PROTECTION TO THE CURRENCY. (From the Liverpool Commercial Times.) Glasgow, April 17, 1847.

New Zealander, Volume 3, Issue 149, 3 November 1847, Page 3

PROTECTION TO THE CURRENCY. (From the Liverpool Commercial Times.) Glasgow, April 17, 1847.

To the Members of the Canadian Parliament. Gentlemen, the most headstrong Free-trader must now feel, and begin to see, that the untaxed import of Foreign labor is detrimental, not only to tne agiiciiltural body in England and the colonists, and , indirectly, through them to all other classes, but also directly to eveiy interest of the empire, through causing a vast diminution of the currency, by the removal to oilier countries of | our precious metals. ' feh true that famine in Ireland istheostensib.e cause u.t' part of the evils this country now labots under, bc.t it is equally true that our (un der Sir Robert Pee*'.) having taken the suicidal course of depressing home- employment and encoui aging foreign, is the cause of that want of confidence which will prevent Engtond rising superior to the present distress, without <a most serious interfeience with the Cuirency. There is no doubt that England is better situ ated to carry out free trade than any country in the world, and if other countries would reciprocate, the advantage would be ours in every case, for even the circumstances of the natives of Hindostan were not so degraded as not to be lowered by British competition. Englishmen would therefore all be freetraders asa mallei of theory; but what is about to be shewn to be even England's experience of free imports \* itliout reciprocity, which in bitter irony is called free trade, O'in me convertite ferrum!") viz , that it matters not whether the cause of impoits into England, disproportioned to our exports, be famine or free trade, the result to those who labour for their bread is equally disastrous. Ist We have a reduction of employment to the people of England, to very nearly the whole amount we pay for foreign labor. 2nd, A reduction of England's ability to manufacture, through the superstructure of our currency being brought down by the removal of gold, its basis. 3rd, We suffer from the gain to our rivals in manufactures being exactly equivalent to out loss, a better slock of the precious metals giving an increased power to manufacture to foreign countries, so that in fact, the less gold England has to part with, the I etter. To these general effects, might be added the particular one as regards the United States, that our new laws will turn a proportion of the cotton land into wheat and Indian corn, thus, by diminishing its quantity, raising the price of cotton to the English mill-owner. Such being the experience of England, what would the Canadas be, under free trade f So that, whether this reaches you convened at Montreal, for youi first session under Lord Elgin, or finds you sent back to ask the renewed confidence of your constituents, in what we used to call British, or Protective principles, at a general election, 1 feel it equally important by the present steamer to let >ou know the exact position of things in this country. I particularly desire to guard you against being deceived, by the stuff now being written by some of the London newspapers, into the idea that Free-trade has little or nothing to do with our present degraded state in this country. You will observe I have been cautious in not charging Free-tiade with getting us into this state (though I believe Sir. R. Peel's 1842 measures have much to do with it), and that my charge against Free-trade is, that under it no elasticity or confidence exists to get us out of the scrape. 1 may, however, state my firm conviction, that the evils arising from the potato rot are nothing compaied with those which (in the absence of a potato tot) would have flown from the price of wheat being lowered one half, not by an increased quantity of our own growth, but by foreign importations, for which we had to pay gold. Our home trade would now be going through the ordeal of a general bankruptcy, unconsoled even by the prospect that, after time getting white-washed, they can live under the undueanU cruel competition of mi taxed foreign labour. I pray jou to rest satisfied that the present sufferings of this country aie in no degree caused by the conduct of the Bank of England, but entirely by the want of confidence caused by Sir R. Peel's Free -trade measures. This is incontrovertibly a bullion, and not a Bank of England panic; and one which will convulse the monetary affairs of the whole empire, and not only those of Lombard street, ifj To be suie vie have not as yet got a bullion panic in the shape of a tun upon tne bank, and this shows the bank's innocence of the cause of the suction of gold } but we have a bullion panic in the higher and less equivocal 6ense of a runon the country for gold, and from the enduring cause that it is the most profitable and disposable property foreigneis can take abroad. I have said that Sir Robert Peel's rree-tradc measures will render a depreciation of the currency inevitable. 1 do not believe that the Bank of England willbeicble to sell government *ecui ities ,*u ah

to prepare for the payment of the July dividends, unless Parliament, before it riset, passes a no less sweeping measure lhan making Silver Shillings a Legal Tender to any amount, and allowing the Bank of England and all other Banks to issue (confined by Sir Robe »t Peel's regulations), one pound notes. This would, by raising gold to a market price, place the foreign trade on the same fooling as the home trade, which draws no gold, but has its prices inflated to the amount uf the depreciation of the silver currency. It would soon,' become evident that gold cannot be bad except at a premium, and then will come the run on the Bank of England, not fioin shippers only, but also by parties to hoaidfor (he premium. Such are the direct and legitimate consequences of Sir Robert Peel's depaiture from the principles of protection to British labour at home and abroad. 1 Leheve that he has undermined the prosperity, and struck a fatal blow at the integrity of the empire. Even the national debt of England will bo futind to be only so much Avas.ie paper, if we persist in our pieoent biiicidal course, for it is secured only by the industry of the empire, from which we have taken away the ability to perform peculiar duties and bear peculiar burdens, by the removal of all its peculiar privileges. One shudders to thiukof the individual misery which will be inflicted upon the population hete, if we persist in viewing the Currency and Freetrade as two questions instead of one, as in reality they are, — a fact that jou know well, from the cruel experience of Canadian industry, when the Legislature of the state of New York stopped specie payments in 1837. And begging you not to suppose for a moment that 1 am less the irreconcilable opponent of class interests than you knew me when I had the honour to represent the metropolis in the first parliament of Upper Canada, I remain, Gentlemen, your obedient humble servant, \ ISAAC BUCHANAN.