But, say some of the bullionists, this measure is not intended to be permanent. It is, like all other legislative enactments, subject to modification; and we are prepared, when occasion presses, to alter it accordingly. Why, then, in the name of common sense--nay, in that of common humanity--has not the alteration been made? Is it intended that the public shall sink beneath the pressure of this law before the smallest portion of its burden shall be removed? Is it wise to delay all relief until the Gazette is full, and to keep credit suspended at the very moment when it is most urgently and clamantly required? And what kind of law, we ask, is that which in prosperous times--that is, whenever gold is abundant--confessedly puts no check whatever upon speculation, but which, at the least turn of the tide, is an absolute engine of destruction? Look at it in any view, and we maintain that a more miserable instance of legislation upon false and contracted principles was never yet invented by the brain of a political economist. The host of pamphlets which has recently issued from the press, upon this momentous and interesting topic, sufficiently demonstrates the pressing nature of the crisis. Whatever difference of opinion may be found amongst so many writers, with regard to the intermediate basis and proper representative of property, they are almost to a man combined in denouncing the impolicy of the late restrictions. Lord Ashburton, the advocate and apologist of the Bank of England, is at one with Mr Enderby, the able opponent of the gold standard, as to this particular point. They are all agreed that the system which professes to rectify an inevitable drain of gold, by crippling the trade of the country, and forcing down the value of its property, is nothing short of absolute infatuation, and that, considered by itself, it admits of no intelligible defence. It would be well, therefore, if an effort were made, in the first instance, to get rid of the odious and absurd restrictions, or at least to substitute for the present miserable driblet, a much larger amount of paper currency, which may be based upon government securities. There is but one opinion prevalent throughout the country with regard to the present insufficiency of the currency, so long at least as the Bank is compelled by statute to deprive us of the means of fair and legitimate accommodation. Sir Robert Peel has placed the directors in this anomalous and invidious position, that they _must_ put on the screw whenever there is a prospect of adverse exchanges; and the immediate effect of that measure is a stoppage of trade, and at the same time a depression in the value of every kind of merchandise and product. Taken singly, this is an evil of the very worst description--in fact nothing worse could be expected from the most formidable combination of natural and political causes. Taken in connexion with the late tariffs, which, without securing reciprocity, have opened the home