The candidate whose claims come under consideration at the present time, is that series of wars which was begun in the eleventh, and continued to the middle of the thirteenth, century, and which, owing to the circumstances of its being fought under the standard of the cross, has been designated the Crusades. The seat of these wars was Palestine; their object the recovery of that country, or more particularly of Jerusalem, from the hands of the Turks, in order that free access might be given to the pilgrims of different nations who professed the christian religion, and who went to visit and pay homage in the place where the Saviour lived and suffered; and the aggressors were persons from most of the countries of western Europe, but principally from Germany, France, and England. The Crusades were conceived in error, carried on in madness, and ended in disaster. They originated in the idea that a pilgrimage to Jerusalem could cancel the sins of a vicious life; that to fight in defence of religion is a most sacred duty, and to kill an infidel is an acceptable religious service. They were carried on at the most reckless expense of property and life; for, while the nations who engaged in these wars were impoverished, not fewer than two millions of precious lives were sacrificed. And they ended by leaving the very object for which they were undertaken, as far from being accomplished as when they were commenced. And what did the nations of Europe get in exchange for so much money and blood? The various orders of knighthood are said to have been originated, surnames and heraldry instituted, and the rough German to have first conceived a taste for the arts. Allowing that these, especially the last, may have done somewhat to promote civilization, it must still remain a question whether the habits which they who had the good fortune to return, had contracted during the wars, did not far more than counteract all the good which resulted. As far as our own country was concerned, the evidence of history appears pretty conclusive: beside suffering from the absence of her king, who was honoured to share in the war, and being well fleeced, first for the expenses of the war, and then for the ransom of the sovereign, the state of society in England, during and after the Crusades, appears to have been of the most unhappy description. The circumstance that, out of a reign of ten years, the king spent but little more than four months in his kingdom, and in the midst of his people, together" with the fact that his whole life was spent in war, or in preparation for war, will prove that the internal state of the country was anything but satisfactory. A people who were called to look upon the whole of Europe as one great arena for royal gladiators-a people so familiar with war and blood-a people whose resources had been drained, and whose property and life were held of comparatively little value, were not likely to make much progress in civilization and refinement; yet who can doubt that a progressing and uplifting civilization would have done more for humanity and religion, than the most successful crusade that ever was undertaken?"* If the introduction of the arts, through the Crusaders, may have done somewhat towards civilizing the people, the very fact that the Crusades were wars, is a fearful one to counterbalance this circumstance. "There is nothing improving, nothing elevating in war." While it is being carried on the worst passions of humanity are excited; and when it is over, and there is no common enemy against whom to exercise it, it is brought to bear against friends and neighbours. It is but a narrow view which men take of war to suppose that the entire loss of the conquered is included in the sum of men and money which may be expended; to this must be added the depreciation which the morals and manners of the people undergo for at least some fifty years after. Perhaps it would not be too much to add to this account a large proportion of the criminals which from time to time inhabit our prisons: for if it be right to rob and murder innocent persons of another nation, it cannot be far wrong to treat similar persons of our own country in the same manner. While governments make use of soldiers to do the one, it is only reasonable to suppose that the soldiers, after being discharged, will not scruple to do the other. Add to this the sum of the other evils which usually attend the camp, and which are as usually indulged in after a war, and it may * Dr. Ferguson's "England." be fairly questioned whether any accidental to conclude that, on the whole, the effects of the Crusades were not favourable to the civilization, much less to the moral elevation, of the people. G. N. good which may accrue from war is sufficient Politics. OUGHT MONEY TO BE INTRINSIC OR SYMBOLICAL? INTRINSIC.