Under these circumstances we should seriously occupy ourselves, not in passing laws to make gold scarce, but to create a better market for it than now exists. We should not refuse to accept silver as the representative of our property, seeing that by that means we should sustain the value of all property, and preserve the general interests of commerce from violent fluctuations. To accomplish these important results a few plain enactments would suffice, and I venture to name them.

1. That her Majesty's Mint should be managed by three commissioners, who, like the judges of the land, should be well paid, and removable from office only by an address from the House of Commons.

2. In addition to their present function of manufacturing the current coin of the realm according to the standard fixed by law, the authorities of the Mint should be empowered to issue notes payable to bearer on demand, upon a sufficient deposit of gold and silver of the standard value.

3. Notes of 51. and 10l should be payable in silver only; notes of 201. and upwards in gold.

4. Power might be given the commissioners at those extraordinary junctures which will occasionally present themselves, when the superabundance of silver might happen to be very great, and the scarcity of gold extreme, to fix an agio to be paid by those who required the scarcer metal.

5. Mint notes should be the only legal tender; all Banks should meet their issues either in specie or Mint notes.

I shall enter into no lengthened argument to recommend this plan. All men admit that there should be a reserve of specie somewhere, but there are few who agree in opinion as to the most efficacious means of insuring its presence when it is imperatively called for. I am for dealing with the difficulty by direct means, and in perfect good faith. I contend that we have been shirking it too long, and have only added to the weight of the burden, by vainly trying for fifty years to shift it from one shoulder to another. I would therefore abandon all indirect courses for the future. Every process that is unnecessarily artificial, is radically vicious and defective, and only calculated to produce disappointment when expectation is most intense, and the demand for relief most urgent. In a word, I would make sure of the specie required to pay every note put into circulation as a legal tender, and I submit that we should make sure of it by adopting the plan I have just recommended. It is no fair argument to say that the specie would be unproductive in the Mint. It is equally unproductive under the present system in the Bank of England. Bankers will be the first persons to exclaim against these propositions, because expense will be put upon them if they are obliged to find themselves in gold and silver. But that is one of the principal objects I have in view. I seek to create a general market for gold and silver, and to bring all dealers in those metals to it. It may involve expense, but whenever the cost of procuring gold and silver happens to prove heavy upon a Banker, he will make up for the loss sustained in that respect by charging an additional interest in his rate of discount. A legitimate check will thus be imposed upon over trading and excessive issues. The check, moreover, being applied in this manner to each locality, will always operate equitably. It will not straiten the means of a merchant or trader, in whose department trade is brisk, in order to arrest the career of speculation in quarters where there is no sufficient demand; it will not impoverish the agriculturist in order to bring the too adventurous manufacturer to his senses; it will leave each branch of industry, and every description of property free to obtain its fair representative as occasion may arise, and it will generally equalize prices and profits.

Persons interested in keeping things as they are may urge against a trial of my plan, that we should be as badly off for the precious metals even though it were adopted as we have been. To such rea-soners I reply, that it is natural to expect that the general law of commerce will prove true in this as in other instances, and that an increased market will produce an increased supply. To a certain extent the result I anticipate has been borne out by experience. In the remark from Adam Smith at page 54 of this volume, it is mentioned, that gold and silver became more plentiful in North America since the suppression of the paper currency there. The same thing happened in this country when we returned to cash payments. The Bank of England was no sooner compelled to pay in gold than she accumulated fourteen millions. More recently the United States determined to have a gold currency, and three millions readily found their way across the Atlantic for the purpose.

I respond heartily to the call made by Mr. Jones Loyd in his letter to Mr. Smith of Manchester, but I doubt extremely the virtue of his suggestion for realizing the admirable objects he desires to produce. "Separate," he says, "the management of the circulation, that is, in other words, the power of creating money from Banking business; vest that power exclusively in one body; make all its measures in that capacity perfectly public; let-not the borrowers of money, Government and commerce, approach, with their dangerous and seductive influences, the creator of money; but send them, where their application ought always to be made, to the subordinate distributors of it; let the manager of the circulation be raised above all reach, upon a solid throne of gold, and let him once for all drop his superfluous means into the public treasury, and thenceforth remain, like the sun in our system, by one never varying influence, regulating, controlling, invigorating every thing around him, but himself influenced and moved by none.'"

I echo these sentiments; I would realize these effects, and I submit respectfully but earnestly, that the means I would use for the purpose are much more likely to prove successful than those devised by Mr. Jones Loyd and the London Bankers. They would have but one Bank of issue, and divide the directors of the Bank of England into two departments, one for Banking, and the other for currency, under the hope, far too sanguine to be ever fulfilled, that by separating the rooms in which their business is done, and assigning part to be done in one room and part in another, there would be a change in the views, actions, and effects of the same body of men. Mine is a much more simple and practicable idea. Mine only is the "solid" throne of gold, for Mint notes would unquestionably express the values lodged against them, and be every one of them convertible at all times into specie. Grant this boon, and the Bank of England charter may be prolonged, and Government and commerce may be allowed to derive from that institution all the services they require and desire to enjoy, and it has a profit in affording. The public will be content to let the parties interested suit themselves in their transactions, when the effects produced by them will no longer be a national concern.

There are two parties to the case, the public and the Banks. The argument and state of things most agreeable to the one is not the best for the other. Between the two lies the juste milieu. The Banker, taught to consider the gold and silver he is obliged to keep in his coffers so much dead stock, seeks to substitute paper for it. The public, sensible that the more paper is current, the more the stock of specie will be diminished, dread a dearth, because they know by sad experience that, when really wanted, it will not be purchasable, and the value of their property and its produce will be proportiona-bly deteriorated. The merit of a wise legislator will accordingly be displayed in avoiding extremes with either party, and providing, that while specie is economized by a sound paper currency, it shall not be exhausted.