TRANSACTIONS OF THE SEOTIONS. 175 
manufacture which do not happen to fall within the range of the new expenditure ; 
such articles being affected only by its indirect action, that is to say, through its action 
upon wages, and this action being in their case obstructed by the impediments to the 
contraction of supply. Up to this point, Prof. Cairnes said, he found his conclusions 
corroborated by the independent investigations of an eminent French economist, M, 
Levasseur. ‘There was, however, another principle which it appeared to him must 
exercise a powerful influence on the course of the movement, namely, that efficacy 
which resides in the currency of each country into which any portion of the new 
money may be received for determining the effect of this infusion on the range of 
local prices, using the words ‘local prices” with reference to commodities in the 
locality in which they are produced, not to that in which they are sold. According to 
this principle, the advance foliowed the locality in which the commodity was produced. 
Thus the rise in price had been most rapid in commodities produced in the gold coun- 
tries, having in these at one bound reached its utmost limit—that, namely, which is 
set by the cost of producing gold. After the commodities produced in the gold re- 
ions, the advance, he conceived, would proceed most rapidly in the productions of 
ingland and the United States; after these, at no great interval, in the productions 
of the Continent of Europe; while the commodities the last to feel the effects of the 
new money, and which would advance most slowly under its influence, were the pro- 
ductions of India and China, and, he might add, of tropical countries generally, so far 
as their economic conditions correspond with those of these countries, Prof. Cairnes 
submitted to the Section some statistical tables which he had drawn up, with a view 
to compare the conclusions at which he had arrived as to a depreciation of the pre- 
cious metals under the action of an increased supply with the actual progress of prices 
up to the present time. He remarked that, considering the propitiousness of the 
seasons, the action of free trade, the absence of war, the contraction of credit, and the 
general tendencies to a reduction of cost proceeding from the progress of knowledge, 
were there no other cause in operation, we should have reason to look for a very con- 
siderable fall of prices at the present time, as compared with, say eight or ten years 
ago. Prices, however, had very decidedly risen, and the advance had, moreover, 
proceeded in conformity with the principles which he had in his paper endeavoured to 
establish. This was his ground for asserting that the depreciation of our standard 
money was already, under the action of new gold, an accomplished fact. 
On the Progress of the Principle of Open Competitive Examinations. 
By Enwin CHapwick. 
On the Registry of Deeds in the West Riding. By J. E. Diss. 
The West-Riding Registry, he stated, was established on the 29th of September, 
1704, the first object being to facilitate the borrowing of money by honest traders, who 
found it difficult to give security to the satisfaction of the money-lenders, although 
the securities they offered were really good. The second object was, to remedy the 
evils which might be produced by secret conveyances of freehold property, by means 
of which the ill-disposed had it in their power to commit fraud. ‘That registry which 
the Jaw thus permitted had, for a long series of years, become the ordinary practice ; 
and it would, perhaps, scarcely be possible at this time to find a frechold estate in the 
West Riding which is not affected by a registered document. Passing by 1704 to1710 
as exceptional, it might be noted that while the yearly average of the registries from 
1711 to 1720 was only 838, the average from 1791 to 1800 had risen to 2355; and 
taking the average from 1841 to 1850, it rose to 5138, having more than doubled itself 
in the first half of this century. This increase of transactions in landed property was 
nearly in proportion to the increase in the population of the West Riding, which was, 
in 1801, 572,168; 1811, 662,875; 1821, 809,863; 1831, 984,609; 1841, 1,163,580; 
1851, 1,325,495. In 1851, however, the gradual increase of previous years was 
changed for a much more rapid rise; far greater in proportion than the increase of 
the population. ‘The previous year, 1850, had shown the largest number of deeds 
registered, viz. 5950; the year 1851, however, reached 8009, and, in 1853, the largest 
number of all was attained, viz. 9910. This large accession of transactions in real 
estate at this period arose, Mr, Dibb stated, from the fact that in October 1850, the 
