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whenever Peel's system has come into active operation, and 

 the circulation has been contracted, forced cheapness has 

 resulted, and distress, misery, and ruin have pervaded all 

 classes (hear, hear, and cheers). 



But it were useless to point out these evils, unless we could 

 also point out their remedy. This can be done. The great 

 evil of the present system is the fixed price of gold (hear). 

 The obligation on the Bank to buy gold when it does not want 

 it, and to sell it when there is a drain, causes the arbitrary 

 expansions and contractions of the Currency. With gold at 

 its market-price, the country flourished during the War, and 

 would again do so. Paper-money, in which gold might rise 

 and fall in price, and which should be a legal tender for all 

 pecuniary obligations, might be provided in sufficient amount, 

 and made perfectly secure. There are various ways in which 

 this might be done. Pitt effected it by a Bank Restriction 

 Act. I proposed a simple method some time since, which 

 might, with ease and facility, be adopted, viz. to release the 

 Bank from its obligation to buy gold when it had a certain 

 sum, say 14 millions, of specie in its coffers, and also to remove 

 the restriction of never issuing beyond the sum of 14 millions 

 on securities. In the event of a drain of gold, I would allow 

 the Bank to issue notes beyond this limit, on securities, and 

 not only, as is now the case, on the gold locked up in the issue 

 department. Thus, when gold leaves the country, the void 

 created in the circulation would be immediately supplied by 

 bank-notes (hear). 



But perhaps no plan has commended itself so generally as 

 the one proposed by Mr. John Taylor, of London, a gentle- 

 man who has thoroughly mastered the question, and has 

 philosophically examined and elucidated it. He proposes that 

 a National Paper Money should be issued, of 1 notes and 

 upwards, which issue should never exceed in a year the 

 amount of the annual taxation. This money paid away by 

 government for the salaries of its officers, for the dividends, 

 and for all expenses, would be a legal tender, and being re- 

 ceivable for taxes would never be either in excess, nor liable 

 to depreciation. As the penny postage-stamps collect the 

 whole revenue of the Post-office, so would this money collect 

 the whole revenue of the nation (hear). The arrangement of 

 this plan would be matter of detail, and presents no real diffi- 

 culties. As to private banks and banking companies, I would 



