THE VALUE OF GOLD.

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 692, 1 December 1852, Page 4

THE VALUE OF GOLD.

(Prom the " Adelaide Morning Chronicle.") "What is to be the value of gold ! This is a question which necessarily commands attention at this time, both in Britain and in the Australian Colonies. Many are of opinion that gold must fall greatly in price if the gold fields in Australia and California continue to be as productive for a series of years as they have been for these last twelve months. The question is not what is to be the price of gold, for that would be as relevant as to find out the value of a piece of cloth by measuring the number of yards it contains, but what is to be its intrinsic value- This must be reckoned by valuing the labour expended on raising it and bringing it to market ; not from any one isolated spot, but the average cost of its production all over the world. While gold digging is more profitable t'aan any other business, it is evident that men will desert their callings to follow it until the metal becomes too hard to procure, or the value of it sinks too low to be remunerative. _ Where diggings are productive, all the necessaries of life rise in price, and every description of labouv is at a premium, proportioned in some degree to the success of these diggings ; were they to fail, prices would fall ; so that in reality gold is a great deal cheaper in Australia than in England. It is probable that the requirements of commerce will absorb without depreciating much the gold found in Australia and California, and that the abundance of the precious metal will give a great impetus to many valuable public works. Britain is the only country whose coinage is chiefly in gold, and where gold is a legal tender, In France and other countries of the continent, as well as in the United Stales of America, the oumbrous silver coinage is still kept up as the basis of exchange; but when the prodigious influx of gold has- rendered it pJenijiulifc is likely they will adopt the more portable and convenient medium, That alone would absorb many milliops and would benefit trade besides. But doubtless there is a limit even to the requirements of oommeroe, and if gold pours into England beyond that limit prices must be affected there as well as here. If there is no corresponding increase in the quantity of silver brought into the market, the sovereign will not be worth twenty shillings, though an ounce of gold be still worth £3.88. The necessary consequence of this difference between the real" value of gold and silver no Act of Parliament could prevent ; the present silver coinage, would disappear from circulation and a fresh coinage in which the shilling would-be smaller in order to make it represent the twentieth of a pound, must be issued. The value of gold relatively to other commodities would be

lower; land would rise in price; the value of labour and food would be reckoned in larger figures without being more scarce or plentiful, simply because (bo medium of* exchange is produced now at a smaller cost than formerly. Though the National Debt may be the same in figures, and the same sum may be paid by the nation yearly for interest upon it, it will be less burdensome when pi'ices are high. If the sum were converted into bushels of wheat, it would materially shrink when wheat is dear, and would be felt as light as it was when the debt wns contracted, if prices were as high as they were during the war. All persons whose property consists in a certain fixed sum, such as mortgagees, fundholders, &c, must suffer in the anticipated abundance of gold provided it exceeds the limit we have named ; but thei'e is no reason why monied men should be the only class whose property should be protected against depreciation. The owners of money must share the common lot of all proprietors. We do not agree with Professor Alison in his wild exultation on account of the benefits God has conferred upon mankind by this large increase in the supply of the circulating medium. In his address to the Young Men's Society, delivered in Freemasons' Hall, he considers that the recent discoveries of gold will give the greatest impetus to the christianising of the world, and will remove all fear of the earth's becoming overpopulated ; for he seems to think that if men have plenty of gold they could never want bread. Is the fate of Midas so enviable ? Though no doubt God in his providence has for wise ends permitted this discovery, we are too near the gold fields here to see in them cause for such Tinmixed rejoicing. They may give an impetus to trade, and circulate money with rapidity ', but if they unsettle steady habits of industry, break up domestic ties, and lead to dissipation^and vice, we in South Australia are not much beholden to them.

