The first of these, and perhaps the most disastrous in its effects upon the internal prosperity of the empire, was the great contraction of the currency which took place by the bill of 1819. By that bill the bank and bankers' notes, which at the close of the war had amounted, in Great Britain and Ireland, to about £60,000,000 in round numbers, were suddenly reduced to £32,000,000, which was the limit formally imposed, by the acts of 1844 and 1845, on the circulation issuable on securities in the country. We know the effect of these changes: the _Times_ has told us what it has been. It rendered the sovereign worth two sovereigns; the fortune of £500,000 worth £1,000,000; the debt of £800,000,000 worth £1,600,000,000; the taxes of £50,000,000 worth £100,000,000 annually. As a necessary consequence, it reduced the average price of wheat from 90s. to 40s.; and the entire wages of labour and remuneration of industry, throughout the country, _to one-half_ of their former amount. The prodigious effect of this change upon the real amount of the national burdens, and the remuneration of the industry which was to sustain it, may be judged of by the invaluable table quoted on the next page, which is stated to be taken from Mr Porter's valuable work on the _Progress of the Nation_, published in 1847, and furnished by that gentleman with his wonted courtesy to the _Midland Counties Herald_, to the end of 1850. Its import will be found to be correctly condensed in the following statement, by that able writer Gemini, contained in the same paper of January 30:-- S. D. "The average price of wheat from 1800 to the close of the war, was, 90 7 The average price of wheat from the passing of the Corn Law of 1815 to 1827, each inclusive, 67 2 The average price of wheat from the passing of the Corn Law of 1828 to 1841, each inclusive, 58 10 The average price of wheat from the passing of the Corn Law of 1842 to 1849, each inclusive, 53 6 The average price of 1850 40 2 During the war the average quantity of wheat required to be sold to pay one million of taxation amounted to 220,791 quarters. The quantity required to be sold to pay one million of taxation, according to the prices of 1850, amounts to 497,925 quarters, or 56,343 quarters more than _double_ the quantity required to be sold during the war. The enormous increase in the burdensomeness of taxation may be thus clearly estimated." Comment is unnecessary, illustration superfluous, on such a result.