-CONCLUDING ARTICLE. THIS discussion now approaches its close. With this number the final dialectical passes between the principals will be exchanged, and thus will have ended this political "Duel, in the form of a debate and is still bungling, about this problem. "What," he asks, "is free trade, or the edu cation question-the former a doubtful benefit,' producing insignificant fruits!compared to the question of employment for the people?" Statesmen, political economists, even prophets, have neither seen nor foreseen the true social panacea; but, as discovered by J. H., it is the plenteous manufacture of money. He would have money plentiful enough to pay for the employment of all, fallaciously thinking it would cause the employment of all. Resting on the many suppositions that money is something more than the organ of demand-that supply can never be in excess of demand-that The clash of arguments, and jar of words." John Bull is the next actor on the field. Himself his own hobby, and his "pocket' the hallowed sanctum, to give his decision as umpire must be a vital act. But finance is the riddle of his life-a “will-o'-the-wisp which sometimes produces ridiculously blundering effects. Luckily, as to the present question there can be no fear of his safety. He is a stout hater of "sweeping changes," and his verdict against "shadows," "flimsies," or precious paper money generally, will" cheap money and dear commodities" are be but another repetition of former decisions. Old opinions are strengthened by opposition. So with old systems. But, happily, debates like the present are healthy forerunners of reformation. Satisfaction cannot but be felt at the spirit in which our question has been met and answered. On both sides there has been no lack of sincerity blended with courtesy. But, though our opponents have enforced respect for their arguments, they have not obscured our perception of the fallaciousness which clings to them. Among our opponents' views are some having a spiritual cast. These deserve prior consideration and settlement. J. H. and James Harvey, who may be one and the same person, are their sole promulgators. Starting from a point as sublime as it is benevolent, J. H. would institute symbolical money because it would be a practical solution of the vague problem, how the rights of labour are to be reconciled with the rights of property. England, it seems, has bungled, preferable to "dear money and cheap commodities" (in the same way that a circular pound weight is preferable in accuracy to a square pound weight)-J. H. and James Harvey prophecy, as incident to abundant symbolical money, that "every man should be at work, every steam-engine in full operation-that poor-rates might be annihilated," &c. Does not the millennium now clearly "loom in the distance?" "When every transfer of earth's natural gifts Shall be a commerce of good words and works"(SHELLEY) when Hobbes' antithesis may be read"Money is the words of wise men, and the counters of fools?" "Oh! happy earth, reality of heaven!" After this it would, indeed, be strange if we had not a "religious element" in our discussion. Mr. Harvey readily introduces one. He, evidently, is less an advocate for a purely symbolical currency than an abhorrer of gold. He is a sincere mammon-hater. "As Egypt chose an onion for a god," so he personifies gold and intrinsic money generally as the great arch-distributor and father of filthy lucre and venal corruption. "Gold money," he says, "has been an unmitigated curse to the people of the earth," and "is typified in the worship of mammon, denounced in scriptures." But will paper money elevate humanity to a purer spiritual state? Will the miser's soul be quenched, or the organ of acquisitiveness never be abused, when once this paper-pound panacea for human depravity is instituted? To some "the very light of heaven is venal;" but Mr. H. apparently abnegates this quality to paper money. Not so thought the satirist : "Blest paper-credit! last and best supply, That lends corruption lighter wings to fly." РОРЕ. But politico-economic science admits not of the introduction of either utopian or religious elements. The sound sense of our readers will, we trust, cause their eschewal, and so fit their minds for more legitimate argumentation. And, first, we must express our surprise at Mr. Harvey's nervous repu. diation of our doctrine that "the true theory of the currency can only be that which practice has taught us." Why, it is upon this very doctrine he reasons against intrinsic money. Arguing from financial history, he infers the nation-saving utility of symbolical money. France, America, and Great Britain, he asserts, were saved from ruin in momentous exigencies--the first by its assignats, the second by its continental money, and the third by its restricted cash payments. Yet he scouts experience as a tester of seemingly theoretic truths, and in a lively strain of analogical ridicule crushes the great doctrine upon which we had fondly built, and from which he draws all his condemnatory inferences. Nevertheless, he will catch at a straw. "Practice is not altogether against us!" he exclaims; as witness the exchequer tallies, or wooden money, which once existed even in this country, and which was a symbolical money, and for internal uses. Why, our opponent must have forgotten that the money of most savage races is also mere tokens. So with them, indeed, practice is not against him. But how happens it that, with civilization, money invariably advances in intrinsicality or worth; and that everywhere, in great emergencies, that moneycharacteristic is departed from, a resumption is always consequent upon the decadence of the forth-calling emergencies? We will not say "a divinity has shaped" these ends; but it is none the less true that exchequer tallies, assignats, continental money, and inconvertible British paper money, now rank among the things that were. Mr. Harvey, apparently, has yet to learn that there are such distinctions as a natural and an unnatural demand for money. An intrinsic currency, we confess, as it is the growth of political nature, can do little more than