Gold. — Charles Dickens, in writing on the vast richness of the Australian gold fields, in a late number of the Household Words, says : — " There is just reason in anticipating a change in the value of gold, which will begin to take place at no distant time. The annual supply of gold promises to be about eight times greater than it was at the commencement of the present century, as that of gold is likely to foil in the nineteenth. The -price of silver fell in consequence of the increased production from the great mines in America. A piece of gold is now assumed to be worth fifteen or sixteen like pieces of silver ; during the middle ages it was worth only twelve such pieces. In Euz % ope, under Charlemagne, ten pieces of silver were an equivalent ; and at one period, in Rome, silver was but nine times less precious than gold : relative values, therefore, have varied, and they will vary again. Since they were last fixed bylaw, there have occurred no causes of disturbance. Now, however, a time of disturbance is again at hand. In France, the monetary unit is a franc, and silver i?, by law, the standard coinage ; but a supplementary IaAV having assigned the value of twenty silver francs to pieces of gold of a fixed weight, our neighbours will not be exempted from our difficulty, and the French State, may profit, if it please, at the expense of public creditors. Governments have only to do nothing, and a large part of their debts will tumble from them ; holders of Government securities have only to be passive, and in the course of years their incomes will dimmish sensibly. Debtors will hold a jubilee, and creditors will be dismayed, if gold shall be allowed to foil in value without due provision being made to avert as far as possible, all inconvenience attending that event. In 1848 the value of gold had been for many years a very little more than the amount of silver allowed by law in France, as its equivalent. The little difference was quite enough to put gold out of circulation. Gold was more precious as metal than as money; it was, therefore, used by preference as metal ; when wanted as coin it was only to be bought at more than its legal current value, of ihe money-chang-ers. There is a vast quantity of gold in circulation now, but it is newly coined. The fall in the value of gold cannot begin to any appreciable extent until the utmost available quantity lias been employed upon the monetary system of the world. Coinage now goes on rapidly. A huge mass of sovereigns has lately been sent to the Australian Colonies. When the depreciation once begins, it will be tolerably rapid. It is not absurd to calculate that if the gold production should continue at its present rate, sovereigns will be as halfsovereigns now are in value in the course of about twenty years. At the same time, it will be the duty of all States to take such precautions as shall make it impossible for a change of this kind to introduce confusion into commerce, or to change the character and spirit of existing contracts."

Preserved Meats tor the Navy. — The select committee appointed to inquire into the contracts and the mode of making them, for the supply of meat provisions for the use of her Majesty's navy, from the year 1845 to 1851, inclusive ; and into the rejection of preserved meats ; and into the causes which have led to the receiving into the government stores, and to the issuing for the use of her Majesty's ships on foreign service, certain preserved meats, which have proved to be unfit for human food ; and into the means by which an occurrence so prejudicial to the public service may most effectually he prevented, have, pursuant to the order of the house, examined the matters to them referred, and have agreed to the following recommendations :—": — " Your committee, then, is of opinion, after giving the subject their best consideration, that preserved meat should be manufactured for the future in the government yards, or wherever Government shall select as the best locality for iheir establishment, as 'the means whereby occurrences so prejudicial to the public service may be materially if not altogether and effectually prevented in time to come. At the same time the committee do not wish to press the execution of their recommendation too hastily upon the admiralty ; nor ought they to be understood so to express themselves as to insist upon a rigid adherence to it, since occasion may arise when a a relaxation of such system may be not only expedient, but conducive to the public service. As regards the contracts for preserved meats, the general rule should be that they shall be obtained by public competition, but that the admiralty should not he bound to accept the lowest tender, With respect to the salted provisions supplied to the seamen of her Majesty's fleet, nothing can be more satisfactory than the evidence on this point brought under the consideration of your committee, The failure that has occurred in the quality of salt provisions issued to her Majesty's ship Alarm, on the West Indian station, appears to have been solely attributable to the length of time tho provisions have been in store ; but as th,e supply is now kept down in stores to 18 months consumption, such a circumstance is not likely again to occur, Your committee cannot bring their labours to a close without some expression of satisfaction, that their inquiry has been the means of bringing prominently before the house the care which has been bestowed qH late years by successive administrations upon the victualling of the navy, For not only have the alterations made from time to time been the means of promoting the health, and materially adding to the comforts of the seamen, but these changes have been effected, and" these benefits enlarged, without additional cost to tho country."

