that he had, yet who, then, was responsible for the present system with its evils? No other than Sir Robert Peel.

He utterly failed to understand what were the evils of the present system. He knew no more what he was doing now, than he did in 1819. He announced this new measure of 1844 as the 'complement' of that of 1819. In fact, the Bill of 1844 was based upon a principle which in 1819 he had stated 'had always appeared to him extremely unwise.' 'A quarter of a century' since his 'great measure' had left him as incompetent as ever. His language was ever sonorous, his

f See an extremely able, but unfortunately anonymous work entitled The Mystery of Money Explained,' by some one who describes himself as a banker of sixty years' standing, and whose acumen and experience do not belie him. But people ought to have the courage of their opinions: a man should sign his name: no fighting behind walls.

'Woe to the coward, that ever he was born,

Who did not draw the sword, before he blew the horn!

motives always sublime, but still when Time lifted the dish-cover, there was the dish as empty as before. The aims of this new Bill of 1844 were specially magnificent. The menu was most imposing. The Bill was 'to give steadiness to the character of our resources, inspire confidence in the circulating medium, diminish all inducements to fraudulent speculation and gambling, and ensure its just reward to commercial enterprise conducted with honesty and secured by prudence.' That was in truth a noble Bill of Fare. What a banquet for the supporters of the Act! But the proof of the pudding?—ah! there he was unfortunate. None of these prodigious achievements came off. The political Trimalcio turned out to be only Tartuffe. The banquet was only a Barmecide banquet, a Pickwickian or even a Pecksniffian affair. The promises were pie-crust, and the Bill a bubble: all 'Chaos

and Clouds and the Tongue.' The simple fact is that its author had not the dimmest conception, not only of the cure for the evils, but even of the evils to be cured. The convertibility of the note, the goal of all Peel's efforts, had never been in any sort of danger. No human being had ever lost 'confidence in the circulating medium.' the other hand the dangers that did need removing were not only not removed, but actually increased, nay, rendered compulsory and inevitable, by this wonderful Bill . By providing, that whenever gold went, the notes

On

8 The Bank Charter Act was such a monumental mass of blunder and bungling, that it almost makes one cry to pull it to pieces,-miseranda vel hosti. But among the many strokes of genius it embodied, it is worth noting, that it never occurred to Peel that gold could be drawn from the Bank by cheques as well as, and better than, by notes. To be consistent, Peel ought to have abolished Banking altogether. His notion of Banking was the old deposit Bank, where the notes were not Credit, but tickets for the gold held in the Bank.

should go too, which was the heart of the Bill, Peel 'ensured' not 'the just reward of commercial enterprise, &c. &c.,' but certain ruin to sound commercial houses.

And now, as a matter of fact, what did the Bill do? Utterly out as Peel was, when he announced his Bill of 1844 as the 'complement' of that of 1819, yet curiously enough, the tendency of both Bills was, in one respect, the same. They both immensely enhanced the value of gold. They both tended to give to gold a MONOPOLY OF MONEY. The first Bill expelled silver, the second restricted the notes and tied them up strictly to gold. Both Bills threw more work, and conferred immense privilege, upon gold. But that also was doubtless a legislative accident, Meg.

Few people know how near that Bill came to ruining English trade altogether. It came within an ace of it. In direct antagonism to

that desirable condition of which Mr. Giffen has told us, that money should increase with the increase of population and trade, Peel had done all that lay in his power to make money decrease with the increase of necessity for the use of it h It was of course a pure accident that the constant tendency of all this otherwise various legislation was to put a premium upon gold: quite accidental, that while in obedience to the cry of the hour and the hustling of theorists and an interested faction he ruined England's Colonial Empire by adopting a one-sided short-sighted Free Trade, the converted Free Trade apostle at the same moment set up Protection in its

'He delighted to speak of his Bank Act as one of the most important achievements of his public life. Perhaps because it was one of those in which he most fully succeeded in obtaining the object which was ever present to his mind, the union of scientific truth with practical efficiency. Guizot's Memoir of Peel.

Pasques-dieu! this is too magnificent. Scientific truth, practical efficiency, and the Bank Charter Act!