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    Uka Mah . By J > arwehd . ( Hardwicke ) ,- —We cannot describe or criticise this volume . It resepables a common-place book , being full of miscellaneous scraps on . an infinite variety of topics—the Indian Archipelago , the Arabs , the Hebrew Empire , British India , the Recovery of Debts , and Colonel Maoeroni . Where did Darwehd find the phrase . ¦ " Butterflies like flowers and flowers like butterflies" applied to Indian island nature ? He marks s » the seven great men of our day , Mazzini , Louis Napoleon , Sir James Brooke , Kossuth , General Walker , Omar Pacha , and Chevalier Bun-sen . We cannot be angry when so enthusiastic a writer is rhapsodical . Some acceptable reprints lie on our table . The second , and third volumes of Campbell ' s laves of the Lord Chancellors ( Murray ) , uniform , with the cheap edition of Mr . Hallam ' s works ; two volumes of Charles Lever ' s

    popular novels ( Chapman and Hall ); the eleventh volume of Chalmer ' s select works— -Church and College EstabUshvients ( Constable ) ; and TffrigJifsProvincial Dictionary , forming two -volumes of Bonn ' s Philological Library , a very complete and satisfactory production ; a second edition of Macnaught ¦ on Inspiration , ( Longman and Co . ) - We have also four pretty volumes , in brown cloth gilt , of Hodgson ' s Household Novels—Stuart of Dunlcath \ by Mrs . Norton ; Arrah Neil , by Gr . P . R . James ; and The Scalp Hunters-soul Rijle Rangers , by Captain Mayne Reid . They are well got up and cheap . Jules Gerard ' s Lion Hunting and Snorting Life in Algeria is reprinted by Messrs . Addey and Messrs . Lambert . Fenimore Cooper ' s admirable ¦ story , The Chainbearer , forms the hundred and fifty-eighth volume of the Parlour Library ( Hodgson ) ; to which , serie 3 Edgar Huntleyj or , The Sleep-¦ walfcer by Charles Brocljden Brown , has also been added .

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    have supposed , however , that even bank-notes are not money and ™ '" how practically such a theoretical question affects the present K - when we learn that M . Michel Chevalier , the very highest econoST- tellect in France , who is now at the elbow of the Emperor dictati , ? ??" course of economical reforms , says that " a line of demarcation el i distinct , has never been established between a bank-note and a ' hill f change . " Colonel Torrens admirably works out the illustrationsMf «?" fallacy . He shows how a merchant with a slender amount of original m *? engaged in extensive transactions , and holding bank-notes in his hand t !» be able to close his engagements with ample profit ; while ,- with ¦ bills ' change in his hands , at a period of pressure , he might be unable to spIHI CX ~ for notes , and would go into the Gazelle instead of continuing a cw prosperity . It is here that Colonel Torrens beats others in the same nf he has the capacity of taking up a question at its simple origin -vS \ * working it out to its most complex details ; having from firs t to W + T ? same clear-sighted perception which prevents him from falling ¦ , w « * i blunders that have betrayed other intellects . ^ t 0 - the

    Even Mr . Mill , although , he perceives that bank-notes have winch bilk exchange have not , the faculty of closing accounts / is led away into tl ? notion that they have something in common from the fact that bills of change may " affect prices . " The bank-note , when as in this country aWvi tender , but absolutel y convertible into coin , is as literally money as tS sovereign ; while it is in many respects more valuable . In large sums it is much more portable . It possesses , which coin does not , a peculiar ouarantep for tracing and recovering it in case of loss ; if even it be destroyed its valu p may be recovered . These are qualities in -vyhich it is superior to the metallic currency . In Hamburg notes have to be issued against a metallic denosifc exclusively ; the effect of which would be in this country to necessitate the lodging of fourteen millions in gold , in addition to the amount usually lodWd Dui lnamount ot

