116 . REPORT—1852. 
which it has been sold has been less, and especially if both these circumstances 
should have occurred, then have we an adequate cause for a reduction in the amount 
of bank notes in circulation. The annual productiveness of the harvest would affect 
the amount of notes in circulation. Again, a bad harvest in one year may, by the 
distress it produces, cause a less production of commodities in several following 
years, and hence there may be a less demand for bank notes. A bad harvest pro- 
duces distress among the farmers, and this distress affects the amount of the circu- 
lation in two ways :—First, the farmer consumes his own produce instead of selling 
it, and thus does not require the use of notes. Secondly, the distress of the farmer 
diminishes the instruments of reproduction. If he has no potatoes, he can rear no 
pigs. An abundant crop of potatoes produces in the following year an abundant 
crop of pigs. After the failure of the potato in 1846 the exportation of swine was 
reduced from 480,827 in 1846, to 106,407. The potato crop again failed in 1848. 
The number of swine exported in 1848 was 110,787; in 1849 it was only 68,053. 
The destruction of the pigs which took place in 1846 would doubtless affect the cir- 
culation of notes in subsequent years, especially in 1847, 1848, and 1849, and pro- 
bably, also, to a certain extent, in the years 1850 and 1851. He next proceeded to 
lay down as propositions, that a reduction in the quantity of commodities produced 
may be caused by a reduction in the number of producers, and this would occasion 
a less demand for bank notes; and that the amount of notes that circulate in a 
country will also be affected by the quantity of commodities exported, and the quan- 
tity imported. After addressing himself to these points, he said that we found that 
the reduction in the amount of notes in circulation in Ireland had been preceded or 
accompanied by a reduction in the amount of commodities produced, occasioned by 
a reduced productiveness in the land actually cultivated, a destruction in the instru- 
ments of reproduction by the distress thus occasioned, a reduction in the number of 
producers by deaths and emigration, and the exportation of an increased portion of 
its capital in exchange for food. But there was another circumstance that concurred 
in powerfully producing the same effect, that is, the price at which the commodities 
brought to market were sold. He went into a variety of calculations to sustain the 
foregoing positions, and then said that, from the whole, he inferred that the difference 
between the amount of bank notes circulating in a country at two different periods 
cannot be regarded as any correct test of the condition of its inhabitants at those 
periods, unless we take into account all the circumstances by which that difference 
is attended—that the decline of the circulation of bank notes in Ireland, from the 
year 1845 to 1851, is no accurate measure of the distress that has existed in the 
country, or that now exists, as other causes besides distress have concurred in pro- 
ducing that effect—that in comparing the circulation of 1845 and 1851 we are 
making a comparison unfavourable to the country, as the year 1845 was a year re- 
markable for the high amount of its circulation—and that we should indulge in no 
desponding inferences as to the condition of the country, even if the circulation 
should never recover its former amount. Even the permanent reduction of the cir- 
culation to its present amount would be no conclusive evidence of the distressed 
condition of the country; for, though distress first caused the decline of the circu- 
lation, yet, from the new circumstances which that distress introduced, the same 
amount of bank notes are not now necessary for conducting its operations. 

—_— 
Should our Gold Standard of Value be maintained if Gold becomes 
depreciated in consequence of its Discovery in Australia and Cali ortee. ? 
By Professor Hancock. 
After a long dissertation on the standard of value in different countries and ages, 
that in England being now 5 dwts. 92 grains of gold to the pound (which originally 
meant the pound weight of fine silver, that standard having been altered in conse- 
quence of repeated depreciations in value, until silver was only one-third of the value 
it was when the standard of value was fixed)—after showing how the standard 
might be depreciated, by altering the quantity of gold or silver representing it—the 
alteration of the purity of the metal representing the standard, by the substitution 
of some other commodity for gold and silver as the standard—and from the standard 
falling in value from excessive supply—and referring to various tamperings with the 