answer natural political requirements. Its expansion follows the expansion of production and commerce. Like its antecedents, therefore, it is of slow development. The individual in want of sustenance must work for it; when in want of money, he must do the same. If his expenditure, whether conducive to future gain or not directly productive, is great, he must by labour, skilful outlaying, and careful husbandry, first acquire the necessary means; but if, like the spendthrift, he live and purchase expensively upon credit alone, he is a non-producer, and is pursuing a course equivalent to circulating a false or factitious money, having no prospective value. He is a non-producer, because lie wastes commodities, and neither multiplies his own nor his neighbour's stock. Of course, as it is with the nation, so it is with the individual. Now, it is remarkable that transitions from an intrinsic into a symbolical currency have always been the temporary resort of states in this condition of spendthriftey. When France became "a nation of soldiers' it required an artificial money, not the growth of labour, to pay for sustenance and the expenses of gigantic enterprizes, increased in price as they must have been by the scarcity of labour. The credit upon which the assignats obtained currency hung upon the bloody points of Gallic bayonets. Armies are nonproductive; they waste particular commodities without ever adding to the general stock. Moreover, they drain their own countries of their intrinsic money to pay for what they consume in other states; for the credit which forces the circulation of factitious money at home is effete abroad. From these facts our readers will easily understand the true ground upon which rests Mr. Harvey's boast that non-intrinsic money "saved" America, France, and Great Britain, when bending under their unnatural loads of enor in these temporary money transactions, they will recognise the symbolical theory of the currency as the one which recorded financial experience tells them is founded on truth and the fitness of things. mous expenditures. But we little fear that, | This is strongly and boldly stated; but let us see how it is supported. It is because of the fixity in the value of gold, and because in prosperous times of "high prices and large profits," this fixity of price in gold is the cause of "a drain of the metal from the We are now naturally led to the most con- country." How? Because gold then "beficting point in our discussion-that of comes the cheapest commodity we have," and "scarcity of money." It is the main pivot is, therefore, exported by the foreign merround which revolve our opponent's fallacies. chant in exchange for his imported goods. The term sadly wants definition. Sometimes What is here meant by "cheapest commodity" it is used for scarcity of bullion; sometimes we are puzzled to say. "Irene" does not it is applied to a rise in prices; and sometimes mean that the foreign market price of gold it is used to express some vague notion of has risen above our standard price, for some a limited circulating medium. Money-sym- checked home influence seems implied. Most bolists are never inore fallacious than when likely his meaning may be, that, amid a condemning gold money, because its increase general rise in the prices of other commodiin quantity is not so proportionate with the ties, it is most profitable to the foreigner to increase of commodities that no fluctuation take that particular commodity whose price of prices can accrue. Their blunder consists has not proportionably risen. But what unin confounding a nominal with a real value. known causes are they which make gold The real value between the media and the money and commodities dear alike? Dear article of purchase is irrespective of the rela- money and cheap commodities, and vice versa, tive quantities of either. "The abundance we can understand; but, aware of the fixity of currency in the markets," says Mr. Att- of gold money value, dear money and dear Wood, "has the very same action in raising commodities, coupled with high profits, go prices as the scarcity of property has; and beyond our comprehension. Even admitting the scarcity of currency in the markets has the "sole legal tender" to be cheaper to the very same action in lowering prices as foreigners than any other of our commodities the abundance of property has." But upon-not because there is any difference in its this point F. F. has already fully and clearly enlarged. No system of symbolical money has ever yet been mooted that could entirely obriate the fluctuation of prices; so that evils incident thereto must ever be tolerated so long as the scarcity and overplus of commodities in proportion to the demand are affected otherwise than by the current value of money. We feel our position too strong, as respects the lesson to be drawn from the history of the disastrous results of a contraction of the currency in 1816, alluded to by "Irene," to enter into lengthened argument. The 6,005 bankruptcies consequent on this collapse tell not in the least against an intrinsic currency. We advocate no reduction in the quantity of the circulating medium; nor have we yet seen cause to "sweep away the whole stock of our paper currency." But the principal argument of "Irene" is, that "money possess ing intrinsic value has a natural tendency to create those disastrous commercial panics which in previous years have brought this country to the very verge of revolution." value