Chapter XIII (1)

The burn sings under the moon, and you cannot see it; but yonder where it bends round the dark corner of this field, it glimmers like a silver bow. Something of witchcraft and magic is in the place and time. Above, the sky overflooded with the moonbeams; behind, the Firth quivering and trembling under them in an ecstasy of silent light; below, the grass which presses upon the narrow footpath so dark and colourless, with here and there a visible gem of dew shining among its blades like a fallen star. Along that high-road, which stretches its broad white line westward, lads and lasses are trooping home, and their voices strike clearly into the charmed air, but do not blend with it, as does that lingering music which dies away in the distance far on the other side of the town, and the soft voice of this burn near at hand. The homeward procession to the Milton is different from the outward bound. Yonder, steadily at their sober everyday pace, go the miller and his wife. You can see her crimson plaid faintly, through the silvered air which pales its colour; but you cannot mistake the broad outline of John Stewart, or the little active figure of the mistress of the Milton. Young Kilbrachmont and Isabell have gone home by another road, and Janet and her betrothed are “convoying” some of their friends on the way to Pittenweem, and will not turn back till they pass that little eerie house at the Kirk Latch, where people say the Red Slippers delight to promenade; so never look doubtingly over your shoulder, anxious Willie Morison, in fear lest the noisy couple yonder overtake you, and spoil this silent progress home. Now and then Mrs Stewart, rapidly marching on before, turns her head to see that you are in sight; but nothing else—for gradually these voices on the road soften and pass away—comes on your ear or eye unpleasantly to remind you that there is a host of beings in the world, besides yourself and this shy reluctant companion whose hand rests on your arm.

For under the new laced mantle, of which she was so proud this morning, Katie Stewart’s heart is stirring like a bird. She is a step in advance of him, eager to quicken this slow pace; but he lingers—constantly lingers, and some spell is on her, that she cannot bid him hasten. Willie Morison!—only the mate of that pretty Levant schooner which lies in Leith harbour; and the little proud Katie tries to be angry at the presumption which ventures to approach her—her, to whom Sir Alexander did respectful homage—whom the Honourable Andrew signalled out for admiration; but Katie’s pride, only as it melts and struggles, makes the magic greater. He does not speak a great deal; but when he does, she stumbles strangely in her answers; and then Katie feels the blood flush to her face, and again her foot advances quickly on the narrow path, and her hand makes a feint to glide out of that restraining arm. No, think it not, little Katie—once you almost wooed your heart to receive into it, among all the bright dreams which have their natural habitation there, the courtly youthful knight, whose reverent devoirs charmed you into the land of old romance; but, stubborn and honest, the little wayward heart refused. Now let your thoughts, alarmed and anxious, press round their citadel and keep this invader out. Alas! the besieged fortress trembles already, lest its defenders should fail and falter; and angry and petulant grow the resisting thoughts, and they swear to rash vows in the silence. Rash vows—vows in which there lies a hot impatient premonition, that they must be broken very soon.

Under those reeds, low beneath those little overhanging banks, tufted with waving rushes, you scarcely could guess this burn was there, but for the tinkling of its unseen steps; but they walk beside it like listeners entranced by fairy music. The silence does not oppress nor embarrass them now, for that ringing voice fills it up, and is like a third person—a magical elfin third person, whose presence disturbs not their solitude.

“Katie!” cries the house-mother, looking back to mark how far behind those lingerers are; and Katie again impatiently quickens her pace, and draws her companion on. The burn grows louder now, rushing past the idle wheel of the mill, and Mrs Stewart has crossed the little bridge, and they hear, through the still air, the hasty sound with which she turns the great key in the door. Immediately there are visible evidences that the mistress of the house is within it again, for a sudden glow brightens the dark window, and throws a cheerful flickering light from the open door; but the moon gleams in the dark burn, pursuing the foaming water down that descent it hurries over; and the wet stones, which impede its course, glimmer dubiously in the light which throws its splendour over all. Linger, little Katie—slower and slower grow the steps of your companion; linger to make the night beautiful—to feel in your heart as you never felt before, how beautiful it is.

Only Willie Morison! And yet a little curiosity prompts you to look out and watch him from your window in the roof as you lay your cloak aside. He is lingering still by the burn—leaving it with reluctant, slow steps—looking back and back as if he could not make up his mind to go away; and hastily, with a blush which the darkness gently covers, you withdraw from the window, little Katie, knowing that it is quite impossible he could have seen you, yet trembling lest he has.

The miller has the great Bible on the table, and bitter is the reproof which meets the late-returning Janet, as her mother stands at the open door and calls to her across the burn. It is somewhat late, and Janet yawns as she seats herself in the background, out of the vigilant mother’s eye, which, seeing everything, gives no sign of weariness; and Katie meditatively leans her head upon her hand, and places her little Bible in the shadow of her arm, as the family devotion begins. But again and again, before it has ended, Katie feels the guilty blood flush over her forehead; for the sacred words have faded from before her downcast eyes, and she has seen only the retreating figure going slowly away in the moonlight—a blush of indignant shame and self-anger, too, as well as guilt; for this is no Sir Alexander—no hero—but only Willie Morison.

