VI.

Have we not seen that every word I have been quoting is practically true? Are we not beginning to acknowledge the difficulty of maintaining a Protestant Church establishment in Ireland in the face of a large majority of Irish Catholic representatives? Are we not beginning to question the possibility of upholding an exclusive church belonging to a minority, without a government in which that minority dominates? Do we not now acknowledge the glaring sophistry of those who contended that the Catholics having once obtained their civil equality would submit with gratitude to religious inferiority? Mr. Peel saw and stated the case pretty clearly as it stood; the whole condition of Ireland, as between Catholic and Protestant, was involved in the question of Catholic emancipation, and as the avowed champion of Protestant ascendancy, he said, "do not resign your outworks as long as you can maintain them, if you have any serious design to keep your citadel." But the very nature of his argument showed in the clearest manner that we were ruling against the wishes and interests of the large majority of the Irish people; that we were endeavouring to maintain an artificial state of things in Ireland which was not the natural growth of Irish society;-a state of things only to be maintained by force, and which, the day that we were unable or unwilling to use that force, tumbled naturally to pieces. It is well to bear this in mind.

The anti-Catholic party, however, accepted Mr. Peel's argument; they did not pretend to say that they governed by justice; and they applauded their orator for showing that, whenever there was an attempt to govern justly, as between man and man, and not unjustly, as between Protestant and Catholic, their cause would be lost.

His reward was the one he most valued. Mr. Abbott, then Speaker, represented the University of Oxford. Mr. Abbott was made a peer, and Mr. Peel,

through the interest of Lord Eldon and of the party that Sir James Mackintosh calls the intolerant one, was elected in his place, in spite of the well-known and favourite ambition of Mr. Canning.

With this result of his Irish administration Mr. Peel was satisfied. All the duties attached to his place he had regularly and punctually fulfilled. His life had been steady and decorous in a country where steadiness and decorum were peculiarly meritorious because they were not especially demanded. In all matters where administrative talents were requisite he had displayed them: the police, still called "Peelers," were his invention. He protected all plans for education, except those which, by removing religious inequalities and animosities, and infusing peace into a discordant society, would have furnished the best; and with a reputation increasing yearly in weight and consideration, resigned his post, and escaped from a scene, the irrational and outrageous contentions of which were out of harmony with his character.

PART II.

Currency.-Views thereupon.-Chairman in 1859 of Finance Committee. Conduct as to the Queen's trial.-Becomes Home Secretary.Improvement of police, criminal law, prisons, &c.-Defends Lord Eldon, but guards himself against being thought to share his political tendencies, and declares himself in favour in Ireland of a general system of education for all religions, and denounces any attempt to mix up conversion with it.-Begins to doubt about the possibility of resisting the Catholic claims.-The Duke of York dies, and Lord Liverpool soon after follows.-Question of Premiership between the Duke of Wellington and Mr. Canning.-Peel sides with the Duke of Wellington.

I.

THE great practical question at issue, on Mr. Peel's return from Ireland, was the currency.

The Bank, in 1797, declared, with the consent of the Government, that its notes would not be converted, on presentation, into gold.

At the time this was, perhaps, a necessary measure. It enabled the Bank to make large advances to the State, which it could not have made otherwise, and without which the Government would have found it difficult to maintain the struggle of life and death it was engaged in. We did, in fact, in our foreign war, what the United States lately did in their domestic war; but the commercial consequences of such a measure were inevitable.

If the Bank gave a note convertible into gold on presentation it gave gold: if it gave paper, which simply specified the obligation to pay gold for it some day or other, the value of the note depended on the credit attached to the promise. The promise to do a thing is never entirely equivalent to doing it; consequently, it was utterly impossible that a bank-note, not immediately convertible into gold, could have

precisely the same value as gold. Gold, therefore, would have a value of its own, and a bank-note a value of its own. Moreover, as the value of the banknote depended on the faith placed in it, if it had been merely required for home trade, the decrease in value would have been small; because the English people had confidence in the Bank of England and in the Government which sustained it; but in all foreign transactions the case was different. If an English merchant had to purchase goods on the Continent and he sent out bank-notes, the merchant at St. Petersburg would have less confidence in the English bank-note than the Manchester merchant, and he would therefore say, "No, pay me in gold; or if you want to pay me in bank-notes, I will only take them. at the value I place on them." In proportion, therefore, to the extent of purchases abroad was the natural abasement of paper money at home, and the increase in the value of gold as compared with paper. Besides, paper money, resting on credit, partook of the nature. of the public funds, depending also on credit. As the one fell naturally, in a long and critical war, so the other fell from the same cause, though not in the same degree; all our dealings were thus carried on in a money which had one real value and one nominal one; and the real value depending, in a great measure, on matters beyond our control. Efforts on the part of our legislature to sustain it were useless. We forbade persons giving more for a guinea than twentyone shillings in paper money, and we forbade persons exchanging a twenty-shilling bank-note for less than twenty shillings. We tried, in short, to prevent gold and silver getting the same price in England that they could get out of it.

The inevitable consequence was, that the precious metals, in spite of stupid prohibitions against their exportation, went to those countries in which it could obtain its real value. In this manner there was, first, the transmission of coin for the maintenance of our armies; secondly, its exportation for the purposes of

our commerce; and, lastly, its escape from the laws which deteriorated its value, all operating to drain England of its gold and silver; and in proportion as they became scarcer, their comparative value with paper increased, insomuch that fifteen shillings in coin became at last equivalent to twenty shillings in paper bank-notes.

Much was said as to the over-issue of bank-notes. It may always be taken for granted that where there is an inconvertible paper, there is an over-issue of bank-notes; because the over facility of having or making money will naturally tend to the over-advance of it. But we must remember, that a currency must be in proportion to the transactions which require it; that our trade increased almost, if not quite, in proportion to the increased issue from the Bank; that the absence of coin necessitated a large employ of paper, and that there did not appear to be that multitude of bubble schemes which are the usual concomitants of a superabundant circulation. There were, in fact, quite sufficient reasons, without attributing indiscretion to the Bank, to account for the difference between its paper and the coin it was said to represent; nor is there any possibility of keeping paper money on an equality with metallic money, except by making the one immediately exchangeable for the other.

The inequality, then, between paper money and metallic money could only be remedied by re-establishing that immediate exchange. But this was not an easy matter.

II.

For many years in England every transaction had been carried on in paper. Individuals had borrowed money in it, and had received this money in banknotes. If they were called upon to repay it in gold, they paid twenty-five per cent. beyond the capital they had received. On the other hand, if individuals had purchased annuities, the seller, whether the