to other uses, and the export to India; and makes the average annual product of the mines to have amounted to £3,375,000 sterling. From 1700 to 1809, the annual produce of the mines continued to undergo a steady increase; this fact will be obvious from the following view of the sums yielded by those of Mexico: Sterling. In the ten years from 1700 to 1709, £ 10,777,298 1710 to 1719, 13,697,297 This is the return of the amount which paid duty; and Humboldt estimates that one fifth of the amount produced did not do so. When this fifth is added, and when proper allowance is made for the quantity furnished by Spanish South America, by Brazil, by Europe, and Asia, the whole average annual product, from 1700 to 1809, may be taken at £ 8,000,000 sterling. The breaking out of the Revolution in the Spanish colonies, was almost fatal to the mining interests. Most of the more important establishments were broken up in the course of the bloody and almost exterminating wars waged in those countries. The capital invested was destroyed, and the skill and intelligence devoted to the pursuit driven away. The mines of Europe have also become less productive, and although some new and important workings have been opened in the Russian empire, the whole production of the world, for the last twenty-two years, has decreased. From 1809 to 1829, it has not averaged more than £5,000,000 sterling per annum; this is less than was furnished by Mexico alone, for the average of ten years, from 1800 to 1809. This diminished production is attended with an increased demand. Before the discovery of America, utensils of gold or silver were confined in their use to persons of the very highest rank; or to ecclesiastical corporations of the utmost wealth. The arts of gilding and plating were but little employed, and more of the metals were lost by mere wear, than were consumed in the manufacture of plate or other articles of luxury. The change in this respect has continued progressive to the present day. The more equal and general diffusion of wealth, has rendered what were formerly marks of high rank, and badges of superior opulence, necessaries of life to the middling classes of all countries, and even to the labouring population of some. Tea first began to be used about 1700, and at the present day, the single article of tea-spoons, consumes more silver than was employed in all the other species of plate before that epoch. Spoons and forks now require, in their manufacture, one half the silver that is worked up in Great Britain; while a century ago, the former had hardly crept into general use, and the latter were confined to a few families of rank and fashion, at so late a date as 1818. Our late visitor Captain Hall, in his tirade on this pointed subject, ought to have remembered how little in advance of us the British nation was in this respect; for it was only in that year, that we heard a muscadin classing the nations of the earth, in point of civilization, by the number of the prongs of their forks; and we recollect that he had not at that time assigned to Britain the high rank which is now claimed for her. We have to confess that we were forcibly reminded of this scientific classification, at no remote period, when it was our evil fortune to behold the minister of his most Christian Majesty Charles X., at a civic feast in one of our cities, that shall be nameless, endeavouring to convey peas to his mouth on a villainous instrument of iron, with no more than two prongs. The consumption of silver, in plate, in Great Britain, amounts annually to 1,275,316 oz. ; that employed in the manufacture of plated ware, to 900,000 oz. ; that used in watch cases to 500,000 oz.; while for a variety of minor purposes, not less than 500,000 oz., more are used. The aggregate value of these is about £ 820,000 sterling. The value of the gold employed for manufacturing purposes, is much greater than that of silver, and has for many years been upon the increase; it is estimated by Jacob at about double. From the consumption of France, England, and Switzerland, of which a tolerably correct estimate may be formed, he computes the whole value of the precious metals employed in the arts, at £ 5,600,000 sterling. This exceeds the sum that has been stated as the present annual produce of the mines. But to this is to be added the annual loss by the abrasion of coin, which is estimated at about £900,000 sterling, and the drain to the East Indies. The last has indeed become far less than it once was, but has not ceased altogether. Taking all these circumstances into account, it is estimated that the stock of coin, which in 1809 amounted to £380,000,000 sterling, must have fallen in 1829 to £ 313,000,000 sterling, or has been diminished nearly one sixth. In spite of the new prospects that the mines of our southern states present, and of the increased product of the Russian em pire, it must be many years before capital of sufficient amount can be invested in them, to enable them to replace the mines of South America. Nor does it appear probable that the latter country will for many years assume so settled an aspect as to tempt the investment of foreign capital. Our author