“Send that monkey hame, Isabell,” said John Stewart. He had just returned thanks and taken up his bonnet, as he rose from their homely breakfast-table next morning. “Send that monkey hame, I say; I’ll no hae my house filled wi’ lads again for ony gilpie’s pleasure. Let Katie’s joes gang up to Kellie if they maun make fules o’ themsels. Janet’s ser’d, Gude be thankit; let’s hae nae mair o’t noo.”

“It’s my desire, John Stewart, you would just mind your ain business, and leave the house to me,” answered his wife. “If there’s ae sight in the world I like waur than anither, it’s a man pitting his hand into a house-wifeskep. I ne’er meddle with your meal. Robbie and you may be tooming it a’ down the burn, for ought I ken; but leave the lassies to me, John, my man. I hae a hand that can grip them yet, and that’s what ye ne’er were gifted with.”

The miller shrugged his shoulders, threw on his bonnet, but without any further remonstrance went away.

“And how lang are ye to stay, Katie?” resumed Mrs Stewart.

“I’ll gang up to Kilbrachmont, if ye’re wearying on me, mother,” answered the little belle.

“Haud your peace, ye cuttie. Is that a way to answer your mother, and me slaving for your guid, nicht and day? But hear ye, Katie Stewart, I’ll no hae Willie Morison coming courting here; ae scone’s enow o’ a baking. Janet there is to be cried with Alick—what he could see in her, I canna tell—next Sabbath but twa; and though the Morisons are very decent folk, we’re sib enough wi’ ae wedding. So ye’ll mind what I say, if Willie Morison comes here at e’en.”

“I dinna ken what you mean, mother,” said Katie indignantly.

“I’ll warrant Katie thinks him no guid enough,” said Janet, with a sneer.

“Will ye mind your wark, ye taupie? What’s your business with Katie’s thoughts? And let me never mair see you sit there with a red face, Katie Stewart, and tell a lie under my very e’en. I’ll no thole’t. Janet, redd up that table. Merran, you’re wanted out in the East Park; if Robbie and you canna be done with that pickle taties the day, ye’ll ne’er make saut to your kail; and now I’m gaun in to Anster mysel’—see ye pit some birr in your fingers the time I’m away.”

“Never you heed my mother, Katie,” said Janet benevolently, as Mrs Stewart’s crimson plaid began to disappear over the field. “She says aye a hantle mair than she means; and Willie may come the nicht, for a’ that.”

“Willie may come! And do you think _I_ care if he never crossed Anster Brig again?” exclaimed Katie with burning indignation.

“Weel, I wouldna say. He’s a bonnie lad,” said Janet, as she lifted the shining plates into the lower shelf of the oak aumrie. “And if you dinna care, Katie, what gars ye have such a red face?”

“It’s the fire,” murmured Katie, with sudden humiliation; for her cheeks indeed were burning—alas! as the brave Sir Alexander’s name could never make them burn.

“Weel, he’s to sail in three weeks, and he’ll be a fule if he troubles his head about a disdainfu’ thing that wouldna stand up for him, puir chield. The first night ever Alick came after me, I wouldna have held my tongue and heard onybody speak ill of him; and yesterday’s no the first day—no by mony a Sabbath in the kirk, and mony a night at hame—that Willie Morison has gien weary looks at you.”

“He can keep his looks to himsel,” said Katie angrily, as the wheel _birled_ under her impatient hand. “It was only to please ye a’ that I let him come hame with me last night; and he’s no a bonnie lad, and I dinna care for him, Janet.”

Janet, with the firelight reddening that round, stout, ruddy arm, with which she lifts from the crook the suspended kettle, pauses in the act to look into Katie’s face. The eyelashes tremble on the flushed cheek—the head is drooping—poor little Katie could almost cry with vexation and shame.

Merran is away to the field—the sisters are alone; but Janet only ventures to laugh a little as she goes with some bustle about her work, and records Katie’s blush and Katie’s anger for the encouragement of Willie Morison. Janet, who is experienced in such matters, thinks these are good signs.

And the forenoon glides away, while Katie sits absorbed and silent, turning the pretty wheel, and musing on all these affronts which have been put upon her. Not the first by many days on which Willie Morison has dared to think of her! And she remembers Sir Alexander, and that moonlight night on which she watched him looking up at Lady Anne Erskine’s window, but very faintly, very indifferently, comes before her the dim outline of the youthful knight; whereas most clearly visible in his blue jacket, and with the fair hair blown back from his ruddy, manly face, appears this intruder, this Willie Morison.

The days are growing short. Very soon now the dim clouds of the night droop over these afternoon hours in which Mrs Stewart says, “Naebody can ever settle to wark.” It is just cold enough to make the people out of doors brisk in their pace, and to quicken the blood it exhilarates; and the voices of the field-labourers calling to each other as the women gather up the potato baskets and hoes which they have used in their work, and the men loose their horses from the plough, and lead them home, ring into the air with a clear musical cadence which they have not at any other time. Over the dark Firth, from which now and then you catch a long glistening gleam, which alone in the darkness tells you it is there, now suddenly blazes forth that beacon on the May. Not a sober light, shining under glass cases with the reflectors of science behind, but an immense fire piled high up in that iron cage which crowns the strong grey tower; a fiery, livid, desperate light, reddening the dark waters which welter and plunge below, so that you can fancy it rather the torch of a forlorn hope, fiercely gleaming upon ships dismasted and despairing men, than the soft clear lamp of help and kindness guiding the coming and going passenger through a dangerous way.

