Transcriber’s Note
Cover created by Transcriber and placed in the Public Domain.
WITH
SUGGESTIONS TOWARDS A PRACTICAL SOLUTION OF
THE DIFFICULTY.
By JOHN HASLAM, late “TURGOT.”
LONDON:
EFFINGHAM WILSON, ROYAL EXCHANGE.
DUBLIN: M‘GLASHEN AND GILL, 50, UPPER SACKVILLE-STREET.
1856.
DUBLIN: PRINTED BY ROBERT CHAPMAN,
TEMPLE-LANE, DAME-ST.
The following pamphlet was designed for insertionin a periodical devoted to industrial and commercialpurposes, which was to have appeared on the1st of January. As owing to unavoidable circumstancesthe publication of this journal has beenpostponed, the writer has thought it better to presenthis views to the public in their original form,than to incur the delay that would be necessary ifhe were to recast the essay and expand its scope soas to embrace the consideration of the Scotch andIrish issues. He trusts that this explanation willserve as an apology for the extreme compressionwhich he has been obliged to exercise in treatingof several departments of the subject, as well as forhis having neglected to fortify his reasoning bycitations from other writers, in many instances inwhich he might have done so with unquestionableadvantage to the reader.
19, Cullenswood-avenue, Ranelagh,
Dublin, Jan. 1856.
Amongst the many debatable clauses contained in theBank Charter Act of 1844, there is one at least the practicalexpediency of which will scarcely be called in question.It is that which provides for the redemption ofthe privileges enjoyed by the Bank of England, “at anytime upon twelve months’ notice, to be given after the firstday of August, 1855.” A similar provision had beeninserted in the Act of 1833, so that the decennial expirationand revision of the Bank of England Charter, maybe regarded as a positive feature in the banking systemof Great Britain. The advantages resulting from thisperiodical revision of our currency code with respect bothto the public generally and to bankers in particular arevery considerable. The investigation of the laws ofmonetary phenomena forms undoubtedly the most abstruseand intricate department in the whole range of politicaleconomy. In no other section of the science are the ultimateconclusions more liable to be vitiated by any errorin the leading principles, or any false step in the processof deduction; and in no other is it more difficult either totrace an error through all its mazes to its real origin, orto present its refutation in a form adapted to the popular6intelligence. It not unfrequently happens, therefore, thatsome plausible fallacy becomes generally accredited, andis adopted by our statesmen as a basis for legislation,either before the materials have been collected for its successfulexposure, or before the knowledge of such expo