MISUSES OF GOLD.

Colonist, Issue 9, 20 November 1857, Page 1

MISUSES OF GOLD.

(Curtailed from Chanibers's Journal.) On the accession of Philip 11. in the middle of the sixteenth century, and during most of his reign, Spain was a great nation. Her navies swept the seas till their pride was tamed in the British Channel by the rising energy of the nation which was to snatch from her the sceptre of the seas. She had east possessions stretching over Europe; and the Indies, as North and South America were called, were treated as the property of the Spanish crown—a sort of domain full of incalculable riches to be poured into the lap of the parent state. It may be said, however, that it was particularly the possession of the gold mines of South America that dazzled the eyes of the government, and made it frantic and foolish with pride. Political economy teaches us that bullion is but a commodity like others, which may be a means of trading and creating riches, but tt is not in itself riches, save in so far as it may command other commodities. An Australian digger,,with a lump of gold in his possession, seated on the top of a mountain, and unable to find his wa}r to a store or any place where he can exchange it for other objects, is a very poor man in comparison with the blacksmith at his forge making a good living with his stock of iron. But the Spanish government fell into the mistake that bullion was in itself riches. They deemed it the end for which all mankind toiled and speculated, bought and sold; and this being within the boundaries of their own territories, they deemed that there was now no need for them to toil and speculate, and buy and sell. A decree was issued prohibiting,the exportation of the precious metals: they were to be kept at home for the enrichment of the country. It had just such an effect as if ah act of parliament were to be passed prohibiting the exportation of cotton-manu-factures and cutlery from this country. The bullion extracted from the American mines was just a commodity suitable for trade— not so profitable a commodity as cottonmanufactures and cutlery, but still it was the commodity which Spain especially possessed, and she ought to have sought and cultivated the means of following out a good trade in connection with it. Instead of encouraging, her government hampered and intercepted her' legitimate trade, and the natural consequences followed. The people became idle, and, being idle, they became poor, notwithstanding the gold mines. These, it is true, sent over their tribute. Despite of the utmost vigilance of the government, a considerable portion of it' found its way abroad, much to the relief of the country, which was subject to a topical plethora of gold. Portions of this wealth were seized by Drake and the English cruisers, whose half-piratical captures did little harm to the people of Spain beyond the humiliation they inflicted. In fact, the bullion indicated the national degradation most effectually when it found its way, as the greater part of it did, to.the palaces of the nobility. Such a contrast of wealth and poverty let us hope the world may never shew again. A Spanish noble would possess a sideboard with forty silver ladders, ! by which his slaves mounted to carry down ; dishes of gold and silver, which would be valued in the present day at £40,000 or £5.0,000. Yet in the midst of this grandeur there prevailed squalid misery, rags, and starvation. On golden, dishes ihere was not a morsel to eat; the owner was without the means of buying a dinner; he was as poor in the possession of bullion I which he could not dispose of as an Irish or Highland landlord with a large estate for which he receives no rent. It was noted by travellers in Spain in the seventeenth century that some of these magnificent grandees could not obtain so humble. a product of, foreign industry as a glasswindow.

The public treasury of Spain was like the grandees' houses. Abundance of bullibn was there about the court, but no money in the royal coffers to keep up the army and navy, and pay the debts of the State. It was not difficult to compel the mines to yield gold enough to make the palace glitter, but it was impossible to draw wealth from an idle people. The shifts of the kings of Spain to avoid paying their debts are almost as ludicrous as those of Beau Brummell. The electors of Brandenburg, the ancestors of the kings of Prussia, were always somewhat renowned for the keenness with which they looked after their pecuniary interests. Among, a crowd of creditors who from morning to night beset the court of Charles 11., the electors' representative was the most importunate, and it was desirable to get rid of him. He was told that a cargo of bullion was to arrive from America at Seville, and received an order for payment of his claim on the municipality of that city. Away went the ambassador, but in the meantime a counter-order was sent to the municipality not to give up the money, and he found himself duped. But his master was not a man to be trifled with; so, using the order in an extended sense, he hired a parcel of privateers or pirate vessels, and seizing on the next cargo of bullion proceeding from America to Spain, paid himself. Selden mentions as a curious illustration of English law, how a London merchant got payment of a debt from the king of Spain. The merchant proceeded against him in the English courts in the ordinary form, and as the debtor did not choose to make appearance ■or plead, the conclusive ceremony of outlawry was performed. It appears that