The night is dark, and this ruddy window in the Milton is innocent of a curtain. Skilfully the fire has been built, brightly it burns, paling the ineffectual lamp up there, in its cruise on the high mantelpiece. The corners of the room are dark, and Merran, still moving about here and there, like a wandering star, crosses the orbit of this homely domestic sun, and anon mysteriously disappears into the gloom. Here, in an arm-chair, sits the miller, his bonnet laid aside, and in his hand a Caledonian Mercury, not of the most recent date, which he alternately elevates to the lamplight, and depresses to catch the bright glow of the fire; for the miller’s eyes are not so young as they once were, though he scorns spectacles still.

Opposite him, in the best place for the light, sits Mrs Stewart, diligently mending a garment of stout linen, her own spinning, which time has begun slightly to affect. But her employment does not entirely engross her vigilant eyes, which glance perpetually round with quick scrutiny, accompanied by remark, reproof, or bit of pithy advice—advice which no one dares openly refuse to take.

Janet is knitting a grey “rig-and-fur” stocking, a duplicate of these ones which are basking before the fire on John Stewart’s substantial legs. Constantly Janet’s clue is straying on the floor, or Janet’s wires becoming entangled; and when her mother’s eyes are otherwise directed, the hoiden lets her hands fall into her lap, and gives her whole attention to the whispered explosive jokes which Alick Morison is producing behind her chair.

Over there, where the light falls fully on her, though it does not do her so much service as the others, little Katie gravely sits at the wheel, and spins with a downcast face. Her dress is very carefully arranged—much more so than it would have been in Kellie—and the graceful cambric ruffles droop over her gloved arms, and she holds her head, stooping a little forward indeed, but still in a dignified attitude, with conscious pride and involuntary grace. Richly the flickering firelight brings out the golden gloss of that curl upon her cheek, and the cheek itself is a little flushed; but Katie is determinedly grave and dignified, and very rarely is cheated into a momentary smile.

For he is here, this Willie Morison! lingering over her wheel and her, a great shadow, speaking now and then when he can get an opportunity; but Katie looks blank and unconscious—will not hear him—and holds her head stiffly in one position rather than catch a glimpse of him as he sways his tall person behind her. Other lingering figures, half in the gloom, half in the light, encircle the little company by the fireside, and contribute to the talk, which, among them, is kept up merrily—Mrs Stewart herself leading and directing it, and only the dignified Katie quite declining to join in the gossip and rural raillery, which, after all, is quite as witty, and—save that it is a little Fifish—scarcely in any respect less delicate than the _badinage_ of more refined circles.

“It’s no often Anster gets a blink of your daughter. Is Miss Katie to stay lang?” asked a young farmer, whom Katie’s dress and manner had awed into humility, as she intended they should.

“Katie, ye’re no often so mim. Whatfor can ye no answer yoursel?” said Mrs Stewart.

“Lady Anne is away to England with Lady Betty—for Lord Colville’s ship’s come in,” said Katie sedately. “There’s nobody at the Castle but Lady Erskine. Lady Anne is to be back in three weeks. She says that in her letter.”

In her letter! Little Katie Stewart then receives letters from Lady Anne Erskine! The young farmer was put down; visions of seeing her a countess yet crossed his eyes and disenchanted him. “She’ll make a bonnie lady; there’s few of them like her; but she’ll never do for a poor man’s wife,” he muttered to himself as he withdrew a step or two from the vicinity of the unattainable sour plums.

But not so Willie Morison. “I’ll be three weeks of sailing mysel,” said the mate of the schooner, scarcely above his breath; and no one heard him but Katie.

Three weeks! The petulant thoughts rushed round their fortress, and vowed to defend it to the death. But in their very heat, alas! was there not something which betrayed a lurking traitor in the citadel, ready to display the craven white flag from its highest tower?

GOLD—EMIGRATION—FOREIGN DEPENDENCE—TAXATION.

Before the following pages issue from the press, the contest involved in the Parliamentary Elections will be over. It is useless to speculate, therefore, on what will so soon be determined by a result which, for the time at least, will settle who is to hold the reins of power. Recording our confident hope that the Conservative party will obtain such a majority as may enable them to carry on the Government on those principles which can alone heal the wounds and allay the feuds which the policy of their predecessors have implanted in this country, it is of more importance at this time to inquire into the great and lasting interests of the nation, and the present circumstances in our ever-changing situation which most loudly call for attention, and must ere long force themselves upon the consideration of whatever Government is placed by the people at the head of affairs. The observations we are to offer are chiefly of a practical and remedial kind; for the changes to which they refer are such as are altogether beyond the reach of dispute, and on which all parties, however much divided on other subjects, are agreed.

