1. CALIFORNIA GOLD: WITH REFERENCE TO THE relative VALUE OF GOLD AND SILVER. By Hon. GEORGE TUCKER, late professor in the University of Virginia. 19 II. BRITISH NAVIGATION ACT: A REPORT OF THE PARIS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE. BY M. RODET... III. INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK: A SKETCH OF THE RISE, PROGRESS, AND PRESFNT CONDITION OF INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK. No. V. By Hon. A. C. FLAGG, late Controller of the State of New York... IV. THE MERCANTILE AGENCY.. .......... V. THE PRINCIPLES OF FREE TRADE. By SAMUEL BEMAN, Esq., of New York..... 22 34 46 53 59 VIL. THE FIRST PLANK ROAD. BY WILLIAM H. BOGART, Esq., Member of the Legislature of New York........ 63 JOURNAL OF MERCANTILE LAW. Special Partners-A Special Partnership is Dissolved by the Death of the Special Partner...... 66 COMMERCIAL CHRONICLE AND REVIEW: 70 71 EMBRACING A FINANCIAL AND COMMERCIAL REVIEW OF THE UNITED STATES, ETC., ILLUSTRA TED WITH TABLES, ETC., AS FOLLOWS: The state of the Money Market-Probable decrease in the receipts of California Gold-Exports of the United States-Exports of American Manufactures-Weight and Value of our Cotton Exports-Exports of Rice and Tobacco-Of Breadstuffs-Importations of Dry Goods into New York-Imports of the Port of New York-Commercial Policy of Great Britain-Quantities of Food and Material imported into Great Britain-Commercial advantages of England, etc.,..73-79 COMMERCIAL STATISTICS. Imports and Exports of Cotton and Cotton Manufactures.................. Statistics of the Receipts at New York, and Exports of Cheese to Great Britain...... Exports of Rice and Tobacco from United States...... Statistics of Hogs and Beef Cattle in Ohio.. Trade and Commerce of Lake Champlain... Exports of Dry Goods from United States, 1848 to 1850.. Exports of Denmark Statistics of the Virginia Tobacco Trade from 1841 to 1850. 2 Foreign Commerce of France in 1850.. VOL. XXIV.NO. I. COMMERCIAL REGULATIONS. PAGE. Treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation, between the United States and the King of the New Orleans Levee and Wharfage Dues on Ships and Vessels.... JOURNAL OF BANKING, CURRENCY, AND FINANCE. Condition of Banks of Ohio, November, 1850 Counterfeit Gold Coin...... Value of Gold and Silver Coins issued within Twenty-five Years past.. California Gold Received and Coined at the New Orleans Mint... Deposits of American Gold at the Mint of the United States and Branches, from 1824 to 1850.. 97 Coinage of the United States Mint and Branches to October 31, 1850....... The Mint of the United States..... Import and Export of Coin and Bullion from 1821 to 1850.............................. Value of Taxable Property in Kentucky.......... Expenses of United States Mint and Branches in each year from 1794 to 1850.. Value of Bills of Broken Banks in the United States Expenditures of the Government of the United States from 1825 to 1850. Receipts and Expenditures of the United States for year ending June 30th, 1850. Debt and Finances of Virginia, September, 1850. New Feature in British Banking... Debt and Finances of Ohio in 1850.. Debt and Finances of Vermont in 1850.. Debt and Finances of South Carolina in 1850.. Revenues and Expenditures of State Prisons in the United States.................................... Debt and Finances of Arkansas.-Debt and Finances of Texas... ........ JOURNAL OF MINING AND MANUFACTURES. Different sorts of Copal Varnish found in the Market, and the mode of preparing Copal Varnish 114 Mallard's Patent Size for Manufacturers........ 113 116 Process of Sugar Making.-Improved Cotton and Wool Cards.. Preparation of Flax on the Unsteeped Process....................................................... 117 118 119 Invention in the Manufacture of Sugars.-New White Zinc Paint Gold and Lead Mines of Pennsylvania.-Breweries and Distilleries......................................................... 119 120 120 Frauds by Foreign Manufacturers.-Ship Building in Oregon..... World's Industrial Convention.-Discovery of Plumbago in Virginia.. 121 121 Silver Mine in Vermont.-Manufacture of Continuous Railroad Iron................................................. 122 122 RAILROAD, CANAL, AND STEAMBOAT STATISTICS. Miami and Erie Canal at Toledo, 1849-50.. British Steam Navigation in the Pacific.. Railroad Enterprise in Indiana.-Travel on the Hudson River Railroad....... Commerce of the New York Canals in 1848-49-50.-The Railways of the World..... NAUTICAL INTELLIGENCE. Catadioptric Light on top of the Light-house of Scheveningen...... Sailing Directions from Monterey to Columbia River...... Two Light-houses on the Coast of Maine.. Sea Beacon on Graklubben Rock.-Light in the Castle of Sisal. MERCANTILE MISCELLANIES. Adulterated Drugs and Medicines Death of Lewis, the large Clothing Merchant......... Information relating to impost wanted... Pawnbroking in Barcelona.-Filterer for Sea Water... 132 Abuses of the Credit System 133 How to Reform a Dishonest Clerk... Enterprise and Benevolence.-Security of Life and Property on our Seacoast.... ... 