158 REPORT—1857. 
In further illustration of the same principle, the trade of England and America with 
India and China in recent years was referred to. During the last seven years, not 
less than sixty millions sterling in gold and silver had been sent to the East in pay- 
ment of increased imports from oriental countries. This was, in other words, to say 
that real wealth to that amount had, during that time, been obtained from these 
countries for which, not ‘real wealth,” but money had been returned. It was evident, 
therefore, that unless India and China had worked very much harder during that 
period, they must in real wealth be very much poorer. The new gold thus‘tended to 
enrich England and America and the gold countries at the expense of India and 
China and countries similarly situated. 
Such being the effect of the new gold on the distribution of real wealth, it was not 
difficult to see that the effect of the change would be indirectly to stimulate its pro- 
duction. In every instance the transfer was in favour of the more active of the pro- 
ducing classes and nations at the expense of the idle or less active, and, in general, 
in favour of the Anglo-Saxon race at the expense of the rest of the world. The effect 
would be the same as if a tax were laid on the idle for the benefit of the industrious. 
The character of the new movement being determined by these principles, the 
magnitude of the consequences resulting would depend on two conditions:—first, on 
the permanent diminution which should be effected in the cost of producing gold ; 
and secondly, on the slowness with which this diminution in cost would be neutralized 
in the general rise of prices which would result. 
From the rise which had been established in money-wages in the gold countries, it 
was deduced that the cost of obtaining gold had in these countries been diminished 
by one half. Prices, therefore, in these countries would rise in general to double 
their former range, and the laws of international exchange would tend to bring about 
a corresponding advance in all other countries. 
The rate at which the advance took place would depend, not simply on the actual 
quantity of gold annually produced, nor yet on the relation of the new increments to 
the quantity previously in existence, but also on the extensions which the trade of the 
world would in the mean time undergo; and, considering the great increase of pro- 
ductive power lately brought into operation, as exemplified in the extension of rail- 
ways, the development of free trade, the improvements in ship building, the electric 
telegraph, and the increased application of scientific inventions to productive pro- 
cesses—there was every reason to expect that such extensions of commerce would be 
considerable, and that thus the rise in prices would not be so rapid as, looking simply 
to the increased production of gold, we might be led to expect. 
From these principles it followed that in all future extensions of trade England 
and America (including under these names the gold countries—their colonies) would. 
have a double interest:—first, from the advantage which, in common with all com- 
mercial nations, they would derive from a more efficient application of the productive 
forces of the world; and secondly, from the special benefits which, as gold-producing 
countries, they would enjoy through retarding influence which such extensions of trade 
would exert. on the general range of prices throughout the world; thereby enabling 
them to avail themselves, to a greater extent and for a longer time, of their cheapened 
cost of gold. 
On the Dependence of Moral and Criminal on Physical Conditions of ~ 
Populations. By E. Cnapwicx. 
On the Economical, Educational, and Social Importance of open and public 
Competitive Examinations. By E, Cuapwick. 
On the Effect of Good and Bad Times on Committals to Prison. 
By H. Cray. 
On the Ages of the Population in Liverpool and Manchester. 
By J. T. Danson, Barrister-at-Law. p 
Mr. Danson laid before the Section some tabular statements, drawn from the last 
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