therefore concludes, that: "On a review of the several countries which yield gold and silver, no very sanguine hopes can or will be indulged, that a great or material increase in their production is likely to take place in the course of a few years." This decrease in the quantity of circulating specie which has already taken place, and is likely to continue, must produce great and marked effects upon money prices. How far it will affect the condition and prospects of mankind, we should think it impossible to foretell. It has not yet produced as great a change as might at first sight have been anticipated; and as we found that money prices rose at first, in a ratio higher than that at which the precious metals increased in quantity, it is possible that the fall may not be as rapid as the rate at which their quantity decreases. It is besides impossible to say to what extent the influence of paper money, for fifteen years of almost unbounded confidence in the faith of government, and the solvency of banks, may have extended the inevitable consequences of a diminution of the stock of gold and silver. The remarks of Mr. Jacob on this question deserve notice, and we shall close our article with an extract from them. "If the prices of commodities were regulated solely by the quantity of the circulating medium, as the latter in the twenty years had declined at the rate of thirteen per cent., we might calculate that the fall on the former should be in the same ratio. If, as we know to be the fact, the mass of commodities had been greatly increased in the period, whilst the circulating medium had diminished, we should find an additional decline in the prices of commodities. But the decline would be liable to counteraction from several causes, which might give additional power to the circulating medium, and enable a less portion of it to perform the same offices as would under other circumstances require a larger portion. "In 1810, from the state of the whole of Europe being engaged in war, both the treasuries of the several states, and the military chests of the various armies, must have caused a large quantity of the existing money to have been in a state of inactivity. The difficulty of conveying money from place to place was great, and the internal negotiation of bills of exhange, in most parts of the continent, was suspended. Each man who had money kept it by him, instead of lodging it in the hands of banks or bankers, because none of them enjoyed security, or possessed credit. In 1830, the case was altered. The conveyance of money was easy, secure, and especially rapid. If gold was more valuable in one place than in others, a few hours would convey it by steam vessels to the place where it was wanted. Banks were established every where, which furnished inland bills to the parts of the same country, and foreign bills to other countries, which in many cases made the removal of specie unnecessary. The exchequers of states could rely on their credit to supply the place of money, till it could be collected from the regular sources, and as no armies were on foot, there was no money kept in a state of inactivity in the military chests. "From these altered circumstances, whose influence it is difficult to calculate, the depression of prices, which would be the natural result of a diminution of money, and an increase of exchangeable goods, had been prevented or lessened. "If it should be thought that the increase of the mass of material wealth in Europe and America, has kept pace with what we know to have been the increase in the population of those divisions, it may be stated at about thirty-two per cent. in the twenty years, which, added to thirteen per cent. diminished in the mass of money, would cause a natural decline in prices, at the rate of forty-five per cent. "This rate of decline would be retarded by the increased power given to money, from the several causes which have been alluded to. It is difficult to determine, in such a complex system of exchanges of material wealth as is established in all civilized countries, how far a declining quantity of money is counteracted by the additional power given to it. It is much more difficult to calculate the additional power, than it is to estimate the decline in quantity." "The cultivators of the soil are the most numerous part of the community. Their products are the least complicated in their origin, and the most simple in their distribution, and therefore are likely to be the first affected by any increase in the value of the precious metals. They would be the first to experience the difficulty of obtaining the usual weight of gold and silver, if those metals became more rare, for the usual measure of corn, of meat, of cotton, of wool, and other agricultural products. In this country (England) where the cultivators are a class of capitalists distinct from the proprietors, their capitals have gene. rally been diminishing, while the decline of the mines has been proceeding, and the application of their produce to other purposes than that of coin has been increasing. It certainly does not follow from these two courses having been simultaneous, that one is the cause of