    m non . JLs bullion against which notes are issued mav fluctuate to a very large extent ; it has never yet exhausted that 8 , 000 000 / which is about the amount that may be considered the fluctuating * superficies in the Bank , the body of water between high and low tide : the 14 ^ O 0 O , O 0 OZ is below the lowest neap tide . Were the Hamburg plan adopted , there would probably be 14 , 000 , 0001 . of gold slumbering in the cofiers of' the Bank so much actual property stowed away and useless . The act of 1844 releases the 14 , 000 , 000 / ., but retains for us the 8 , 000 , 000 / ., more or less , which isthe working part of the stock of bullion available to secure convertibility . This argument is admirably worked out in Colonel Torrens ' s volume . We the more insist upon it , since , even in the very latest discussion , -we have seen Mr . James Wilson , one of the ablest writers on the subject , influential and actually in the Government , insisting in the Economist that bank-notes are not an " important" element in the currency !

    Colonel Torrens gives an excellent account of the panic of 1847 , which was so severe a trial to a new system at the Bank ; and he then remarks : — It would seem to be a self-evident conclusion from these facts , that the commercial revulsion was not caused by a contraction of the circulation . On the 13 tli , 23 rd , and 30 th of October , during the greatest intensity of the monetary pressure , the circulation in the hands of the public was respectively 20 , 39 < i , 000 £ , 19 , 359 , 0007 ., and 20 , 309 , 000 ? ., being equal , to-within about 200 , 000 ? ., of the actual circulation during the corresponding weeks of January before the commercial pressure had commenced ; while the private securities which represented the extent of the advances of the Bank in support of commercial credit , and which had been ouly 12 , 700 , 000 / . in the three last weeks of January , swelled to 19 , 900 , 000 / ., 18 , 000 , 00 0 ^ , and 19 , 400 , 000 ^ ., ia tho corresponding weeks of October .

    It has been contended that , although the circulation in the hands of the public , and the aid afforded to commerce by the Bank , -were greater during the intensity of tlio pressure than they had been in periods of high confidence , yet that that pressure was materially aggravated by the knowledge on . the part of the public , that as the Banlt could no longer meet the demands on its deposits by unlimited issues , it was deprived of the power of supporting commercial credit by indefinite advances . But it must bo apparent , upon a dispassionate review of the facts , that the knowledge on the part of the public and of the Bank directors that unlimited issues and indefinite advances were no longer practicable , so far from having increased the monetary' pressure , saved the Bank of England from insolvency ' , and the country from the disgrace and tho

    TOEEENS ON THE ACT OF 1844 . The . Princi ples and Practical Operation of Sir Robert Peel ' s Act of 1844 ^ Explained and Defended . By K . Torrens , Esq ., F . R . S . Longman and Co . Thereis one peculiarity in banking , as a subject of inquiry , in which it differs ^ from , all other subjects of social importance . Exceedingly simple in its main principles , so that its rationale is apparent to plain common sense , it becomes excessively complex in its secondary principles , and in its application to the various circumstances of trade , society , politics , and the usages of other countries . Hence , those who are "better acquainted with it than most of us , are persons who are more liable to go astray . Thus we see the anost popular master of logic and political economy , John Stuart Mill , led into mistakes which ar& palpable to the plainest understanding , as soon as

    the nature of the error is explained . It is this which renders the controversy respecting the Bank of England and the renewal or modification of its charter so difficult and so likely to lead to * bad practical measures . Hence the value of labour performed by men that can handle the subject at once practically and theoretically , lord Overstone , the practical banker , who lias a command of theory , assisted in the deliberations upon which the present Bank Charter was arranged . On its last'trial , Mr . George Arbuthnot , F « dPs pr ivate secretary , comes forwardto re-establish the main principle of that Act , and to point out some of the chief fallacies by which its most accomplished assailants were led away . Colonel Torrens , a master of theoretical with command of b

    economy , a practical anking , completes the case © a this side of the question . Colonel Torrens has assisted in all the " discus-« ions that have aflected the position of the Bank , most especially the discussions on the legislation of 1844 . In 1848 , Colonel Torrens produced B iract on the principles and practical operation of Sir Robert Peel ' s Acts cf 1844 ; and the volume before us professes to be a second edition of that tract , but it ia in fact a new work , of -which that is the nucleus , and it now settles jaiany a point recently unsettled . Valuable as it is for present purposes , the book is interesting in itself : it presents us the same man refuting fallacies in 1808 , and bringing back theory to a clear perception of common -eense ; and then , half a century later , performing exactly the same service with exactly the same skill and perfection of discrimination .

