An Example of Communal Currency: The facts about the Guernsey Market House

by Joseph Theodore Harris

"An individual with an income of £9,000, who spends only half of it wishes to build a house at a cost of £13,000. He therefore makes an arrangement with his timber merchant, his mason, his carpenter and others to pay them out of his savings, so that they shall receive a part each year for five years. Can it be said that he is contracting debts? Will he not have at the end of the five years both his house and his original income of £9,000?

"The States are precisely in the same position as regards the £13,000 which they have to pay out of their income during the five years included in the said table. This sum will be paid in instalments of £2,600 per annum, with as much ease as were much heavier engagements in 1826 and 1827.

"The time has passed when the public could be frightened by exaggerated reports about the debt; most complete publicity keeps everyone acquainted with the real state of affairs; my greatest wish is that nothing should be hidden."

Frequent references to the saving of interest are to be found, and to the fact that improvements in the island could not have been carried out but for this system.

Wm. Collings, speaking at the States Meeting, 26th March, 1828, on a financial proposition, gives it as his opinion that interest now paid might be spared if the States issued more Notes. The Rev. T. Brock at the same meeting supports the contention, as Notes can be issued without inconvenience.

In the Billet d'Etat for 21st September, 1836, in a long discourse on the circulation, Daniel de Lisle Brock says, "To bring about the improvements, which are the admiration of visitors and which contribute so much to the joy, the health and the well-being of the inhabitants, the States have been obliged to issue Notes amounting to £55,000. If it had been necessary, and if it were still necessary to pay interest on this sum, it would be so much taken from the fund ear-marked to pay for the improvements made and to carry out new ones. This fund belongs especially to the industrious poor who execute the works and generally to the whole island which enjoys them. It ought to be sacred to all."

Mr. John Hubert, in the debate at this meeting, is reported by the Comet to have referred to the fact that "the roads and other works had been constructed for the public good," and to have said that "without issuing Notes for the payment of those works it would have been impossible to have executed them."

Mr. H. O. Carré, in the same debate, said, "The States, by having Notes to the amount of £55,000 in circulation, effected a saving of £1,600 per annum. Here, then, was a revenue of £1,600 raised without causing a farthing's expense to any individual of the public generally, for not one could urge that he suffered a farthing's loss by it. It was therefore the interest of every one to support, not the credit, but the interest of the States. Those who wished to traffic on the public property were in fact laying a tax on that public, for they were diminishing, by so much as they forced States' Notes out of circulation, the public revenue, for if the States, in consequence of a diminished revenue by the effect of Bank paper, have to make loans, those loans must in the end be repaid by the public—which would be a taxing of the public for the benefit of private individuals."

Further contemporary testimony to the estimation in which the Notes were held may be gleaned from the papers of the time, of which there were three, issued at least once a week. In these occur letters from Publicola, Verax, Vindex, Un ami de son pays, Un Habitant, Campagnard, etc. Some of these were probably inspired, and sometimes they show a partisan bias. The references of most value are the incidental ones occurring in discussions on the improvements or in the criticisms of ordonnances on the currency. The coinage at this time was in a confused state, there being both English and French money, some of it of very poor quality, in circulation.

The Gazette of 22nd July, 1826, refers to allegations made by the Jersey authorities as a reason for their refusing to register an Act authorising the issue of £5,000 in Notes. The opponents of the measure had alluded to supposed evils arising therefrom in Guernsey. But the Gazette emphatically declares that "these Notes have neither directly nor indirectly burdened commerce in any way, nor contributed to the rise in exchange that is experienced."