Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 66, No. 410, December 1849Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 66, No. 410, December 1849
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
In the third place--and this is perhaps a more vital consideration
than any--How is the constant recurrence of monetary crises, similar
to that which has left such woful desolation behind it, to be avoided
upon every recurrence of a deficient harvest at home, or a straitened
importation from abroad? The people of England are sensitively alive
on this subject. They watch the rain in autumn with the most intense
anxiety; and, if it falls a few days more than usual, the utmost alarm
pervades all classes. They know well what rain in autumn portends. They
see rising up, in dismal perspective before them, a great importation
of grain, a vast export of sovereigns, the screw put on by the Bank
of England, a contraction of credits by every bank, every man finding
his creditors on his back, and one-half of his debtors bankrupt. All
this they see, and see clearly; but the minds of a large portion of
them are so benighted by the free-trade dogmas, that it never occurs
to them that all this is the creation of their own policy, and is in
no degree imputable to the laws of Providence. They think the thing
is inevitable. They believe that there is a natural connexion between
three weeks' rain in August and a monetary crisis, just as there is
between a similar deluge and flooded meadows, or destroyed bridges. The
evil, however, is entirely of human creation, and may, with absolute
certainty, be avoided by human means. There is no more reason why three
weeks' rain in August should produce a monetary crisis, than three
weeks' rain in November. It is our ruinous monetary laws which render
them cause and effect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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