An Aboriginal Execution. — Strange as it may seem, we have been assured upon the best possible authority, that a black fellow was recently executed near the Merri Creek, for the wilful murder of one of his tribe. It will be remembered that some months ago we recorded in the Herald the death of a well-known aboriginal named Diavmid, who was found dead in a shallow water-hole in Collingwood Flat, near the Shepherd's Anns

Hotel. It Iws since been satisfactorily ascertained that the poor follow was murdered. Three of his own tribe waylaid and knocked him down ; he was then dragged to the waterhole, when one forcibly kept his head under water, a second knelt on his body, the third held his legs, and under such circumstances to effect his death was no very difficult matter. It is one of these three fellows who has been recently killed in expatiation of his offence, and according to the laws of his tribe, which our informant states seldom or never fail in punishing 1 by death those parties deemed guilty of killing one of their own tribe, and in the event of the actual assassins escaping by flight or any other means the next of kin as surely is made the victim. If such a law is recognised and rigidly enforced (which Aye are assured on every respectable authority to be the case) we cannot see much utility in the British Government interfering in oases were blacks kill each other int^r se, for even should a culprit be executed according to the white man's law, it reckons as nothing in the administration of sable jurisprudence and the same course of vengeance is pursued as if the British law had never interfered. — Melbourne Herald.

Domestic Servants in Australia. — I think I must have bad twenty or cren thirty servants in one year, always giung the highest wages. I shall not readily forget the amusing results of an advertisement for butler and valet which I was recommended to insert in the Sydney Morning Herald. There was no want of applicants. The first wis a miserable old ruin of a man, scarcely four feet high, who indignantly repel'ed my well-intended hint, thai 1 did not think him strong enough for the situation. The next was a gigantic Negro. He had been " 'teward," he said, on board three cr four merchant vessels, and was tired of the sea. He lookel like a descendant of Mendoza the pugilist, and had probably been transported for killing 3 man in a twelve-foot ling. A tall, thin, grey-haired man, of polished exterior, next tendered his services. He had been a solicitor in England; had met with reverses; was at present a tulor at a school ; could clean plate, because once he had had a service of his own. Then came a handsome, dark-eyed gaillard, with long black curls hanging over the collar of his round jacket, who threw rapid glances over the furniture and trinkets of the drawing-room-— not forgetting the maidens as he passed the kitchen-door — in a truly buccaneering style. He gave his name Juan da Silva, and resented any mention of references. At length we were suited, He was a highly respectable young immigrant just landed, who bad served in an aristocratic family at home. " Jeames," Imng steady, attentive, and perfectly acquainted with his duties, we were charmed with our acquisition, and congratulated ourselves on something like permanence of service; when, Io ! in less than n month he gave warning. He had made use of my house as an hotel unlil he could settle himself; and having at length decided in favour of the drapery line, he was in a few days duly installed behind a counter in George- street. In the case just mentioned, our old Durse warned u-. tbat <{ that young fellow ain't a going to slay ;" and I wondered the-less at his want of taste when she told roe that she had one son in the ironmongery line getting fiftytwo guineas a-year, and another, only twelve years old, receiving at some shop MO and his "diet." — ikfunrfy on Our Antipodes.

