ary claims contracted since 1797, when the depreciation in the currency first commenced, should be discharged in this standard for no principle either of justice or good faith requires that a debtor, who engaged to pay a pound note, then equivalent only to 96 grains of gold, should now be called upon to pay his creditor a pound sterling equivalent to 120 grains of this precious metal It would however be just, and by no means impracticable, to give the old creditors either of the State or of individuals creditors whose claims had been settled on the standard of the pound ster!ling which subsisted previously to the suspension of casha pay ments a right to exact from their debtors an addition to the nominal amount of their demands, proportioned to the difference of the value of the standard on which their loans were made, and that in which they should be repaid, supposing a reduction to be made in the weight of metal which at present constitutes the English pound sterling. bas vestros od tunnzo di I

By proceeding in this manner justice would be done to all the world, and the good faith pledged to every creditor would be lob served in the most scrupulous and honorable manner; all would have their dues rendered them, and nothing would be taken froin any one which fair and honest dealing did not sanction. Therold creditors, having an addition made to the sum total of their pecuniary claims equivalent to the fall in the value of the pound sterling in which they would be repaid, would be saved from the injustice which would otherwise arise from an alteration in the weight of our metallic standard. The new creditors also would have justice done them-they would be repaid on the standard in which their loans were advanced; and all those who have fixed pecuniary stipulations of any description to fulfil would be rescued from the unjust and ruinous pressure now felt bythemias the inevitable consequence of the alteration made in the standard of value on which their engagements were entered into, and which takes from them 25 per cent. more than they bargained to pay, in order to put into the pockets of those who have demands upon them 25 per cent. more than they have any pretensionoor shadow of a claim to receive.up busten to therdeildst89 9dt

This plan, however just and equitable in itself, will, dy have little doubt, be designated, by many, a tampering with our currency, and will meet with vehement opposition om the partipf those who are pleased to consider themselves the only consistent advocates of an invariable standard of value. But I contend against this party-that those who recommend a revision of our present standard of value are the individuals who, in their conduct, exhibit the greatest regard for an invariable standard, and manifest the strongest wishes to remedy the evils which a tampering with the currency can never fail to produce. Those who recommend an

alteration of the present standard, maintain that an unjust addition having been made to the value of the pound sterling, in which nearly all the pecuniary contracts now subsisting had been entered into, it should now, in justice and fairness, be restored, not to its value previously to the suspension of cash payments in 1797, bu to its metallic value during the average of the years which elapsed between that event and the resumption of payments in specie by the Bank. They accuse their opponents, and it must be acknowledged with every appearance of justice, with having sanctioned an unjust tampering with the currency; and they simply require that the evils produced by this ill-advised measure should be instantly removed, by restoring the standard of value to the weight which the paper pound sterling represented during the period when all, or at least very nearly all, our present pecuniary stipulations were formed. 9turitano segr

If it cannot be controverted, that during the suspension of cash payments by the Bank, a depreciation had taken place in the stand ard value of the pound sterling; that a pound-note would not have commanded, in the market, of a guinea; that seven-eighths of the engagements subsisting between the State and its creditors, and nineteen-twentieths of the engagements between individuals, had been formed on this depreciated standard-it must follow as an inference which cannot be refuted, that the restoration of the metallic standard to the weight of gold which it contained previously to the commencement of this depreciation, was a measure preg-nant with palpable injustice and oppression: and it is not a little extraordinary, that those who demand the removal of this instruyment of oppression-those who require that the standard in which payments are to be made, should be the same in weight and value with that in which contracts for such payments had been entered binto should be accused of recommending a variable standard of bvalues and of approving a tampering with the currency. On the ocontrary, they recommend a revision and alteration of the present a standardy because they condemn, and would by all means disCourage, all improper tampering with the currency--they consider the establishment of a standard equivalent to the metallic value of the pound sterling in which all pecuniary engagements were formed -during the long period intervening between the suspension of cash payments in 1797, and the bill passed in 1819, enacting their gradual resumption, as a measure much less violent, and interfering samuch less with the state of our currency, than the maintenance of Jan unjust standard of very recent date, and which barely begins to Jibel felt in its operation. bisbagie eds Some, who do not rate the depreciation which had taken place in the currency of this country during the suspension of cash pay

