432 INFLUENCE OF RECENT GOLD DISCOVERIES ON PBICES. 



Culloch was not less than from 12 to 35 per cent., while in Ireland 

 it was much more.* 



On the continent of Europe a similar rise in prices, though not 

 perhaps to the same extent, could be shewn to have taken place ;f 

 while, as regards Canada, any statistics to prove the advance of prices 

 within the last six years, would be considered, I am sure, as quite 

 superfluous. Six years ago Canada was rightly considered as one of 

 the cheapest countries of the world; now, assuredly, it is one of the 

 most expensive. Here, as in the States, the Legislature has been 

 compelled to interfere to rescue the civil servants and officers of the 

 Government from the ruinous effects of the enhanced prices of labour 

 and of the necessaries of life. Within the last two years, according^ 

 the salaries of almost all public officers in this country have been 

 augmented, and the indemnity allowed members of Parliament, the sala- 

 ries of the Executive Councillors, as well as as the salaries of most of 

 the employes of the Government, have been raised. The scale 

 of increase, however, varies somewhat strangely in the different 

 cases. In the case of Members of Parliament and Executive 

 Councillors, 50 per cent, has been added, while the incomes of 

 the great mass of Government officials, (where any addition what- 

 ever has been made to their salaries,) have been augmented at rates 

 varying from 12 to 25 per cent. These several advances being all 

 grounded on the increased cost of the necessaries of life, we might 

 perhaps ' a priori ' have anticipated that the augmentation would have 

 been in the inverse ratio of the salaries, in other words, that the lowest 

 salary should have had the largest per centage, inasmuch as the 

 smaller the whole salary the greater the proportion of it spent in the 

 purchase of mere necessaries. The Legislature however would appear 

 to have judged differently, and from the graduated scale adopted by 

 them, we are forced to conclude that the pressure of high prices is 

 most acutely felt by Executive Councillors and Members of Parlia- 

 ment, and but slightly, if at all, by the subordinate officers and servants 

 of the Government. Had the increase of snlaries been made on the 

 ground of the decline in the value or purchasing power of money, as 

 compared with all other commodities, then all salaries large and small 

 should have been raised in the same ratio ; assuming of course, that 



* McCulloch's Commercial Dictionary, p. 1053, Edition of 1854, see also " Statistical Jour- 

 nal," for 1851, p. 105S, 



t In the " Annuaire de L'Economie Politique "—for 1855, published at Paris, we read at the 

 commencement of the article entitled ' Coup d'ceil sur l'annee 1854 ' — 



" L'aun6e 1854, a vu srevir a la fois trois fl.'aux ; la guerre, 1c Cholera et la cherts des sub- 

 eistances." In another part of the same article it is stated that the price of meat in France 

 in 1854 was 25 per c .nt. above the average pr.ee of preceding yearss 



