The Paper Currency of England Dispassionately Considered / With Suggestions Towards a Practical Solution of the Difficulty

Transcriber’s Note Cover created by Transcriber and placed in the Public Domain.
WITH
SUGGESTIONS TOWARDS A PRACTICAL SOLUTION OF THE DIFFICULTY.
By JOHN HASLAM, late “TURGOT.”
LONDON: EFFINGHAM WILSON, ROYAL EXCHANGE. DUBLIN: M‘GLASHEN AND GILL, 50, UPPER SACKVILLE-STREET. 1856.
DUBLIN: PRINTED BY ROBERT CHAPMAN, TEMPLE-LANE, DAME-ST.
The following pamphlet was designed for insertion in a periodical devoted to industrial and commercial purposes, which was to have appeared on the 1st of January. As owing to unavoidable circumstances the publication of this journal has been postponed, the writer has thought it better to present his views to the public in their original form, than to incur the delay that would be necessary if he were to recast the essay and expand its scope so as to embrace the consideration of the Scotch and Irish issues. He trusts that this explanation will serve as an apology for the extreme compression which he has been obliged to exercise in treating of several departments of the subject, as well as for his having neglected to fortify his reasoning by citations from other writers, in many instances in which he might have done so with unquestionable advantage to the reader.
19, Cullenswood-avenue, Ranelagh, Dublin, Jan. 1856.

Amongst the many debatable clauses contained in the Bank Charter Act of 1844, there is one at least the practical expediency of which will scarcely be called in question. It is that which provides for the redemption of the privileges enjoyed by the Bank of England, “at any time upon twelve months’ notice, to be given after the first day of August, 1855.” A similar provision had been inserted in the Act of 1833, so that the decennial expiration and revision of the Bank of England Charter, may be regarded as a positive feature in the banking system of Great Britain. The advantages resulting from this periodical revision of our currency code with respect both to the public generally and to bankers in particular are very considerable. The investigation of the laws of monetary phenomena forms undoubtedly the most abstruse and intricate department in the whole range of political economy. In no other section of the science are the ultimate conclusions more liable to be vitiated by any error in the leading principles, or any false step in the process of deduction; and in no other is it more difficult either to trace an error through all its mazes to its real origin, or to present its refutation in a form adapted to the popular intelligence. It not unfrequently happens, therefore, that some plausible fallacy becomes generally accredited, and is adopted by our statesmen as a basis for legislation, either before the materials have been collected for its successful exposure, or before the knowledge of such exposure has had time to circulate through all the channels of the public mind. In such cases the experience of a few years’ operation of the measure, suffices to explode the fallacy, and when, at the succeeding expiration of the Bank of England Charter, the subject is presented to parliament for reconsideration, our legislators are enabled to disentangle themselves from the errors which had previously misled them, and to bring their enactments into greater conformity with the principles that should regulate a well conducted currency. And were it not for this arrangement, there is great reason to apprehend that our banking laws would present as many obstacles to their amelioration, as now unfortunately oppose themselves to the reform of so many other departments of our legislative system.