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    COM MERCIA I

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    Com Mercia I

    C O M M E R C iA . L

    Untitled Article

    AUSTRALIA , INDIA , AKD GOLD . The subject to which we referred last -week in this part of our journal was mentioned in the House of Commons on Monday . Mr , C . Vllliers asked the Secretary of State ibr India whether there was at present any restriction on the importation of gold into British India ; and whether the tender of gold was lawful in payment of debt in that country ; and further , if these restrictions existed , -whether It was the intention of the Indian Government that they should continue ? Lord Stanley said that no restriction at present existed upon the importation of gold into British India ; but gold was not a legal tender there . The House would be aware that the

    question whether gold should be made a legal tender or not . in India was one of very great difficulty and complication , which had again and again been considered by those . versed in finance .. He could not say that at present it was the intention of the Indian Government to make any change in the present system . The regulations on this point , then , are , as we stated last week ; and the evil consequences of those regulations nobody will deny . Thatj as Lord Stanley says , the question , " whether gold should be made a legal tender or not in India , " is one of very great difficulty , we readily admit , as long as it is encumbered by all the false

    and universal currency . They are as much the ordained measure of value , by which commodities , including all subsistences , can be conveniently divided into very minute portions , or aggregated into vast masses , and readily exchanged und distributed , as motion , by which we learn distance is the ordained measure—and there is no other—of inches , yards , leagues , and degrees . Everywhere , accordingly , and almost at all times , they have been employed as money . They must be had ; and as po 2 " > ulation , wealth * and exchange all increase , the desire for them , and the

    necessity to possess them , becomes more urgent in spite of the many inventions we adopt to spare them in use and diminish the cost of . employing them . Everywhere the desire to ^ obtain these metals , and the common use to which'they are put , established an . almost uniform and general estimate of their value , which , as a phenomenon of mind is itself a curiosity . It exists in almost all countries , and has existed for ages , and determines the relative value of these two metals to one another and to other things , and has made them the media of exchanging commodities amongst all the people of the earth .

    Alloy them , coin them , as Governments may— - and they have made innumerable experimentsthese metals everywhere exchange for one another , and will only exchange for and command certain quantities of other commodities in proportion to their fineness and their weight . \ Vhetlier the coin be stamped with a fleur-de-lis , or an eagle , or the arms of England , and whatever may be its name , it will soon circulate for what it is worth by weight , and no nipre . The necessity of currency is indeed so insurmountable , that if an authority ,

    theories and antiquated claims of prerogative on which the Mint regulations , both of England and India , are founded . Whatever , evils they may avoid they cannot be so disastrous as the continual waste of the present system . The well-informed public heeded not the evidence supplied by the transmission of gold from Australia to England wherewith to buy silver hero and send to India , instead of supplying an indispensable coinage for India by gold direct from Australia , to learn that the Mint regulations of both countries are founded on false assumptions and long-ascertained errors . They had been detected and exposed before gold was

    respected by the people , and submitted to by them , limits the quantity in use , as our Government limits the quantity of the silver coinage , it may be made to exchange for nioi-e of other things than the metal in it would naturally command . This , however , is a forced exception to the rule—a political constraint which puts the community to inconvenience and expense ; and apart from such constraints the precious metals are , in the estimation of neai-ly all men , of a similar and equal value , determined everywhere not by coinage regulations , but b y the inherent qualities of the metals .

    discovered in Australia , and before the confirmation of them which it supplied came to astonish and confound the supported , in the press . and in Parliament , of those high prerogative regulations . These consequences were wholly unlooked for . Nobody could foresee that gold would be found in great abundance in two places within a comparatively short distance from India ; and that these regular tions would operate to prevent India getting ^ at a small cost a continual and indispensable supply of the precious metals , of whicli , she produces little or none herself , and has always a great need of them . Before these conseqitences were

    All , then , that Governments have to do , or ought to do , in forming a coinage , at any time , and at all times- —and this principle which applies to India at this moment and to England , will at once supply a clue out of the present difficulties—^ -is to divide the metals into aliquot parts , by weight , and by their image and superscriptions certify that the pieces are of a certain weight and fineness . Whether people buy and sell by moans of one metal or the other , is no business of Government ,

    known , the Act of 1844 , passed in violation of the principles of free trade , while the authors and advocates of that measure claimed credit as free tradfers , was denounced because , in conformity to the claims of old prerogative , it confirmed here , justifying the contimmnce in India of coinage regulations which have eventuated in the circumlocutory * waste we noticed lnst week . Considered in relation to these regulations in both countrios , the theories on which they were founded , and the habits of our statesmen and public writers , Lord Stanley is quite correct in saying , the qijcstion of making gold a legal tender in India is a very difficult one ; but , considered in relation to the great facts of existence , which will dominate

    any more than it is its business to prescribe what they shall buy or sell , or that they shall use the precious metald as money . A different' rule of conduct grew from the fact that Government was established by conquest ; and though this rule has now no foundation in reason , the people of England ^ and Ilindostan equal ly sufl ' er from this old and improper rule being continually acted on . As the services which bondsmen wore accustomed to pay in kind , or in the direct produce of labour , to their masters , wero commuted into fixed money payments , the masters , or the Government , fixed I * * "J »^ «***«*¦ v ** f V « AV | llia || iMtlV * * - 'f W * !¦ ¦ W >« J 1 V 1 - * »* ¦ i * W W fn 114 k V M

    changes . To tell the merchant of either India or England that he shall use oi : ly one of the precious metals wherewith to buy and sell , is an attempt to dictate to commerce , after lib has become iree , if not the master , as Government dictated to its slaves A Just tender is what buyers and sellers agree on and it is the business of Government to make that ' whatever it may be , the legal tender . It maybe sure that buyers and sellers will measure all their business by one or other , or both these metals , and that which they find most convenient should be recognised by Government as the- legal means for acquitting the obligations of the people to tie State , and to one another .