The first of these subjects, in point of importance, beyond all question, both to the present interests and future destinies of the Empire, is the vast increase in the annual supply of gold for the use of the globe, which the late discoveries in California and Australia have made. Here, fortunately, there is no room for dispute; and, in fact, there is no dispute about the facts. It is conceded on all sides that the annual supply of the precious metals, before the new discoveries, was somewhat below £10,000,000 a-year; of which about £6,000,000 was the annual waste by the wearing of coin, or the absorption of the precious metals in objects of luxury; and that before the end of 1851 this annual supply had risen to £30,000,000. There has been very little addition to the annual waste; so that the quantity annually added to the sum total of the precious metals in this world has been multiplied at least _fivefold_ during the last three years. It has risen from £4,000,000 annually to at least £20,000,000. And the recent accounts from Australia leave no room for doubt that this increase in the supply, how great soever, will be largely added to; for it appears that from 9th October to 9th April the yield of the Australian gold mines was above £3,000,000; and there appears to be no limits to the extent of the auriferous regions. It is quite certain, therefore, that the annual addition to the stock of the precious metals in the globe, will this year, and for a long period to come, be at least SIX TIMES what it was before Providence revealed these hidden treasures to a suffering world.

The effect of this upon the price of gold may be judged of by the fact, that that metal is now selling at Melbourne for £3 an ounce, while the Mint price is £3, 17s. 10½d., which the bank is still obliged to give for all the gold brought to its doors! Sir Robert Peel said that “he could not by any effort of his understanding form any other idea of a pound sterling but a certain determinate _weight of gold metal_;” and the _Times_, in the pride of its heart at the vast effect of his monetary system in depressing the price of produce of every soil, and enhancing the value of money, boasted, within the last three years, that that system “had _rendered the sovereign worth two sovereigns_.” We have not observed lately anything said in that able journal about the incomparable steadiness of a standard of value founded on “a determinate weight of gold;” nor do we hear any repetition, by its gifted authors, of its boasts about having rendered “the sovereign worth two sovereigns.” On the contrary, according to their usual system, when they see a change fairly set in, and likely to be lasting, they have gone at once over to the other side, and fairly out-Heroded Herod in their estimate of the prodigious effect upon general prices of the vast additions recently made to the metallic treasures of the world. The journal which was so strong upon Sir Robert Peel’s policy having rendered the sovereign worth two sovereigns, has lately issued the following just and striking observations upon the probable effect on prices of all sorts of the entire repeal of that policy by the hand of nature:—

“To arrive at an exact solution, it would be necessary to ascertain
the amount of gold and silver in the world, and the present annual
consumption for coinage and the arts. This is impossible, and
conjectural quantities must consequently be taken. The total of coin
has been guessed at £400,000,000. Of this £150,000,000 may be assumed
to be gold, and £250,000,000 silver. The annual consumption of gold is
believed to be under £6,000,000.

“Starting with these figures, if the demand for gold were likely to
continue limited to its ordinary amount, an estimate of the effect of
the supplies now pouring upon us could easily be formed. Those
supplies within the few years since the discovery of California have
probably in the aggregate left us an excess of upwards of £30,000,000
over what has hitherto been found sufficient for current wants, and to
maintain an equilibrium in the general relations of property. The
increase, therefore, has been equal to 20 per cent on the whole sum in
existence; in other words, the measure of value would appear to have
been extended one-fifth, (just as if a 25-inch measure were extended
to 30 inches,) and hence the effect to be looked for is obvious. Where
gold is the standard, the price of every article adjusts itself to the
relation it bears to that metal. If sovereigns were twice as numerous,
a man would demand two where he now takes one. An increase of 20 per
cent in the supply should, therefore, have been followed by a
proportionate advance in the nominal value of all things.

“We have now, however, to consider the future. So long as there is any
silver, to be supplanted in countries where, owing to the existence of
a double standard, it is optional for the debtor to pay either in gold
or in silver, the effects of the increased production will continue to
be extended to both metals, and consequently, if the surplus of gold
this year should be, as has been estimated, £25,000,000, its influence
upon prices could be but 6 or 7 per cent. But the period must rapidly
approach when the displacement of silver will have ended, and when the
changes brought about will be upon gold alone. In France the existing
amount of silver is still, doubtless, very large; but this is not the
case in the United States, and the proposed law by which the coins
below a dollar are to be deteriorated 6.91 per cent will prevent for
the present any action upon that portion of the stock. In Germany the
debased state of the silver coinage will likewise for a long time
preserve it from displacement. In Holland, silver has been already
established as the standard, and cannot therefore be driven out. With
regard to Eastern nations, it is difficult to form any estimate. On
the whole, however, we may infer the possibility of the displacement
process still occupying three or four years, and that during that
time, therefore, the effects to be produced will be spread, as they
have thus far been, over both metals.

“At the end of that period, the consequences will be felt by gold
alone, and the relations of property measured by a gold standard will
proportionably exhibit a more rapid disturbance. At the same time, it
must not be overlooked that the increase of gold each year will have
meanwhile diminished the per-centage of alteration which would
otherwise take place. For instance, the total amount of gold in the
world, which is now assumed at £150,000,000, would then possibly be
£250,000,000; and a production which, operating upon the first sum,
would cause a rise in prices of 10 per cent, would, under those
circumstances, cause only an additional rise of 6 per cent. This is a
feature of great importance in the whole question, because it will
constantly tend to counteract that increasing ratio of disturbance
which might be anticipated if the supply of each succeeding year
should prove larger and larger. It is likewise to be borne in mind
that, with a diminution in the purchasing power of gold, there will be
a proportionate diminution in the inducement to seek it. If the
quantity of gold were doubled to-morrow, a man who is at present
content to work for one ounce a-week would then not be satisfied with
less than two ounces.