134 ... 134 THE BOOK TRADE. Notices of new works or new editions of old works......... ..135-142 Testimonials as to the character of the Merohants' Magazine from Distinguished Statesmen. 143-144 HUNT'S MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE AND COMMERCIAL REVIEW. JANUARY, 1851. Art. I.-CALIFORNIA GOLD: WITH REFERENCE TO THE RELATIVE MARKET VALUE OF GOLD AND SILVER. Two of the consequences of the immense products of California gold mines, which I ventured to suggest in the July number of the Merchants' Magazine, have already begun to manifest themselves. One is the increase of the currency from the increased ability of the banks to enlarge their loans and discounts; and the other is an alteration in the relative value of gold and silver, or, in other words, a depreciation of gold. The first of these facts is shown not merely by the general rise of almost every species of stocks, and in most places, of real estate, but by the increased dividends of many banks, and in the increased profits of all those institutions. This consequence of the abundance of gold is but temporary. If the banks have not already reached the maximum amount of their loans, they soon will reach it. Nor can those loans be much increased without the danger of reaction, and a consequent diminution of their specie, their issues, and their profits. The second consequence is manifested by the growing scarcity of silver, so as in some places to command a premium, and the preference shown by the banks to pay in gold rather than silver. This consequence, produced by the relative abundance of gold, must increase with the increasing cause. If the accessions of gold continue to be as great as they have been-and they promise to be much greater-the premium on silver, which is not more than 2 or 3 per cent, will soon get to be 4 or 5 per cent, and go on increasing, until the Legislature applies the remedy. The inconvenience of this discrepancy between the relative value of the two metals at the mint and in the market are very great. All experience teaches us that whenever such discrepancy exists, the undervalued metal will be withdrawn from circulation. It will be either exported to countries where it is justly estimated, or be melted up or hoarded. This effect which just theory would lead us to expect, we have twice experienced in the United States. When the first mint law was passed in 1791, the proportion it established between gold and silver was as fifteen to one. But the proportion between them in those European countries with which we principally traded was only about as fourteen and a half to one-silver having been thus confessedly undervalued by Mr. Hamilton for some special reasons assigned by him. The consequences of this discrepancy was a comparative scarcity of silver, so that those who required it for the Chinese trade were compelled to give a premium of 5 per cent for it. But in the course of time, by a gradual alteration in the supply or the demand of one or both of these metals, their relative value was changed, and gold became worth more than fifteen times as much as silver. That metal being then undervalued by law, became scarcer and scarcer, until finally the eagles which had been thrown out of general circulation, became worth $10.60, or 6 per cent more than their mint price. This evil continued until it found a remedy in the act of 1834, which raised the price of gold to sixteen for one of silver. By that price gold is now, a second time, valued too high. But it is very desirable to have both metals in circulation-gold for large payments, and silver for small-and of the two, silver is much the most important, not only because it carries on the small daily traffick of all classes, but because bank notes are a much better substitute for gold than for silver. From the present state of things then, we are likely to be deprived of that species of our metallic currency that can be least spared. Fortunately, the remedy for the threatened evil is both certain and easy. When Congress decided on making both gold and silver standards of value and legal tenders, it was necessary to determine the relative value of the two metals to ascertain what the debtor, who had the option of paying in either metal, was bound to pay, and the creditor bound to receive. But the proportion thus fixed by law is always liable, after a few years, to vary from the proportion between the market values of these metals. Thus in less than sixty years we have seen three instances of this variance in the United States, once silver, and twice gold has been rated too high, and whenever this is the case the other metal is comparatively thrown out of circulation. The source of the evil then is in making both metals standards of value, or in attempting to fix that by law, which is, and always must be, mutable. The advocates for a double standard admit its inconveniences, but insist that we must submit to them if we would have the benefit of both metals as currency. But this assumption is contradicted by the experience of other countries