Loading ...PREFACE by the Author
The object of the following pages is to explain, is a plain and familiar manner, what money, Banking, and currency, properly speaking, are ; and how it behoves us to deal with them at present in this country. I conceive that this object may be realized in a manner the most satisfactory, and that the information conveyed will be rendered valuable to the greatest number of persons, by giving an intelligible account, clear of all technical expressions, of the doctrines of the leading authorities upon the subject, the different systems propounded, and the results of the efforts that have been made to carry them into execution.
A volume of this description, if correctly written in a readable style, most. I apprehended be acceptable to people of all ranks. The matters it relates to intimately concern all our great masses, agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial; they are not only of the highest importance in their bearings and effects, but they have a particular interest even as subjects of abstract inquiry. If to these considerations we add another, — namely, the ignorance so generally and so strangely prevailing amongst us upon the question of money, banking, and currency, enough, perhaps, will have been premised to indicate that the work will be likely to find many readers, if justice be done to his undertaking by the author.
As it may be satisfactory to state what the contents will embrace, a synopsis of them is subjoined. There will be, —
I. An account of Banking generally, and of the trouble Parliament has taken, for some years, to enlighten the people respecting it.
2. A notice of the private Bankers of London, and their present system and condition.
3. An abstract of Adam Smith”s Theory of Banking and Currency (which will be adopted as the best that has been given), and of the encroachments made upon it.
4. Explanations of the doctrines of the Bullion Committee of 1809, and the points in which that body differed from Adam Smith — Mr. Ricardo’s theories respecting an improved currency — Peel’s Bill — The resumption of cash payments in 1819 — and the failure of Mr. Ricardo’s plan of a gold-bar standard in lieu of coin.
5. A sketch of the fluctuations in the currency, produced by the inconsistent functions imposed by the Legislature upon the Bank of England ; and particulars of the series of panics by which the country has been so heavily distressed since 1797.
6. Examination of Mr. Samuel Jones Loyd’s doctrines for regulating the issues of the Bank of England according to the foreign exchanges ; and the effect produced by the trial already made of that experiment.
7. Sketches of the history and prospects of the Bank of England — Of the growth and comparative decline of the private Banking system ; and of the rise and progress of joint-stock Banks.
8. An account of Banking in Scotland and Ireland.
9. The question of a specie standard — Gold and silver — the proposed plan of one Bank of issue ; and outlines of a new and improved monetary system.
This summary, it will be perceived, comprehends the leading topics into which the great subject of money divides itself ; and as cardinal principles and dominant facts will be introduced with a running historical commentary, it will probably be felt that there is room to make much that is in itself crude and dry, not altogether uninteresting, by the way in which it is treated. One promise the writer ventures to make, and with it to conclude this preface. The same information will not be found in any one extant volume. He has been induced to prepare these pages for the press, because he has seen that the published accounts of our monetary vicissitudes and changes — the theories and experiments of late years — are distributed through an infinitude of tracts, pamphlets, separate volumes, and parliamentary reports, the whole of which are rarely accessible with ease, and, even when accessible, do not present the most convenient or complete sources of information. This fact suggested the idea, that a manual of the leading topics connected with Banking and the Currency, comprising an epitome of the doctrines that have been broached, and the various trials that have been made, during the period referred to, with the view of placing the money market in a good condition, would prove not altogether an unacceptable publication to practical men, nor an uninstructive one to Members of Parliament and others, whose province it will be, during this and the next session, to prepare themselves for legislation upon the subject.
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