“In the face, however, of these qualifying circumstances, and of the
uncertainty of all the assumed totals that have been dealt with, it
will be plain to most persons that there is enough to _suggest some
very decided ideas as to the main results that are coming on_. A
mistake of a hundred millions in the figures one way or the other
would only make a difference of three or four years (where the annual
supply is at the rate of £30,000,000) in the date of fulfilment. Even
if we were to take the whole £400,000,000 of assumed money as liable
to be acted upon, _it would require little more than fifteen years of
the existing production to cause an alteration in the relations of
property of 50 per cent._”—_Times_, June 20, 1852.

These are abundantly curious statements to come from the leading journal in the monied interest, which has so long supported Sir Robert Peel’s monetary policy, which went to make money dear and everything else cheap, and boasted, with smiling complacency, that he had succeeded in making the sovereign worth two sovereigns, and of course doubling the weight of every tax and shilling of debt, public and private, throughout the realm. So great a change makes us despair of nothing; and we even look forward with some confidence to the advent of a period when _The Times_, as a “State necessity” which can no longer be avoided, will be the first to advocate a return to protection on every species of industry within the realm.

We should greatly err if we measured the effects of this vast addition to the metallic treasures of the globe merely by its effect in raising prices, great and important as that effect undoubtedly is. That it will raise prices, gradually, indeed, but certainly, so that in twenty years they will have reached the level they had attained during the extensive demand and plentiful paper circulation of the war, may be considered certain. No human power can arrest the change any more than it can the rays of summer or the rains of autumn; and, therefore, all concerned—money-lenders, money-borrowers, capitalists, landlords, farmers, and manufacturers—had just as well make up their minds to it as _un fait accompli_, and regulate their measures and calculations accordingly. But a still more important effect, in reference to our laws and social condition in the mean time, is to be found in its tendency to _keep the paper circulation out_, and allay the apprehensions of bankers and money-lenders as to the risks of extending their issues, from a dread of an approaching monetary crisis, and a run upon their establishments for a conversion of their notes into gold.

These monetary crises, which have occurred so often, and been attended with such devastation, during the last thirty years, were all of artificial creation. They were never known before the fatal system was introduced of considering paper not as a _substitute for_, but as a _representative of gold_, and of course entirely dependent for its extension or contraction upon the retention of, or a drain upon, the reserves of the precious metals. It is to the Bullion Committee of 1810, and the adoption of its doctrines by Sir Robert Peel by the Bill of 1819, that we owe that fatal change which not only deprived us of the chief advantages of credit, but converted it into the source of the most _unmeasured evil_, by stimulating industry in the most unbounded way at one time, and as suddenly and violently contracting it at another. The true use of a paper circulation, properly based, judiciously issued, and founded upon credit, is just the reverse: it is to supply the circulation, and keep it at the level which the wants of the community require in those periods of necessary periodical recurrence to every mercantile state, when the precious metals are drained away in large quantities by the necessities of war or the demands of a fluctuating commerce; and when, unless its place is supplied by the enlarged issue of paper, nothing but ruin and misery to all persons engaged in industrial occupations can ensue. Supplied by such a succedaneum, the most entire departure of the precious metals is attended, as was proved in 1810, by no sort of distress, either to the nation or the individuals of which it is composed. Without such a reserve to fall back upon—or, what is worse, with the reserve itself rendered dependent on the retention of the precious metals—any considerable drain upon them is the certain forerunner, as was proved in 1825 and 1847, of the most unbounded public and private calamities.

The gold of California and Australia has not entirely obviated these dangers, but it has greatly diminished the chance of their recurrence. It is still true that a sudden drain of gold for exportation, either for the purposes of commerce or the necessities of war, might, as in times past, occasion such a demand for gold on the Bank of England as would render defensive measures on the part of the Bank a matter of necessity. Till the Bank is authorised by law on such an emergence to issue an increased quantity of notes _not convertible into gold_, absolute security cannot be obtained against such a catastrophe. But when the supply of gold from California and Australia is so great that £1,250,000 is received from the latter, as it has lately been, in _three weeks_, and the bullion in the vaults of the Bank of England amounts to £22,220,000, _nearly a million more than its whole notes in circulation_, it is obvious that the chances of any such calamity are very much diminished. An ample supply has been provided by Providence for the necessities in currency, not merely of this country, but of the entire earth, and therefore the chances of any violent contraction being rendered necessary by the sudden and extensive exportation of the precious metals have been greatly diminished.