as well as our own. In Great Britain, gold is the only legal tender for all sums above forty shillings, yet no one ever heard of a creditor refusing to receive ten, twenty, or even fifty crowns in payment of a debt. On this subject, Ricardo, a practical banker, and a successful theorist on the subject of money, says: "It appears, then, that while each of the two metals was equally a legal tender for debts of any amount, we were subject to a constant change in the principal standard measure of value. It would sometimes be gold, sometimes silver, depending entirely on the variations in the relative value of the two metals; and, at such times, the metal that was not the standard would be melted and withdrawn from circulation, as its value would be greater in bullion than in coin. This was an inconvenience which it was highly desirable should be remedied; but so slow is the progress of improvement, that, though it had been unanswerably demonstrated by Mr. Locke, and had been noticed by all writers on the subject of money since his day, a better system was never adopted till the last session of Parliament, when it was enacted that gold only should be a legal tender for any sum exceeding forty shillings. (Ricardo's Pol. Econ., chap. xxv.) In Russia there is but one standard of value and legal tender, which is silver. Gold, nevertheless, readily circulates there, according to her able political economist, Storch, who says:-" Whenever the engagement to pay is in money and not in paper, the price of everything is regulated by the value of silver; but gold is not on that account the less received in payments, provided it be valued in silver currency according to the rate established by the course of trade. Neither of the contracting parties being able to gain or to lose, in giving or receiving one metal or the other, it is equally indifferent to both in what money payment is made, and the two metals circulate currently without injuring or depreciating one another." (Storch, Econ. Pol. Lib. v., chap. VIII.) We have had abundant evidence of the same fact in the United States. From 1797 to 1806, no foreign coin "except Spanish milled dollars and parts thereof," was here a legal tender; yet in all that time, the gold coins of England, Portugal, Spain and France, continued to form a part of our metallic circulation. Again: bank notes which constitute our principal currency are not a legal tender. They, indeed, are exchangeable for the coins which are a legal tender; but foreign coins are at least equally exchangeable; and they, moreover, have an intrinsic value which bank notes do not possess. There is then no ground for the apprehension that our own gold coins, with which the whole people have long been familiar, will cease to circulate when they shall have ceased to become a legal tender. There Nor is there any reason to expect when we have a single standard and legal tender, that one metal will be generally scarcer than the other. will, indeed, be fluctuations in the relative quantities, but they will be transient and short lived-every excess having a tendency to correct itself and to restore that equilibrium between the two metals which is suited to the wants of trade and the circumstances of the country. Repeal the law by which one metal is artificially elevated in price and the other depressed, and there would be no more reason to expect a permanent scarcity of either metal, than of coffee, sugar, iron, or any other commodity. Indeed, it may be remarked here, by the way, that in our monetary speculations we are always in danger of error, if we do not regard gold and silver simply as merchandise-a favorite merchandise, indeed, because it is so readily exchangeable for every other commodity—but it is still a merchandise, and obedient to all the laws of trade. Without doubt, since much the larger part of the California gold is produced by the industry of our citizens, that metal is likely to be cheaper and more abundant in this country than any other, and of course to exchange for a smaller quantity of silver; but while this affects the relative values of the two metals, it can no more affect their relative quantities, than can the greater cheapness of cotton, tobacco, or any other commodity among us. After the equilibrium between the metals is restored-as it soon will be-there will be no reason, as there now is, to give a general preference to one metal or the other, either for import or export, or for hoarding or for melting; but both will be distributed in that proportion which the wants and the occasions of the country require. The change then from a double to a single standard would be a public benefit without any counter-balancing evil. It must be further remembered that the mischief of the present state of things is not confined to the banishment of silver from circulation. It is also an injustice to all that class of creditors whose debts are of a permanent character: such as those who have perpetual ground-rents, national creditors, public institutions, and others, who have let land on long leases, &c. If |