THE GOLD QUESTION.

Otago Witness, Issue 641, 12 March 1864, Page 10

THE GOLD QUESTION.

Recently some of the cru "eat and most singular crotchets have been gravely enounced on this subject as great discoveries or old aud well demonstrated truths. It i 3 a well known historical fact that before the fr'outb, American mines had produced their effect iv increasing the quantity of the precious metals in Europe, a penny in England, would purchase as much of the necessaries of lite as a shilling will now. What is the real meaning; md significance of this well known historical f xct, 1 Auinuir other things it means that ie!atively to corn and meat and other commodities, gold aud silver are twelve times as plentiful now aa they were thwi. It means that the workman who eanird five pence par day then, comypoeds to the workman, aud was in reality as lich as the workman who prvhs 53 a day iiow. Of course nobody in thote times, not even i kings upon their throne*, could procure at any price the things that workman earning LI a week can obtain now, and which modern science and art have placed within their reach. Bur as r^gaids the necessaries of life, the m*n with 5d a day then was a-3 wei) ofFas the man with 5s a day now. The class earning 5d a day at that time corresponds to the class earning 5s a day at the present tiino. The skilled operatives iv the building trades, such as mason 9. plumbers erlaziers, oirp»i\ter>. bricklayers, joiners, and the like, e.U'nel about 5.M per day; they now earn ab ut 5s 6d. 'I beir status and condition, measured by the purchasing power of their incomes, estimated by their command over the necessaries of life, is just the same at this day as it was thiee or four hundred years ago. Buppo i e now a debt of LIOO contracted in the time ot Henry VI I I. or Elizabeth were paid off new. Tlip tender's ropvp^ictatives wou d obvious'y only receive a twelfth parr, of what their ancestor had lent, mea-uriug the sum by its purphasing power in corn and other necessaries. A3 money went twelve times as far in its purchasing power then as now, as its purchasing power was twelve times as great in thereign of Henry VIII.V 1 11. or Elizibeth an it is in the reign of Vicroiiu, £100 would now purchase only a twelfth part of the corn it would have purchased then Kepayment, therefore, nf debts reserved in corn, v- in money measure! in corn, are better for lender* if such debts are to be outstanding for very long periods of time; at short periods, however, corn, dependent as it is upon the seasons, may fluctuate more than gold. When we tako distaut eras fike these, separated by hundreds of years, we can see the working of the principle just as when we look into the centre of the zooes of color in the rainbow we get the true tint ; when we look towards tho point where they blend together ani become indistinguishable we cannot tell clearly which is which. Let us pursue the analysis into it* lea* obvi -us portions. irupp >te we no bnck to a period 1:0 yeara ago, tlut is, b.f.<j» the Californinn and Australian mines were discovered. What has been the effect of these discoveries upon Europe 1 What is the eflecfc thai they can or must have had ? One effect is that gold is more plentitul relatively to other things now than ir would have been if these mines had I not butn found and worked. That is to say, that there must be more money in tho "world, reckoned in the number of pounds, shillings and pence, than there would have been but for these mines. But the amount of money, measured in the quantity of corn it will buy, which any individual or number rf individuals, may actually possess, need not be at all greater than if the Oaliforniau and Australian gold had never come into the market.

Even tho y e whose income 5 " are now the exact numbs; of pounds they were 30 years ago, might not, under conditions which it is easy to specify, experience any difference between the purchasing power of their money at the dift-rent epochs supposed. It must he reux inhered that since the goid discoveries in Australia, Oaliforbia, and elsewhere, the vast countries of China and India have been explored, and their resources opened up. The commerce of the Old World and of the New has enormously increased. The communities of the Australasian continent, Australia and New Zealand, are growing into populous and commercial nations. A'l these must absorb vaat quantities of the precious metals ; bo that, had not the Utt gold difcoverieu been made, the precious metals (for au augmentation or a decrease of gold would extend its effectß to silver) would have grown leas plentiful relatively to other things than they were before. la other word, pi ices must have fallen. But it is just the same thing to have a pound in your pockeS with b-end at 6d a loaf, as it is to have L 2 in your pocket with bread at 1b a loaf, people would a it have been, generally speaking,

and taking the large average of the world; either richer or poorer, in reality and in fact, tlnough the change. It is just the same with nations a.* with individuals Suppose, for example, that it the course of to-night, by some macioal prncebs, the prices of all things here in England were to become doubled, ho that when we woke up to-morrov morning we were to find everything twice ai dear in money as it was when we went to bed; but suppose, also, that we found, by another magical process, tue money in our tills and cash-boxes and at our bankers , as well as our wages, incomes, salaries — in a word, the sum toMl of specie and Ban'c notes in the cm .try to he aUo doubled— what difference would it r. nke to us ] Not the slightest. Relatively and in reality we should he neither riehor nor poorer than we were before, as out- minim- Wiiuld buy us as much necessarit-, comforts and luxuries as heretofore, sad no more than heretofore. What we have S'joposci here, by way of illustration, as taking plan* suddenly, in the course of to-night, ha* actually been taking place, .slowly and gradually, but sureiv and inevitably, and upon a muc'i vaster scale, ever since the mines of Mexico and Peru ware opened How many are there among u^ who receive exactly the same number of pounds for their incomes now, fs they, the identical indivMunU, did twenty years ago ? The temporary flucfudtinn=! of price produced by the one cause of the influence ot the weather upon the corn market are probably far more percepti ble than the steady operation of new discoveries of the precious metals, which so many circumtavces tend to obscure 83 well as to counteract their natural consequences.