The people of Great Britain may await in patience the inevitable result of the vast increase in the supply of the precious metals upon the prices of every article of commerce. That effect is undoubtedly, at present, an _arrest of the fall_ which has so long been felt as so distressing by producers and holders of commodities; and this will be followed by a gradual but uninterrupted, and, at length, very great rise of prices. Beyond all doubt, the war prices will be restored before ten years have elapsed; and if the supplies of gold shall go on as they have done for the last two years, before twenty years are over prices will be doubled. Interested parties may complain as they like of this change—the thing is inevitable, and must be submitted to. They might just as well complain of the extension of the day in spring, or its contraction in autumn; the certainty of death, or the liability to disease. It is of more importance to form a clear idea of what the effects of this rise of prices will really be, both upon the producing and consuming classes, and to show the people how they should be on their guard against the attempts which will to a certainty be made to deprive them of the benefits designed for them by Providence.

To the industrial classes, whether in the produce of land, mines, or manufactures, it need hardly be said that this gradual rise of prices will be the greatest of all possible blessings. They may easily prognosticate what these will be: experience has given them a clear mode of estimating them. They have only to figure to themselves the _very reverse_ of the whole seasons of distress which they have experienced during the last thirty-five years, to foresee their destiny. We shall not say that their condition will resemble what it was during the periods of excitement of 1824, 1836, or 1845; because these were artificial periods, when the effects of our monetary laws acted as ruinously in fostering speculation, as they did in the years immediately following in contracting the currency by which it was to be carried on. The change, in this instance, like all those induced by the wisdom of Nature, not occasioned by the folly or precipitation of man, will be gradual in its operation. The rise of prices will be so slow that it will from year to year be scarcely perceptible. From ten years, however, to ten years, it will be very conspicuous, and produce most important effects upon the progress of society. It will be gradual, but ceaseless, and unaccompanied by any of those vacillations which, under our monetary laws for the last thirty years, have produced such frightful devastation.

Nor need the consuming classes be under any apprehension that this rise of prices, which it is altogether beyond their power to prevent, will in the end prove detrimental to their interests. But for the delusions which, for their own purposes, the Free-Trade party have diffused through the world, it would have been superfluous, and in truth ridiculous, to have said anything on this subject. Every consumer stands on some producer: _ex nihilo nihil fit_. Is any argument required to show that the former cannot be in the long run injured by the bettering of the condition of the latter, by whose industry he is maintained? It is as clear as any proposition in geometry, that if the producing classes are kept in a prosperous condition, there must every year be an addition made to the sum total of the produce, which is divided among, and maintains the _fainéants_ consumers. Those who depend upon fixed money-payments, indeed—as fundholders, annuitants, bondholders, and the like—will, in the first instance, undoubtedly be placed in a worse condition, because the money they receive will not go so far in the purchase of commodities as it once did. But this evil will even to them be in a degree compensated by the superior steadiness in money transactions, which a plentiful circulating medium never fails to induce, and the absence of those periodical monetary crises, the result of faulty legislation, which have so often in the last thirty years swallowed up the investments deemed the most secure.

The great and lasting relief to the nation which this gradual but certain rise in the money price of every species of produce cannot fail to produce, is the sensible diminution it will occasion in the weight of debts and taxes. If prices return, as in all probability they will, to the war level, there will be no greater difficulty in raising an adequate revenue for the State than there was during its continuance. The excuse that we cannot afford to defend ourselves, from our having become so very poor amidst our boasted Free Trade riches, will no longer avail. The taxes of £50,000,000 a-year will be practically reduced to £25,000,000; the debt of £800,000,000 to £400,000,000. The private debts, mortgages, and bonds, of £1,000,000,000, will be virtually reduced to £500,000,000. These are immense blessings, the consequence of Nature having reversed Sir R. Peel’s monetary policy, which, by rendering the sovereign, as the _Times_ boasted, worth two sovereigns, had to all practical purposes doubled those burdens; and they are worth tenfold more, even in a pecuniary point of view, than all that the Liberal party by their cry for economy have effected for the country during the last half-century.

But the very magnitude of these blessings which are in store for the nation, if it is not cheated out of them, renders it the more necessary that the _utmost vigilance_ should be exerted, lest, by cunning on the one side, and supineness on the other, they are lost. Rely upon it, the monied class who have seen their realised capital doubled in value and practical amount, during the last thirty years, by Sir R. Peel’s artificial scarcity of the currency, will do their utmost to prevent the effects of the extension of it by Nature. Possibly they may endeavour to do this by withdrawing a large part, if not the whole, of the five-pound notes from circulation. Possibly they may attempt it by altering the standard, as by increasing the weight and quantity of gold in a pound. There is little danger of their succeeding in the first, because the inconvenience of carrying about large sums in so heavy an article as gold, will soon, as was the case with the abolition of the Sunday delivery of letters, compel their re-issue. But there is much more danger that they will succeed in the last, and, by increasing the quantity of gold in a pound sterling in proportion to the fall in its value, succeed in keeping prices at their present low level, notwithstanding all the addition which California and Australia have made to the circulating medium of the globe. Sir Robert Peel said that he could not, by any effort of his understanding, attach any other idea to a pound sterling, but “a certain determinate weight of gold bullion.” But that was when gold was every day becoming scarcer and more valuable, and therefore the value of all realised fortunes measured by that pound was daily increasing. Now that it is daily diminishing, we venture to predict that his followers will discover they can attach _some other idea to a pound than a certain number of pennyweights of gold_. Their ideas will become expansive, and the pound will swell out with them. Having doubled their realised fortunes at the expense of the industrious classes when they had made money scarce, they will strive to prevent their wealth being restored to its original dimensions when the precious metals are becoming plentiful. If the standard is changed in proportion to the fall in the value of gold, _though it was religiously upheld when it was dear and scarce_, the result will be that the weight of debt and taxes will remain just what they were; prices measured by gold will continue nearly at their present level; and all the encouragement to industry, and relief from burdens, which must ensue from the extension of the currency, if the standard is maintained at its present weight, will be lost to the nation.

