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    state , the land shall follow ; and , if neceisary , not only the land , but all fortunes exceeding 500 ^ . or 1000 / . a year . Not a tenth part of the fundholders possess any thing approaching to the smaller of these sums . We suhjoin two passages from two Radical writers , each of which contains

    in a small compass some of the considerations by which the attempts of robbery to give itself a colourable pretext , may best be counteracted . The first is aimed directly against the proposition with which Mr . O'Connell has chosen to identify himself—that a large portion of the debt having been contracted in a depreciated currency , the interest ought not to be paid nor the principal liquidated in money of the ancient standard :

    ' The restoration of the ancient standard , and the payment in the restored currency of the interest of a debt contracted in a depreciated one , was no injustice , but the simple performance of a plighted compact . All debts contracted during the Bank restriction , were contracted under as full an assurance as the faith of a nation could give , that cash payments were only temporarily suspended . At first , the suspension was to last a few weeks , next a few months , then , at furthest , a few years . Nobody dared even to insinuate a proposition that it should be perpetual , or that , when cash payments were resumed , less than a guinea should be given at the Bank for a pound j'oymeuis were resumeu , less man a guinea snouiu De given ai me i ? aiiK ior a pound

    note and a shilling . And to quiet the doubts and fears which would else have arisen , and which would have rendered it impossible for any Minister to raise another loan , except at the most ruinous interest , it was made the law of the land , solemnly sanctioned b y Parliament , that six months after the peace , if not before , cash payments should be renewed . This , therefore , was distinctly one of the conditions of all the loans made during that period . It is a condition which we have not fulfilled . Instead of six months , more than five years intervened between the peace and the resumption of cash payments . We , therefore , have not kept faith with the fundholder . Instead of having overpaid him ., we have cheated him . Instead of making

    him a present of a pev-centage equal to the enhancement of the currency , we continued to pay his interest in depreciated paper five years after we were bound by contract to pay it in cash . And be it remarked , that the depreciation was at its highest during a part of that period . If , therefore , there is to be a great day of national atonement for gone-by wrongs , the fundholders , instead of having anything to refund , must be directed to send in their bill for the principal and interest of what they were defrauded of during those five years . Instead of this , it is proposed , that , having already defrauded them of part of a benefit which was in their bond , and for which they gave an equivalent , we should now force them to make restitution of the

    remainder ! ' That they gave an equivalent , is manifest . The depreciation became greatest during the last few years of the war ; indeed , it never amounted to anything considerable till then . It was during those years , also , that by far the largest sums were borrowed by the Government . At that time / the effects of the Bank restriction had begun to be well understood . The writings of Mr . Henry Thornton , Lord King , Mr . Ricardo , Mr . Huskisson , Mr . Blake , &c . and the proceedings of the Bullion

    Committee , had diffused a very general conviction , that the Bank had the power to depreciate the currency without limit , and that the Bank Directors acted on principles of which that evil was the natural consequence . Does anybody imagine that the loans of those years could have been raised , except on terms never before heard of under a civilized government , if there had been no engagement to pay the interest or the principal in money of any fixed standard ? but it had been avowed , that to whatever point the arbitrary issues of the Bank might depress the value of the pound sterling , —there it would be suffered to remain . 1

    What avails it , then , to cavil about our paying more than we borrowed ? Everybody pays more than he borrows ; everybody , at least , who borrows at interest . The question is not , have we paid more than we borrow ? but , have we paid more than we promised to pay ? And the answer is , —we have paid lest . The fuudholder , as the weaker party , has pocketed the injury ; he only asks to be spared an additional and far greater one . We covenanted to pay in a metallic standard ; we therefore arc bound to do it . To deliberate on such a question , is as if a private person were to deliberate whether he should pick a pocket . * ? From an article in ' Tart ' s Magazine' for January 1833 , headed < The Currency Juggle . '

    Untitled Article

    * 38 Notes on the Newspapers .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1834, page 238, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2632/page/6/