings , than this one . The labours of Adam Smith , of Mr . Say , of the framcrs of the Bullion Report , of Lord King , Iticardo , Senior , MU 1 , and others , have completed a system of monetary science to which it may be safely said that no very important truth can now be " added . Forty years ago Mr . Ricardo , the shrewdest and most original of the English school of economists , apologizes in . his great work for repeating doctrines so well established . "Of those , " he said , " who have given their attention to such subjects , none hut the prejudiced are ignorant of its true principles . " Men
had indeed reason at that time to know something of these matters ; for an unwise tampering with the currency had then brought an amount of mischief and confusion into all money relations which had long gladdened the hearts of the foreign enemies ° f ^ n ^ aaa » ana was felt , every day , in every town an ever X viua fi «* t-Ms kingdom . We are convinced that it is quite possible to popularize sound knowledge on this subject . The real support of false teachers is the general ignorance . If a writer of established reputation , like
j ° f * Mr Ma 0 Gull ° c »» or Lord Overstonc , would publish a short and simple exposition , or a Handy Book" of the principles of monetary science , we cannot help thinking that much mischievous error might easily le dispelled . Mr . Beal ys largo nnd imposing treatise is unfortunately not such a work , nor is ita value much above the average of currency literature . It is made up of innumerable quotations from all kinds of writers and speakers , English aud foreign , with comments wnioh are mostly worthless . Mr . Sealy's acquaintanco even with the facts upon which lie ventures
to comment is frequently woefully imperfect or erroneous ; his frequent attempts to correct Adam Smith wholly unsuccessful . In contradiction to the latter authority , for instance , he contends that the effect of a seignorage is not to raise the value of coins above the value of the metal they contain : — It is certain ( be says ) that the seignorage is paid by the person who carries the bullion of the legal tender coin , whether silver or gold , to the Mint to be coined , and the Mint or ttie Government gains it : the question is whether he will be able to sell the coin to the next
purchaser at the advanced price ; whether coined gold or silver being the legal tender coin to any amount will purchase an additional quantity of gold or silver bullion beyond its weight equal to the seignorage—that is the test of the theory .. It will be found , I apprehend , that the person who lias the bullion coined into the legal tender coin loses the amount of seignorage . Now this notion may be immediately tested by the price of the precious metals in any country where a seignorage exists . Can a man in Paris buy with uncoined geld an equal weight of coined gold of the same fineness ? Mr . Sealy , if he will ask a
bullion dealer , will learn that he would have to give for every kilogramme of gold coin a kilogramme of uncoined gold , and nine francs in addition . The reason is , that aiine francs are the seignorage or charge for coining a kilogramme of gold at the French Mint , and it is because this seignorage must be paid for coining that the coin becomes more valuable than the gold by that amount ,. Even in England , although no seignorage is charged by our Mint , the same experiment may be tried , for the trouble of taking money to the Mint , and the slight delay and loss of interest , are found to be equal to a payment of three halfpence per ounce . Therefore , in our own market , coin is always worth more
thanbullion . lu fact , for every 1 . 60 ounces of coin we give not only the sarne weight of gold , but one sovereign , in addition . One or two more points will serve to show the value of Mr . Sealy ' s labours . His advocacy of a silver standard for England is based upon the assertion that " all countries have a silver standard of value except England ; " but even on this simple fact , he is , as we should hope our reader is aware , quite mistaken . The countries with whichAve have the largest commercial transactions have a gold standard . Even , in France , although we express
the exchanges in francs , silver was never by law exclusively the standard , but both gold and silver , and eaeli comes into use according to its relative value in the market . Tor some time , gold has been the standard , as will probably henceforth always be , and every silver coin , save the smallest change , is , as all recent visitors to France know , rapidly disappearing . The whole of Mr . Sealy ' s speculations and confident assertions upon the-French currency are equally misleading . The French Louis d ' or of Adam Smith ' s time did not find "in its exchange with thelivres its best market . " Adam Smith was
quite correct is stating that the price of 24 livres fixed by the Government underestimated its value , which was more than 25 livres . This is , in fact , proved by the circumstance that gold coins were at that time almost entirely out of use ; in France , nor were they adopted for general circulation until the recent gold discoveries , and the consequent triflin g fall in the value of that nict . nl . It would be to little , profit to proceed further in showing Mr . Sealy's imperfect qualification for the task he has undertaken .
No. 435, Jpi* 24, 1858.] The Leader. 717
No . 435 , Jpi * , 1858 . ] THE LEADER . 717
Philip Paternoster. Philip Paternoster. ...