It is of the utmost moment also that all classes should be made fully aware that the evils of Free Trade to the native industry of this country will not be in any sensible degree alleviated—nay, that they will in all probability in the end be increased—by the increase of the supplies of gold for the use of the world. The reason is, that it is a _catholic_ or universal blessing, extending over all countries, and _affecting prices, consequently, in a proportional degree in every quarter of the globe_. It will, in consequence, leave the relative disadvantage of the old and rich state, in competing with the young and poor one for the supply of agricultural produce, just where it was. If it raises the price of wheat in the English market from 40s. a quarter to 60s., which in ten years, at the present rate of supply, will probably be the case, it will as certainly raise the price in Dantzic from 18s. to 27s., leaving the English farmer _still at the same disadvantage in competing with his poorer neighbour that he is at present_. Nay, the disadvantage will rather be increased; for gold, like every other valuable commodity, will be attracted to the richest country and the best market, and from an unusually large portion of it flowing into England, the effect in elevating prices will be more sensibly felt there than elsewhere. Prices will rise more in proportion in the rich than in the poorer states, where much less of it can be purchased or find its resting-place; so that the last state of the industrious classes, so far as competing with foreign nations is concerned, will be worse than the first. In so far, doubtless, as our agriculturists are depressed by the weight of taxes, they will experience relief from the extension of the currency; but they will derive none save in that way from the change of prices in competing with the foreigner.

Notwithstanding this untoward circumstance, there can be no doubt that the condition of the agricultural classes will be sensibly benefited by the rise of prices, and that the depression under which they have so long suffered from the long-continued fall, will be in a great measure arrested. Great and important political benefits will follow from this change. The undue preponderance of the wealthy classes, and the shopkeepers dependent on them, owing to legislation having doubled their fortunes at the expense of the industrial, will be arrested. As it was the scarcity of money, preponderance given to capital, and depression of industry consequent on the monetary bill of 1819, which, beyond all doubt, brought about the Reform Bill, and with it the sway of the shopkeeping interest in the boroughs, which landed us in Free Trade and all its consequences, agricultural, maritime, and colonial; so a series of effects the very converse of all these may be anticipated from the expansion of the currency which has flowed from the bounty of Nature. We do not say that, in consequence of these changes, any man who now has a vote either should or will lose it; but this we do say, that many men and many places, which have now no voice in the Legislature, will be duly represented. In particular, if the monopoly and preponderance of home capital is broken up, and the interests of industry are duly represented in Parliament, it will be impossible to withhold direct seats in the Imperial Legislature from the Colonies, if Free-Trade principles have not previously severed them from the British Empire.

Connected with this subject of the extension of our circulating medium by the discoveries in California and Australia, is another not less startling, and fraught with not less important consequences upon the future destinies of the country. This is the prodigious increase of EMIGRATION which has taken place since Free-Trade principles were carried into practice by Sir Robert Peel in 1846. To show the vast effects of that policy, it is only necessary to reflect on the subjoined Table, showing the progress of emigration for six years before and after Free Trade. By a curious coincidence, while by far the greatest part of the immense increase is to be ascribed to the depression of domestic industry by the contraction of the currency and influx of foreign commodities, a certain portion of the great exodus in the last year is to be ascribed to the newly discovered gold regions of the earth.

TABLE—SHOWING THE EMIGRATION FROM THE BRITISH ISLANDS FOR SIX YEARS BEFORE AND AFTER FREE TRADE. ┌──────────────────┬───────────────┬──────────────────┬────────────────┐ │In the years 1840,│ 90,743│In the years 1846,│ 129,851│ │ 1841,│ 118,592│ 1847,│ 258,270│ │ 1842,│ 128,344│ 1848,│ 248,089│ │ 1843,│ 57,212│ 1849,│ 299,498│ │ 1844,│ 70,686│ 1850,│ 280,896│ │ 1845,│ 93,501│ 1851,│ 335,966│ │ │ ——————│ │ —————————│ │ │ 6) 559,078│ │ 6) 1,552,570│ │ │ ———————│ │ —————————│ │ │Average, 93,179│ │Average, 258,761│ └──────────────────┴───────────────┴──────────────────┴────────────────┘

The emigration for the first four months of 1852, from the twelve principal harbours of Great Britain, was 103,316; nearly the same as in the corresponding period of last year, when it was 103,280. Since that, in May and June, the emigration, especially to the gold regions of Australia, has greatly increased, and it is now going on at the rate of about 5000 a-week. In all probability the emigration this year will reach 350,000, of which at least 50,000 will be to our distant settlements on the shores of Australia.