in the two markets, but because the other commodities are dearer in our market than in the foreigner's-this inequality could not be of long continuance. The equilibrium of prices, through the action of a free commerce, would speedily be restored. The drain of specie would, by limiting partially the circulating medium, lower the prices of commodities to those of other markets, without necessarily lessening the profits. But, in reality, "Irene's" argument, even if tenable, is of insignificant importance. His so-called "fair transcript from the page of English history," loses all its force as an example by the accurate explanation. The memorable panic of 1825 was distinguished and maintained by the want of a single commodity,-gold; and it is true that the missing gold was exported: but, primarily, the panic arose from the great mania for speculation in foreign loans, in costly joint-stock-company undertakings; also from an overplus of British manufactures in foreign markets, and from the failures of numerous private country bankers, who so far transgressed the law of intrinsic currency, as to engross the whole circulating importance of the country as a promising medium of their districts, without possessing field for colonization and even incipient sufficient capital to meet demands.* Thus nationalization-there need be less apprehengreat, indeed, were the ruin and havoc sion for either extraordinary fluctuations in among incomes and fortunes; and not even prices, or any undue alteration of the present "Irene" could resist the temptation of ex- standard value of gold at home. posing a system under which such financial tragedies occurred. But "Irene's" primary argument having failed, so also does his secondary one, that, under a representative currency, foreigners would take our goods instead of our gold, because, at the then market price, he asserts, our gold would be less advantageous to foreign merchants than our goods. Certainly our opponent plays the dangerous game of vaticination boldly and positively. We will now conclude. We have replied according to the manner in which our op ponents have treated the question. Nothing has been said by its advocates in favour of a symbolical currency which can, we think, justify its institution. C. E. R. would make it an entirely inconvertible currency, representative only of "a certain quantity and description of labour at the time of the basis being fixed." This "symbolical money" he would base, we see, limitedly upon production, but he has no better plan of expounding it with production than through the imperfect medium of discounting bills of exchange. But if our readers would have a currency that represents and expands with labourone which is of universal value, which can force a free-trade for itself, the fixity of which ensures its invariability, as a measure of value, and which is not dependent upon forced credit or arbitrary authority to ensure circulation-then let them give their verdict R. L. G. Space, however, forbids prolonged debate. We will not call our reader's attention to Australia, or speculate on that apparently endless theme. Be the results of the insane scamper for gold as they may, the general argument on this question will scarcely be affected. But of Australia we think, that, considering the numbers finally destined to people it, their poverty, their distance from their old houses-the fact of other pursuits being sacrificed to gold-digging, and healthy comforts to life-shortening privations-the for intrinsic money. SYMBOLICAL.-CONCLUDING ARTICLE. IT has been conceded by many bullionists, that if paper could be limited in amount, it would serve as a money equally as well as gold; but their fear-a very natural one, a fear which arises from a dread of disturbing the relations of debtor and creditor, a fear for which I have every respect-is, that paper would be issued in excess. This is the weak side of paper money, and I would assent to the most stringent regulations which could prevent a baseless issue. But paper may be so issued as to be more valuable than gold, as M'Culloch confesses in his "Commercial Dictionary," when he tells us that, in the Bank Restriction Act, Mr. Pitt did not issue paper enough, and his notes were worth more than twenty shillings. I think the illustration I am about to give shows the real nature of money and its representative character. When Captain Franklin was approaching the Arctic Sea, he dismissed "Pop. Cyclopædia;" Article, Britain. his Indian guides, and, to their great surprise, offered them a piece of paper. Were they, after their fatigues and exertions, to be remunerated by a piece of paper? Captain Franklin explained to them, that this piece of paper was an order on the government stores at Montreal for a liberal remuneration in the shape of muskets, gunpowder, and blankets. The Indians, having faith in Captain Franklin, took his paper order, which became to them what a bill of lading is to a banker, or a warehouse order to an advancing broker, or a penny postage stamp to a man about to write a letter, or a ship note to a sailor. Now, if all other Indians had the same faith with whom they came in contact, this paper would have become money. Then why should not England, a civilized country, have faith in her government, and allow it to issue paper money? I maintain that the first function of a government is to find its people in an instrument of exchange. Taxation implies such a power and such a function. |