NEWS OF TIIE WEEK.
PARLIAMENT, as usual, rather shirked work before the holydays ; but what was done was not without interest. Sir ROBERT PEEL _has proceeded with his Currency measure, and has made a speech supplementary to that of May the 6th, comprising some important -points. He has modified that portion of his plan which relates to the additioual circulation, based on securities, that , the Bank of England is to be empowered to make under certain contingencies : instead of making the extension on grounds sanctioned by three Ministers of the ,Crown, the Bank is to make it on grounds indi- cated in the act of Parliament, to communicate the intention to 0, Ministers, and to receive the sanction of the Queen in Council. Another important detail added to the plan is the permission to the Bank to base part of its issues on silver, which is construed, as in popular parlance, to be included in the term " bullion "; only with certain restrictions : the public are still to have the right of de- manding gold in payment of notes, the Bank to be at the risk and if cost of converting silver into gold under any possible necessity of the kind, and the proportion of silver inoluelerWiti the " bullion " taken as the basis of circulation must not exceed one-fifth. [Sir • ROBERT PEEL said " one-fourth "; but he illustrated his meaning by adding, that in every 5,000,000/. of bullion 4,000,000/. must be of gold and 1,000,0001. might be of silver.] This will obviate . several inconveniences that might have arisen from taking gold as the sole basis : the Bank will not be interested in avoiding the use of silver, which would have been a troublesome impediment to many customers in the ordinary course of business ; silver is the metallic circulating medium in most foreign countries ; remittances of coin to or from those countries must be made in sil- ver; the Bank is the appropriate great national depot to receive or supply the coin ; and for the Bank to have avoided that function, might not only have been a hindrance to commerce, but a source of disturbance to the exchanges. Another item is, that the public are to have the right not only to demand gold for notes but notes for gold. And Sir ROBERT PEEL developed several particulars re- specting the future regulation of issuing Joint-stock and Private Banks, allowing them as much -freedom of action as is consistent with a perfect control over the currency. These further details give completeness to the plan. He also strove to give com- pleteness to his argument, by supplying the link between his premises and his conclusions, observed to be missing in his speech of the 6th. He then laid down principles, but did not show that they led to his particular measures. He now said that he was not aware of the omission ; but further to explain the utter disre- gard of right principles in the management of currency exhibited by the Country Banks, he cited extraordinary instances of extrava- gance, mismanagement, and wholesale bankruptcy. This was in- teresting, and it proved the necessity for interference ; but still it failed to supply the strictly logical chain from the data to the par- ticular measure as the sole and inevitable conclusion. With few and eccentric rather than striking exceptions, everybody in the House seemed to admit the great want, and to think that the mea- sure -You'd do remarkably well for the exigency ; so that if not logically, practically the Minister may be said to have made out his ease; as by the boldness, the comprehensiveness, the completepess, and the prudence of his measure, he has vanquished party-jea- lousies, and has from all sides won an admiring concurrence, alike creditable to him and to those who render it.
The Lords have had their say on the Factory Bill; and Ashley- ism, it appears, is at a discount among the noble senators. The whole discussion was much more subdued in tone than the debates in the Commons,—denoting far less earnestness on either side, and -much more cool judgment; and the preponderance 'of opinion was so far in favour of the Ministerial moderation in fackry-interference that no active opposition was attempted. The to chief excep-
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tions were—Lord BROUGHAM, who objected to the bill for inter- fering at all, and Lord NORMANDY, who objeLtect io it for not in- terfering enough. The Ex-Chancellor protested against any inter- ference which should not leave labour "free" to make its own bargains at the dictate of self-interest ; urging arguments of the usual kind on that head, with his peculiar power of expression. The Marquis appeared as a sort of polished disciple of the Dux- COMBE school,—uniting Ashleyisin with, not Chartism, but some- thing a good deal spiced with that piquant ism ; arid he was far from being infelicitous in his positions. You must interfere to protect the factory-people, he says, because they cannot protect themselves, being all engaged in one sort of work which they can- not change, and being therefore unable to control their own bar- gains : in other employments, labour is regulated by the duration of the natural day ; and you must secure to the factory-labourers, in their artificial existence, the same respite that those have who remain in a more natural state—as the quondam slaves of the West Indies. The two speeches illustrate very well the crude and con- flicting state of opinion on the whole subject. Lord Noamseer regards the factory-workers as '6 slaves," and contemplates pro- tective measures accordingly : but they are not 6.6 slaves"—that is, subject to the absolute will of others; A factory-hand is as free to pursue his own choice unchecked by any individual as any one in the land. Lord Becordnam regards the class' while let alone by the law, as "free," and denies all protection : but it is not "free" —that is, the factory-hand does not possess a range of choice equal to that possessed by most other Citizens; he is subject, not to the control of any individual, but to the pressure of his own class in competition, to the exactions of the employing class, to a despotism of circumstances so stringent and so apparent as greatly to modify the sense even of individual freedom. There seems to want, there- fore, if not interference between man and man, some intervention to relieve the class from undue pressure. Opinion must be more matured before we can know what the interference should be; and in the mean time legislators are likely enough to stop the cry. of the moment with inadequate palliatives, in which nobody puts thorough faith.