the preliminary step to this, denunciation was an inquiry after the debtor in all neighboring alehouses, these being presumed to be the places where those who owe money do most resort. Selden gives a ludicrous account of the inquiry at each alehouse if the' king of Spain were there, and the formal return of a universal negative by the officer; whereupon, in usual form, outlawry was pronounced against him. In the end this was found to be no joke. While the sentence of outlawry stood against him, none of his subjects could recover debts in the English courts, which were closed to the whole Spanish nation, and in the end the London merchant was paid his debt. Mr. Dunlop, in his 'Memoirs of Spain,' when describing the state of the national treasury in the reign of. Charles IL, says: ' Such was the inconceivable penury to which it was reduced ; that it was found as difficult to procure fifty ducats as 50,000. Money could thus be no longer raised for the most pressing occasions, however trifling might be the cost. Couriers charged with urgent and important despatches on affairs of state, were often unable to quit Madrid for want of the funds necessary to defray the immediate expenses of their journeys. Some officers of the royal household having waited for payment of what was due to them as long as they could without absolutely reducing themselves to beggary, peremptorily demanded .* their dismission, and were only retained by force and menaces. All the grooms, however, belonging to the royal- stables who had not received their rations or wages for two years, contrived to escape from their service, and the horses remained for some time uncurried and unfed. A table which had been kept up at the king's cost for the gentlemen of the bedchamber was now totally unsupplied, and money was even frequently wanting to. defray the daily expenses of the board of a monarch who was master of Mexico and Peru! The household of the queen-mother, which had hitherto been kept at its full establishment, now began to feel the effects of the general destitution. The rations provided for her domestics were withheld; and on lodging their complaints at court, they were told, with a sort of Cervantic humor, that the royal coffers were now open, and they might come to supply themselves.' The sources of all wealth are industry and unrestricted commercial enterprise. Could there be better evidence of this than the beggarly poverty of a state which possessed the richest gold-mines in the world ? —a poverty produced by tamperings and restrictions which paralysed trade. Of course many inquiries were made as to the reason why the realm of gold and silver was thus destitute, while a small republic like Holland, seated in the mire, was growing rich. Some foreign engineers proposed to make a great navigable canal to promote internal trade, but they were answered that Providence had already provided rivers for that purpose, and they were doubtless sufficient. This view was a curious con- . trast to the notion of the enterprising, restless engineer Brindley, who would not admit that rivers were of any value except as feeders to navigable canals. Paul IV.'s government made inquiries into the causes of the misery and poverty of the nation, and desired counsel from the governors of provinces and others as to a suitable remedy. One man named Leruela suggested a plan founded on the view that, notwithstanding the riches of the American mines, the people were still in some degree doomed to labor, especially in the production of food. To relieve them as much as possible from the exhaustion of labor, it was proposed that the government should pass a law to discourage agriculture and promote pasture, which provided food and clothing for the people without exhausting them by labor.

Things which Perish in Using.—Raiment, food, and fuel, the three material essentials of civilised life, in Northern* latitudes, especially, are things that perish in the using. The product of sculptor's chisel, however beautiful it may be, and although it may last for centuries and mould by unseen methods the tastes of generations, is not necessary to existence. The human race is older than art, and human wants required supplies long before men had leisure to fashion forms of beauty., As the ages pass the. same necessities exist, although modified by artificial social arrangements. Excessive refinement has made elegant clothing, choice victuals, and ingenious heart-regenerating agents more imperiously necessary, perhaps, than the cruder demands ot primitive times, and yet a joint of meat or a loaf of bread will not sustain life an hour longer than of yore; nor will the same garment and the same log of wood impart warmth much more effectually than they used to do. Hence the multiplication of the race does not diminish real wants —wants which can only be satisfied by the destruction of things that minister to life. In tropical climates, it is true; there is almost spontaneous growth of* fruits which lessen in some degree the necessity for labor that exists in colder regions, yet life, even there, depends upon sustenance, though it r.-<ay be more easily procured elsewhere. This, then, is the law of our being, a law which, say as we will, is wisely ordained by the Creator.— Perm. Insect Life.—Professor Agassiz says, more than a lifetime would be necessary to enumerate the various species of insects, and describe their appearance. Melger, a German, . collected and described 6000 species of flies, which he found in a district ten miles in circumference. There have been collected in Europe 27,000 species of insects preying upon wheat. In Berlin two professors are engaged in collecting, observing, and describing insects and their habits; and they have already published five large volumes upon insects that attack forest trees.

In the eastern parts of London population has reached the extraordinary density of 185,751 persons to each square mile.