PHILIP PATERNOSTER . Philip Paternoster . A Trnctariun Love Story . By an Ex-Puseyite . Two Yols . Bontley . Tins is a clever but disappointing work . From the title the reader would naturally be led to expect some novel revelations of the inner life of Puscyism —some racy illustration of the Bclgravian scauduls — something , in short , sufficiently " spicy" to take the two volumes out of the stereotyped pattern of circulating-library love stories . The author tells the reader thnt his object in writing his fictitious biography was ' * soberly to note the peculiarities of a
sect ; to fix the real character of the Anglo-Catholic system , or Tructarianisin , as incipient Popery ; to view the system at work in the metropolis , with all its accessories , resources , prcttinesscs , and paraphernalia ; and , finally , to show the certain fate of Tractarianism when subjected to the dispassionate examination of this analytical age . " All these fine objects we collect from tho preface . They arc , however , by no means realized in the performance . The author mat / he what lie wishes the reader to understand ho is , n converted Puscyito clergyman . He
has displayed considerable acquaintance with the externals of Puseyism , so far as they have reached fc e wondering public through the common channels of information , or as they may be seen in operation in Pimlico , and elsewhere , and lie has also displayed a good deal of familiarity with Tractarian jargon and observances ; but all this might be exhibited and performed by any clever book-maker , who , inspired by certain proceedings relating to confessional practices in the Cliurch of England , which have of late acquired a good deal of notoriety , and being willing to take advantage of the awakened taste of the public for something more about the matter , has collected all the particulars accessible to industry , dished them up in a plausible form , and grafting on these materials aniatdrv passages ., in order to give
the compound an aspect of reality , has sent them forth into the world in its present form . Now , we confess to a little curiosity about Pusejism , Tract arianism , High Churchism , or Avbmtever ism under which the peculiar modern manifestations of Christianit y in the Protestant Church may choose to disclose itself . We should like to know the process by which the smoking ^ boating , drinking , blouse and wide-awake -Wearing fast . young men of Oxford and Cambridge—especially Oxford , —are converted into sober , saturnine , monastic-looking machines , and that , too , at a time of life wlien in this breathing , bustling world they may least be expected to relinquish its pomps and vanities . We say we should like to have had exhibited before us the
gradual intellectual change aud the modes by which it was accomplished ; for though some may range themselves under the banner of Tractarianism , for whim or love of singularity , it is but justice to say that others adopt the change from conscientious and well-considered motives . But Peter Paternoster tells us little or nothing of this , throws no light on the phenomena of Puseyisny and so far causes disappointment to the curious render .
Philip Paternoster comes before us at the outset as a half-fledged Puseyite , but externally exhibiting all the manifestations of a fuli-fledgea convert , and apparently awaiting only a fair o pportunity for that final leap which lands the leaper into the uncertain domain of Popery . : But the machinery which is put into action to effect this is somewhat of the strangest , and fails precisely because it is quite too weak to effect its purpose on any but minds of very limited calibre . Two beautiful girls are introduced on the tapis , Hebe VValford and Henrietta Osborne ,
together with Herbert Osborne , brother to the latter —a kind of literary infidel . Hefce falls in love with Philip Paternoster , and Philip recriprocates the attachment—a contretemps quite against the views of the brother and sister , the gentleman having booked himself for Hebe and the lady for Philip . After a declaration of mutual attach went , Phili p is seized with remorse of conscience for his sin , believing that , as a priest , his vow rendered the matrimonial condition incompatible with his priestly office . He deserts his fiancee . He is followed by the brother and sister , who , by way of revenge , plot in a novel sort of way to drive Phili p into the arms of the Roman Catholic Church . Philip falls willingly into the snare , resolves on taking the last step , but in order to increase his practical knowledge
and reverence for lloman Catholic observances , he goes to Paris , frequents the churches , becomes acquainted with what he considers to be the true character of the priesthood , becomes disgusted , renounces his purpose , returns to his deserted lady , is received as pleasantly as was tho prodigal son , and all cuds happily , " vte confess we do not like the way in which Osboniii and his sister are disposed of : the one commits suicide ; the other , after undergoing unmerited degradation , enters into a sisterhood in Paris . Wo have said tho novel is clever ; we may go a step further , and say it shows considerable talent , a cultivated nnd somewhat poetical mind , and satisfies us that the author oan do better things .
A Month In Yorkshibe. A J/Onf/T In Torks...
A MONTH IN YORKSHIBE . A J / onf / t in Torkshire . By Walter White , Author of " A Londoner's Walk to tho Land ' s End , " " On Foot through Tyrol , " & c , Chapman and Hall . Thksk arc tlic rambles of an English pedestrian through portions of Groat Britain remote from tho metropolis ; many readers will be disposed to add from civilization ulso , when they havo digested these queer but characteristic f raits of humble life . Flattering indications of their |) oj > ularity , of a kind most congenial to tho literary mind , were of not
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), July 24, 1858, page 21, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_24071858/page/21/
-