The Last of the Jacowtes. — Janet Munro, or M'Kenzte, lately departed this life at Alness, in Rosshire, and was interred in the burying ground of Rosskeen. If we are not misinformed, J net, at tbe period of her decease, was the oldest women in Scotland, if not in Great Britain, for she was at lea^st 1 10 years of age, and tbere is reason to believe that she was even more. She bad a child's recollection of the great national event of the buttle of Culloden, and from many of her nearest relations, Munroes and M'Kenzie9, having been "out" in that romantic enterprise, she could detail a whole catalogue of curious incidents connected with these eventful times, which, from her retired mode of life and comparatively remote residence, never found their way into print. In Janet Munro we believe tbere has passed away (he last inhabitant of Scotland who was alive when Charles Edward held state in Holyrood, or skulked as a hunted deer amongst the Western Isles. She was a atauncb Jacobite till her djing day, and was, we bave no doubt, the last individual in the British dominions who conscientiously believed that her Majesty held tbe crown by an unlawful tenure. It is atrange to think of what has passed during the five score years and tenwhich have elapsed since this venerable crone was christened. She waa in the piime of Me when the United States of America were English colonies; she was become elderly before Napoleon gained his first battle, and she had lapsed into old age before steamers or locomotives on railways were heard of. Janei belonged to the respectable class of small farmers; she was a woman of unblemished character, and was a widow for the period of forty-three years. She retained till her last moments the exercise of her mental facullips, and previous to her last illness could read the smallest print with the unaided eye. — Glasgow Herald. The English Wool Pamc. — At length the woollen manufactures of the North of England have taken the alarm, and are urging upon the government the necessity of sending out shiploadsof emigran's by wholesale to put a stop to tbe dearth of labour under which a laro-e portion of (he colonists are suffering— nothing of the kind — but that they themselves may not want a supply of wool; the condition of the colonisls never entered into their imaginations, it was only their own interests which were likefy (o suffer. The ministers communicated to these disinterested gentlemen (bather Majesty's GovernmenthadsomeThrep Hundred Thousand Pounds of the colonists' funds on hand for emigration purposes. " Spend it as fast im possible, and pledge the credit of the colony for more," was instantly the cry. These patriots never dream that England ought to pay for the expatriation of her own door,— where would be the use of doing this? and not content with receiving the alms which colonists annually send to them, they coolly propose to pawn the alms-givers! Yet we have a dist net lecollection of their leader and representative, Mr. Cobden, always reiterating that our colonial benefactors are an intolerable expense to us, and that we should be much better wiihout them. Let it be proposed in the House o{ Commons that England should have the conscience to rote a sum for the purpose of sending; to Australia some of its surplus poor, so as not to throw the whole burden on the colonies, and in a trice we should have the representative of these northern wool manufactures, the Brights, the Cobdens, and the whole tribe of political economists, exclaiming against iniquity of spending money, when others could be found to spend theirs for us; and this in (he U-eth of the really dangerous position in which their false economy has already placed the Australian colonies, by re ducing the number of tioops to such an extent, that an enterprizing Califorman Paul Jones might a'most land and load his ship with gold dust; or a Dr. Lang, if as well gifted with enterpnze as with intention, might proclaim himself president of the United Australian States almoU without opposition. — Amtialian and A ew Zealand iiazttle.

Geography of England.— The celebrated German Geographer, Karl Bitter, proposes to visit this countrj in June, for tbe purpose of studying the physical conformation and structure of England and Wales. Tl.e veteran professor lias more tban once visited Great Britain, but hitherto for the purpose of studying tbe physical peculiaiities of Scotland. He will remain with us about three months, returning to resume his winter lectures at Berlin.

Extinction of Gold from the OnE.-^On Friday, Dr, Percy, of the Museum of Economic Geology, delivered a lecture at the Royal Institution on the extraction of gold from the ores. The lecturer remarked that the term gold ore was correctly applied, and that the familiar notion of the purity of gold in its native state was unfounded, for the most part gold was found associated with silver, but occasionally it occurnvJ in combination with iron or tellarium. Gold, accoiding to J)r. Percy, has been extracted commercially from many parts of the British Isles. In the reign of Henry 111. gold workings &t Wicklow were productive; a piece of native gold weighing; twenty-two ounces having been found in that locality. After sketching the general distribution of gold, and stating the conditions of its occurrence, Dr. Peicy gave a description of the various model of extraction which may be resolved into the raechnnical and the chemical. The former consists in various processes of washing by water, either in bowla worked by the hand, or on the larger scale by machines. The next deyelopementof the piocess consists in agitating the washed gold ore with mercury, by which an amalgam becomes generated, 'lhe chemical means depend on the tendency to combine with gold possessed by melted lead and iron, and the capability of aqueous chlorine to dissolve duely divided gold. The latter principle has been taken advantage of in Hungary, and answeia peifectly for certain descriptions of auriferous sand. With regard to the process of smelting gold quartz, in contradistinction to almnlgamating it, Dr. Percy explained the principles on which such smelting operation to be sucessful must depend. I'luidity mußt be given to the quartz by fusion with oxide of iron,

and the gold must ho abstracted by the addition o! load* -"Watchman, June 2. The Chinese pay the British merchants fiftppn millions of dollars for cotton manufacture", and fortj-five millions of {loiters for opium grown in the British East Indies, every year.