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ments higher than ten per cent., assert that it is too trifling in its amount to require an alteration of the present standard. But even granting for the sake of argument, that the depreciation in question had not exceeded ten per cent, it cannot be for a moment conceded that even this amount is too insignificant to merit consideration. The addition of one-tenth to all pecuniary payments cannot appear, to any man who gives himself time for reflection, an object of trifling importance. The addition which an increase of ten per cent. makes to the pressure of taxation, is by no means inconsiderable an addition of two millions and a half to a revenue already amounting to upwards of fifty millions, is a measure which nothing but the last necessity could justify. But, when it is remembered that this addition does not stop here-that it pervades the whole circle of the private engagements subsisting between individuals, it assumes a magnitude much more serious, and presents an aspect of sufficient importance to demand the immediate interference of the legislature. The payments annually made in this country, as rent, tithes, taxes, wages, interest of private loans, and in various other forms, cannot be estimated at much less than 500 millions; and an addition of merely 10 per cent. to the metallic value of the standard pound sterling, would commit an injury on those who have these payments to make, amounting to 50 millions per annum. Do these, therefore, who represent a depreciation of ten per cent. as too trifling to deserve consideration, mean to contend that an addition of 50 millions-of a sum equal to the whole revenue levied by the State-to the just payments, which the collective body of debtors in this country had contracted to make, is an evil too insignificant in its amount, to require legislative interference. It appears to me that an addition of only five per cent. to the just demands of the public and private creditor, would be an injury and a grievance of sufficient magnitude, not only to justify but even to demand, in the most irresistible manner, the adoption of some remedy by which it may be removed. But if, on inquiry, this depreciation should turn out to have been 15, 20, or 25 per cent. the injustice of the present standard must then swell to an amount which by its pressure must inevitably crush all debtors who have pecuniary stipulations, of any description, to fulfil.

On the whole, therefore, I feel persuaded that every man, who considers the subject with the attention and impartiality which its importance demands, will be convinced that the present standard. of the metallic pound sterling is an unjust measure of value; that to the alteration made in its weight, by the late regulation of the currency, must principally be ascribed the pressure which is now ready to crush the Agriculturist, and the only measure which can afford him the relief which he solicits, is the restoration of the

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standard of the pound sterling to the weight of gold, which it represented, or would have exchanged for in the market, during the period in which his pecuniary engagements were formed.

Supposing, however, that from some mistaken views of consistency, it should be decided, that cash payments having been resumed and the weight of the metallic standard of the pound sterling having been fixed at 120 grains of gold, it would be inexpedient to disturb this regulation, however unjust in itself and oppressive in its consequences-it then remains for me to develope the second and least efficient plan by which the fatal consequences of such a determination to maintain the integrity of the present standard may in some degree be averted; by which the distress produced by an alteration in the standard of value may be somewhat alleviated.

If then it should be finally decided that the present standard of value should be inflexibly retained, justice requires that a deduction should be made from all payments proportioned to the difference between the standard in which alone they can legally be made, and that in which the stipulations for making them were entered into. }

All money payments, not immutably settled by contracts em. bracing a term of years, will, no doubt, soon adjust themselves to the alteration made in the standard value of the metallic pound sterling. This will be the case with the rent of all farms, which are let from year to year. The necessity of reducing the nominal amount of the rent, in proportion to the increased value of the standard in which it is paid, will soon place the landlord and tenant in the same relative situation, which they occupied previously to the regulation of the currency in 1819. But, in the instances of lands let on leases for a term of years, the interference of the legislature is imperatively required, to prevent the occupiers of such farms from being utterly ruined. For, as long as these contracts last, the occupier cannot give up his farm, and the landlord will be legally entitled to exact, in the form of rent, 25 per cent. more than his tenant promised to pay him: this unjust demand must speedily exhaust the whole capital of the occupier, and reduce both himself and his family to penury and indigence. The legislature should in this case instantly step in between the debtor and creditor; it should not, for one moment, allow one man to be thus placed at the mercy of another; it should not permit it to be in the power of any land-owner, who had let his land on lease, to take advantage of the alteration made in the value of the currency, and commit a cruel act of injustice and oppression by exacting from his tenant, under the color of law, 25 per cent. more than he had engaged to pay. If the present standard of value should receive no modification, every principle of justice requires that a bill