bounds the operations of railroad companies. To the intense competition for the use of capital which these wild operations have called into action, his Lordship attributes their full share in the production and prolongation of commercial pressure. They constitute a feature in the present crisis, which distinguishes it from every former crisis, and threatens to protract its duration beyond all former example, by an action on the market rate of interest and on the prices of securities,—an action in neither case by any means likely to terminate with the cessation of the drain of gold. To obtain, therefore, an immediate repeal of the restrictive clauses of the Act of 1844, and such a regulation of the system on which our railway operations have been hitherto conducted, as shall moderate a little the existing competition for the possession of new capital, and bring it within bounds more nearly corresponding with the utmost conceivable rate of supply, should be the prime object of every one who desires the continued prosperity of the country; these two causes having,' as his Lordship observes, in concurrence with and aggravation of each other, occasioned that state of things, of which, without some attempt to abate these grievances, I see no termination. pp. 36, 37. Of the proper duties and functions of the Bank of England, in its relations both to the industry of the country and to the state, Lord Ashburton has furnished us with a judicious and comprehensive picture, and in particular has forcibly pointed out the various circumstances which make such an institution indispensable to the due administration of the public finances; and he concludes this branch of the subject with a few words of admonition, so peculiarly applicable to the times, and so much wanted, that, though not immediately pertinent to our argument, we cannot resist the temptation of extracting them : 'It must be admitted,' he says, that the duties of the Bank towards the Government become more serious and uncertain in extent, from the modern practice of yearly throwing over our sources of revenue, and trusting to accident whether our balance is one of deficiency or surplus; this system, which I have always humbly opposed, we shall some day bitterly repent. It imposes upon us this year the scandal of a large loan in time of profound peace. If for every adverse accident we are to borrow, and on every recurring period of prosperity to throw over our means of paying, the end of such a course cannot be doubtful; the precise period of our fate can alone be uncertain. But this is a subject, however important, which is foreign to my present purpose, and I touch upon it solely to exemplify the necessity Government is under of having a bank on which it can rely for occasional assistance under the various difficulties in which it may be placed.' In conclusion it is satisfactory to remark-though it is not more than than our previous experience of Lord Ashburton's good sense and great practical knowledge would have led us to expect-that, while the claims of the Bank of England to a high place in the general estimation, as an instrument of public benefit, are thus frankly appreciated by him, and while the various proceedings which have of late so powerfully conspired to obstruct and prevent the wholesome working of that establishment, receive his most unsparing condemnation, he never affords the slightest countenance to any attack on the standard of value, as established by the Act of 1819. He is no patron of the project for making the legal standard of value fluctuate with the fluctuations of the market price of gold (as if there could be such a thing as fluctuation in the price or rate at which one ounce of a metal is exchanged for another ounce of the same metal!!!), or of any of the kindred chimeras of Birmingham origin. To this class of doctrines Lord Ashburton alludes with good-humoured brevity; and if, after enduring the neglect of more than a quarter of a century, these idle imaginations seem once more to be acquiring a momentary existence, and menacing the foundations of social order, we have to thank the authors of the Bill of 1844. On more than one recent occasion, that measure has been held out by its advocates as the necessary complement of the Bill of 1819; its provisions, we are told, were indispensably required to ensure the uninterrupted solvency of the Bank of England, and thereby to preserve the unsullied integrity of the standard; to achieve this object is alleged to have been the foremost motive with the late premier for proposing his enactment, and it now constitutes nearly the only ground upon which any of his party venture to defend it. Than these notions, however, nothing, in our judgment, can be more fallacious. The bill of 1819 rests on its own basis; and far from thinking that its practical efficacy can be promoted by any such intermeddling as that of the scheme of 1844, it is our decided conviction, that by no contrivance could the great purposes of that bill be so effectually brought into discredit, or the permanence of the measure itself so seriously endangered, as by identifying it in any way with the bill of 1844.* ART. IX. Just as we had closed the above article a pamphlet has been put into our hands bearing the title of The Crisis and the Currency,' from the pen of Mr. John Kinnear of Glasgow, which appears to us to be written with no ordinary ability, and which we venture to recommend to the perusal of our readers. It comes too late to admit of any attempt on our part to analyse its contents in detail, but we must say, that the author seems to have thoroughly mastered his subject, and to evince very clear and comprehensive views of what we consider to be the true theory of the currency. We are bound, however, at the same time to add, that to the scheme, which it seems to be the main object of his work to recommend, for introducing the Scotch banking system into England, substituting a currency of one-pound notes for gold, and an array of competing joint-stock banks for the Bank of England-to this scheme, in all its parts, VOL. LXXXI. NO. CLXI. T we ART. IX.