There is enough to make the most inconsiderate pause, and to fill with the most serious reflections every thoughtful mind. From three hundred to three hundred and fifty thousand persons emigrating from a single country in a single year, and this at the close of a period of six years, during which the average exodus has exceeded two hundred and fifty thousand a-year! Such a fact as this would, at any former period of English history, have excited the utmost alarm in the nation; but so habituated have the people become to disaster since the Free-Trade policy began, and so entirely have they got into the habit of looking only to the moment, and disregarding altogether all remote consequences, that it excites no sort of sensation. The annual increase of the population prior to 1845 was usually considered to be 1000 a-day, or 365,000 a-year; and this was for long a subject of congratulation and boast. The population returns of 1851, however, showed that, down to the end of 1846, it was only 230,000 a-year. But now, as 330,000 emigrants leave the British shores every year, there is AN ANNUAL DECREASE UPON THE WHOLE OF 100,000 SOULS; and that not of infants, or worn-out old persons, but chiefly young men and women in the prime of life.

The Free-Trade party, at a loss to explain this prodigious emigration, at a time when legislative principles were adopted, which, according to them, were diffusing universal prosperity, laboured hard to refer it to other causes. In the first instance, they said it was owing to the Irish famine; in the last, to Nature having scattered gold broadcast over the distant regions of the earth. Both excuses are devoid of foundation. The potato famine occurred in 1846; and since that time the harvests have been so good that, _twice over_, a public thanksgiving has been returned for that blessing. If Free Trade has really enriched the people of Great Britain, it should only have _enhanced_, except for other competitors, the market for Irish wheat, oats, and cattle, in the British Islands. It is rather too late in 1852, six years after the famine of 1846, to be reverting to that calamity as a cause of the present exodus; the more especially as, in the interim, between death and emigration, two millions of souls have disappeared in the Emerald Isle.[7]

The pretext of the immense and increasing emigration being owing to the discovery of the Californian and Australian diggings is equally futile and unfounded. Five thousand a-week are now going there, a large proportion of whom may reasonably be considered as having been set in motion by the El Dorado visions connected with those regions. But supposing that sixty thousand emigrants this year land in Australia, of whom forty thousand have been attracted by the diggings, there will still remain three hundred thousand emigrants who have left the British shores, chiefly for the United States, irrespective of the gold mania. What is the cause of this long-continued exodus of our people?—a state of things not only unparalleled in the previous annals of this country, but unexampled in the whole previous history of the world. There is but one explanation can be given of it: the _Spectator_, in an able article on this subject, has very candidly stated the cause—it is _want of employment_ which drives so many abroad. Go where you will among the middle and working-classes, and you will hear this cause assigned as the real reason why so many are going abroad; and equally universal is the lamentation, that the persons going away are the very _élite_ of our people—the young, the energetic, the industrious; leaving only children, and aged or decrepit paupers to conduct the industry of the country, and furnish recruits to sustain its future fortunes.

However lightly the Free-Traders may treat the annual decrease of one hundred thousand in our population, and the commencement of a retrograde movement in a nation which has increased incessantly for four hundred years, there is here deep subject for lamentation to every lover of his country, and sincerely interested in its welfare. There can be no question that an increase of the numbers of the people, if accompanied by no decline in their circumstances, is the most decisive proof of public prosperity: the Free-Traders themselves acknowledge this, for they uniformly refer with exultation to any increase, however slight, in marriages, and decline in paupers, which has occurred while their system was in operation. It is impossible to conceive that a nation is thriving under a régime which annually sends from three hundred thousand to three hundred and thirty thousand persons into exile. You might as well say that an individual is thriving under a dysentery, which wastes him away at the rate of two pounds a-day. The bonds of country, home, habit, and companionship, are never broken on a great scale, and for a long time together, by any other force but the force of suffering. A golden El Dorado, a passing famine, may for a single season or two augment considerably the number of emigrants; but these causes are ephemeral in their operation, because the first speedily leads to the fortunate region being choked up with entrants, the last to the wasted one being bereft of inhabitants. But want of employment, declining means of obtaining a livelihood, is a chronic disorder, which presses unceasingly upon the people, and may drive them into exile for every year of a century together. It was this cause, induced also by the free admission of foreign grain, which first ruined the agriculture, and at last put a period to the existence, of the Roman Empire.

As the increase of population in a healthy and thriving state of society leads to an additional increase, and constantly adds to the breadth of the basis on which the pyramid of the national prosperity is rested, so a decline in the numbers of the people is attended by a precisely opposite effect. In the first case, the prosperity of every one class reacts upon the prosperity of every other class; in the last case, their suffering communicates itself in an equally decisive way to every class around them. As thus the great trade of every nation is that which goes on between the town and the country, and each finds its chief market in the wants of the other, it is impossible that either can suffer without the other class dependent on the sale of its produce suffering also. Extraneous causes, simultaneously acting on the market, may for a time prevent this effect becoming conspicuous; but in the long run it is sure to make itself felt. If the farmers are suffering, the manufacturers will speedily experience a falling off in the home markets; if the manufacturers, the farmers are as certain of finding a diminution in the consumption of their rude produce.