the other. The same has been the condition of the cultivators of the ground in every other country, as far as it is accurately known. In every part of the continent of Europe, the same complaints are heard, however various be the tenures on which land is held. Such complaints are not bounded by the limits of Europe. The cultivators of North America assert that the prices of their productions yield them no profit, especially those of corn, tobacco, cotton, and rice. The same is the case in the West India islands, and according to common reports, in South America, and in India. There must be some general cause producing such extensive effects, which are thus felt alike where taxation is high or low, under despotic and free governments; and whether the land is cultivated by slaves, by serfs, by hired labourers, or by proprietors. "It would lead into a field far too extensive, to speculate on what would be the effect in another twenty or forty years, if the same difference should continue between the production of the precious metals, as appears to have been in operation for twenty years. It may however be observed, that the world is really very little richer or poorer from the proportion of metallic wealth that may be distributed over its surface; that the whole mass of material wealth is neither diminished nor increased, by any change in the relative weight of gold and silver to the usual measures of other commodities. The only benefit to the world in general, from the increase of these metals, is, that it acts as a general stimulus to industry, by that gradual rise of money price which it exhibits to the view. The only evil from the diminution of these metals, is the discouragement it may present to industry, by the apparent loss or lessened profit, when the result of labour is reckoned in gold and silver, and not in other commodities. It matters little to him who raises a bushel of wheat, whether it is exchanged for an ounce or a pennyweight of silver, provided it will procure for him the same quantity of cloth, shoes, liquors, furniture, or other necessaries which may be desirable to him. The relation of the different classes of society to each other, but still more those of different individuals to each other, will be changed, but the change will be made very slowly, and be scarcely perceptible in one or two years; and even at the end of a generation only noticed by those who look back with the means of comparing prices at different periods." ART. IV. De la Religion, considérée dans sa source, ses formes et ses développements. Par M. BENJAMIN CONSTANT. (Paris: 1825-1831.)-Of Religion, considered in its Origin, its Forms and Developments.-By BENJAMIN CONSTANT. (Paris: 1825-1831.) THE general interest which the work of B. Constant on Religion has called forth in France and throughout Europe, would of itself be a sufficient reason for giving a sketch of the design of the author, and of the contents and character of the work. The fourth and the fifth volumes appeared very soon after the last French Revolution in July 1830, and a short time before the death of Constant. Even a summary account of the book may enable our readers to judge of its merits, and to comprehend the general interest with which it was received in the midst of great political excitement, in which the author, together with his friend Lafayette, bore a distinguished part. Many, indeed, took up this book with incredulous anticipations, greatly wondering that a man who was known only as a politician, and a general scholar, should appear before the world as the author of a theological work-not for the purpose of surveying the boundary between religion and law, church and state, but to search the deep things of that mysterious science; to make the history and philosophy of religion the subject of laborious investigation and a learned analysis. But those to whom a more familiar acquaintance with the natural history of the human mind opened a clearer view of the continual ebbing and flowing of public opinion in France, might have predicted that the best general work on religion would come from the pen of a statesman, a friend of liberty, whose experience would be to him a revelation of the cause of the failure of so many struggles and mighty efforts, and of the true object towards which all these changes, though imperceptibly, tended. When the French Revolution stretched forth its spectral hand in the midst of the banquet hall of despotic Europe, her thousands of lords looked with trembling upon the bloody fingers, and not one of her political soothsayers had wisdom enough to read the mysterious hand-writing, or courage enough to make known the interpretation thereof. Indeed, the friends of freedom, not less than its enemies, saw with fear the first instinctive outbreakings of a spirit which seemed directed not only against the prevailing despotism, but against all social order, religion, civilization, and refinement. It was natural that the first desperate reaction against an oppressive state of things should not discriminate between the hostile principle itself, and those powers in themselves friendly to freedom, which had been forced into an |