    That n uniform coinage is . advantageous cannot be denied , but this would bo established , as the precious metals are invariably chosen for money , if Government did not interfere in the matter , or if , in interfering , it followed the light of nature . If the Government of India , acting on the old slave-derived prerogative of European Sovereigns , still dearly cherished by our Chancellors of the Exchequer and some of our public writers , persists in retaining in its own hands , the regulation of the coinage , though it can neither regulate the

    quantity wanted , nor the quantity actually in use , then it ought at once to set about supplying Ilindostan with a gold coinage . . If . need not trouble itself about legal tenders , or settling the relative value of the two metals , for whatever form or size it may give its gold coins , commerce will soon determine their relative value to rupees , legal tenders , and other more useful things . ' ' Neither need it trouble itself about securing the value of its obligations , for the relative value of the two metals to one another and to other eominodifios . unP . ev < socs sue !)

    small and slow alterations , that it never exceeds , from-the course of trade , 2 or ; 3 per cent , in the life of a generation . Used all over the . world , and at all times , nothing bought and sold is subject to such slig ht variations ¦ hi-value-as the precious metals , and if the week ' s wages of the labourer , or the stock of the shopkeeper , cannot be protected against such variations ,-wh y . should an attempt be made to protect the fixed incomes of landlords , or of Government annuitant ? , against them ? The Government will , if it be reasonable , leave all these matters to be settled by trade , as it must in the end leave them ; and will think only of the means by which it can best cense to be an obstacle to the peoplq , of llindostun obtaining in the cheapest manner the use of n gold coinage . allow to be used

    We contend thai ; it should gold in all tho business of buying nnd selling m India , as well as silver ; and that it should no longer declare that silver alone is a , legal tender in such business . That the people would u :-g gold , it tlic G-overmont did not stand in their way , w demonstrated . They- did use it ; it is mutable to their circumstances ; they arc in close eoiuinercia connoxiun with other countries where it is use ; tor largo transactions it in infinitely preferable to silver ; the weight of a silver currency , nnu the trouble and expense of moving it from place to place , are continually complained ol ; tliesc eneumstanccs impose on tho Government great am continued losses , and it would l > e equally to tne advantage of Government and people , under existing circumstances , were the ( .. uveniinent at once to supply Hindostan with a gold coinage . aim

    equally over writers and statesmen , in spite of all they can say and do , and which intelligent men out of office , always consult rather than their theories and habits , tne matter is extremely simple and scarcely requires an hour ' s consideration to airivo at a sound practical conclusion . Discarding , then , tho theories which require Governments to supply a standard or measure of value , and enforce the use of that alone on all their subjects , in all buying and selling , — the same Government selecting gold in England and silver in India , enhancing the exchangeable value of the former hero and of tho latter there , and by regulations increasing the flow of ono metal jfiithtr and tho flow of another thither , —and disregarding the claims of old and . high prerogative to regulate money as it used to regulate , or rather Attempt to regulate , every kind or trade—tho faot is that tho precious metals are natural , neoessary ,

    the quantity and fineness of the precious metal they would receive for those servicos . For tho conqueror , or master , this was legal payment , and the metal ho selected and agreed for became , in his view , a legal tender . In modern times , in our country , tho idea of oomnmting the services of slaves into taxes for tho Crown has pussod into oblivion , and tho money which tho Crown , dr the Government , requires for the services it renders to the people is levied by taxes . As this change took place , the Government was , nnd is now , obliged to eontent itself with receiving tho money used by the merchant , and of which the value ie determined by commerce . Practically , 'it settled tho _ legal tender for commuting tho personal services of its retainers , but it oould never sottle the terms on whioh oommeroo should make its

    ox-It might erect one Mint at Sydney an ^» - jit Calcutta . There is no othor reason , we belicu , but . a desiro to retain power , why it */«?»« " » J [ have money coined for it in Australia , i * wherever it bo coined , thu Government riiouu avoid our plan of dividing the pound troy ot O o «* into forty-six sovereigns and - /!

    avoid those minute fractions aru u . ^ - ; and tho inponvenionoe of' our svfltoni . in * puzzle antiquarians to account lor them , " » monoy-ehangors to rookon them . w »"» call these piooos unvoroUjntf , or m 0 ' ' , * ft ij a half-ounce is a neiirer approach to xno «•

    Untitled Article

    5 Q 4 THE LEADER . FNVx 473 , April 16 , 1850 , I

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 16, 1859, page 504, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2290/page/24/