-The Commercial Policy of Pitt and Peel. 17831846. Pp. 68. London: 1847. THIS pamphlet is an apology for Sir Robert Peel and his special followers, and an attempt, in the prospect of a general election, to reconcile them with those Conservative constituencies who believe that they have betrayed' them. This purpose is thus announced : 6 'It is not the writer's intention to enter upon any examination of the merits of the commercial measures which in the course of last year obtained the sanction of the legislature. His object is merely to lay before that large and influential portion of the community to whom those measures were distasteful, some considerations which may induce them to pause before taking up a position of irreconcilable hostility to men with whom they cordially acted during ten years of opposition, carried on upon grounds altogether irrespective of any question affecting the removal of commercial restrictions.'-p. 5. It cannot be denied that the necessity of such an appeal is urgent, and the moment seasonable. Whether the dexterity of the champion, or, what we more distrust, the merits of the cause will be found equal to the occasion is another question, on which we feel ourselves forced to appeal to the public decision; for we find that the writer has been pleased, in defence of his friends, to challenge specially and by name-though not in discourteous terms—— the statements and opinions of the Quarterly Review; and we cannot, either in justice to ourselves or to the higher interests involved in the discussion, refuse to take up his gauntlet. We are also well aware that both he and we are preparing the materials for future history; and, whatever may be the result of the tournament between us, it cannot but assist the judgment of posterity to be informed that in June, 1847, there has appeared, for the first time that we know of, one writer who approves of Sir Robert Peel's proceedings in November, 1845, and produces the reasons, good or bad, by which Sir Robert thinks it possible that his conduct can be defended, or at least excused. It would perhaps be hardly fair, and it is altogether needless, to inquire the hand that has held the pen on this occasion; it is enough to know, from the exact and implicit, though somewhat mysterious, discipline established in Sir Robert Peel's party, that no man of it durst adventure to mention his name, much less to give any explanations of we entertain most serious objections—which his argument, ably urged though it be, has in no material degree removed. The system of banking in Scotland, we freely admit, (works admirably where it is; but it yet remains to be proved, that it could have been conducted with the same success, had it not been supported by the vicinity of the English system, with its metallic circulation, and the Bank of England at its head. his motives without his at least tacit permission. We are therefore entitled to consider it as the adopted manifesto of that party, and the authorized apology of—as we think we are still entitled to call him-its leader. We need not say how disagreeable this topic must be to us, for so many years the admirers and advocates of the subject of the apology, and whom we still regard as fallen by no low or dishonourable motive, but from that strange infirmity of character, long suspected by others, and by ourselves at last most reluctantly seen, which has made his whole life a series of inconsistencies, and has led him to disclaim, repudiate, and forfeit, one after another, almost every opinion, principle, and pledge that he had ever adopted. We do not say that some of these changes were not for the better; but supposing them all to have been so, would it not indicate some original weakness or perversity of judgment to have so universally taken the wrong side, and to have been so slow in finding the right one? But, right or wrong, the fact is flagrant, that there is no great event of Sir Robert Peel's public life that has not been a recantation of former professions and a breach of ancient engagements; and that, of all his great powers, that by which he will be best known to posterity will be, that he is the boldest and heartiest eater of his own words that ever exhibited on any political stage. The language of the pamphlet is decent and moderate, and evidently meant for conciliatory; but, unfortunately, the very course of defence which the author adopts-namely, that of justifying Sir Robert Peel, by representing him in all his lamentable proceedings as only following the footsteps of Mr. Pitt and Lord Liverpool, and as sanctioned by the cordial co-operation of Lord Stanley up to a certain point, and by that of the Duke of Wellington to the last-this line of defence, we say, however civil the language may be, is so essentially injurious to the memories of the departed, and to the characters of the living statesmen, that we cannot promise that we shall always be able to speak of such a perversion of facts, and such an abuse of reasoning, in that patient and measured phraseology which is so easy to those whose principles hang loosely about them. When some one in conversation with Dr. Johnson praised the ancient philosophers for the candour and good humour with which the different sects disputed with each other, the Sage replied, Sir, they disputed with good humour because they were not in earnest. You see in Lucian that the Epicurean' (the complaisant votary of expediency) keeps his temper, while the Stoic, who has something positive to preserve, grows angry.' We honestly confess that we T 2 are are angry, but we still hope to keep our temper, though not, : The Policy of Pitt and Peel. Here apt alliteration's artful aid' is introduced to suggest a resemblance between Pitt and Peel, about as real as that between Macedon and Monmouth; but it has also a deeper object. The policy of Peel is thus put in front of the battle, to lead the unwary reader into a notion that it is of his policy that the Conservatives complain. Now true it is that we dissent from the general bearing of his recent policy: we think it erroneous-erroneous even if it was sincere; but we beg leave at the outset, and as the basis of the whole discussion, to state that what he is reproached' with -that which has excited the wide and deep feeling, the abhorrence' (p. 8), the execration' (p. 9), which his Apologist has come forth to assuage-is not his policy, but his conduct-not his want of political judgment or sagacity, but his dishonesty and treachery' (p. 11). The Apologist is more frank in stating the charge so harshly than, we think, successful in answering it. Let us recapitulate the broad facts. 6 Sir Robert Peel solicited, at the general election of 1841, the support of the country on the principle of protection to the agricultural interest, then threatened by the Whigs; the country responded to that call, and on that pledge raised him to power. On his accession to power, he, with a pretty general, though not universal, approbation of his party, made what we thought an important improvement 1 |