    It would seem unnecessary at the present day to " refute the economists " in showing that the agricultural is not the only source of wealth ; that ¦ division of employments is in reality a . creative process , since it equally enables the manufacturer and the agriculturer to produce commodities on a much larger Bcale . But the whole doctrine of protection was based upon the imperfect conception of the theoretical truth . It is true that when employments are divided between two sets of hands in the same country , the whole difference of augmented wealth created by the division applies ' to that country . True , that if commodities be exchanged between two countries , the half of the increase accrues to the foreign country . But if the foreion

    country can produce a commodity more easily than the domestic producer , by setting free the domestic producer for labour more congenial to the native character and climate , the division of employments still absolutely increases the domestic wealth . Colonel Torrens shows in this paper that the trader who goes between the two is erroneously classed as a " nonproductive , " since he ministers in the most positive and direct manner to increase produotion . In the same tract , the author proves that the evils attending upon combination , like those in smuggling , grow from the principle ot protection . Leave trade free , he says , and the race of forestallers will < usappear . It was thirty-six years later that our best statesman in practical economy , Peel , arrived at a sufficient comprehension of the full validity of tfieae truths to apply them to our legislation ; and , in reprinting the tract , S ° \ Tt £ Orreaa i" ? ° u ly fu - lfiLj his P * QP <« ed purpose of establishing his right to bo regarded as tho original nropounder of the corrected theorv thv an

    SSShlo ?«« 1 FT *? -n Ved fr < ? m forei 8 n trade ' ^ Presents us with an ad , S ^?«» v xSv ? 1 lllu 8 ^ ti 011 Of tho de S ^ in whk * tho most tangible tS ^ S ^ Pt ^^^^^^^ ^^ ^ S ^ SSStE ^ E ^ iS

    anarchy which that insolvency would have involved . Had the Bank retained the power of recruiting its reserve by increasing its issues upon securities , it could not , by any possible exercise of that power , have maintained the circulation at a higher amount than that determined by the monetary equilibrium of the commercial ¦ world The solo result , as far as regards the amount of the circulation , would have been that the issues upon bullion would have decreased as the issues upon sectirities increased . Had the Bank persisted through the month of April in the course which it hnl steadily pursued from January to that time , tho result here stated must huve ensued . The bullion would have all disappeared , and suspension would have become inevitable . That the Bank did not so proceed , and that suspension did not occur at the end of April , or in tho course of tlio following month , is solely attributable to tlio Act of

    1844 . The course taken by Lord John Russell and Sir Charles AVood , as Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer , in recommending an increase of the circulation beyond 14 , 000 , 000 / ., is truly characterised as " a masterly and successful sti'olec of policy 5 " but it was not an act of hiuikiny . It y proper for the Government to strike out at the day ; it would be most improper to contemplate it ns a prospective " relaxation ; " it was 11 coup d ' atttt , and no bank charter should contain a clause with provisional authority for a prospective coup d ' etat . The crisis of 1847 has been a favourite point

    with the opponents of the Act . Mr . Mill and other writers have always treated it with some striking siqiprcssio veri ; they have , for instance , overlooked the fact that " previous to the Act of 1844 , the Bank , while prolonging the periods of speculative excitement , and intensifying tho severity of subsequent recoil , endangered tho convertibility of the note circulation , find so far from having been able ' to render invaluable service during a , revulsion , by coming forward with advances to support solvent firms , when all other paper and almost all mercantile credit had become comparativel y valueless , ' the Bank itself became included in the list of firms verg ing on insolvency . "

    Another striking example of fallacy is the assertion that under tho Act of 1844 the Bank is reduced to the compulsory function of issuing notes against bullion , and that it has no power of increasing the currency save by

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    258 THE LEADER , [ No , 364 , Saturday ^ —; _ ^ . — .. . — - XJ -J

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), March 14, 1857, page 258, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2184/page/18/