tically excluded from circulation in England as it is at present from Scotland and Ireland. In 1821, the population of England and Wales was 11,978,875, of Scotland 2,013,459, of Ireland 6,802,093. In 1822-3, the gold being excluded, the paper circulation was, in England, £26,239,730; in Scotland, £3,462,012; in Ireland, £6,559,931. In 1825, previous to the great failure of the banks, it was, in England, £34,021,738; in Scotland, £4,683,212; in Ireland, £8,059,932; averaging, according to population, £2 10s. per head for England, £2 4s. for Scotland, and £1 3s. for Ireland. In 1861, the population of England and Wales was 20,061,725; Scotland, 3,061,329; Ireland, 5,792,055. The circulation of England is now about £100,000,000 of gold, and £27,120,627 of notes; Scotland, about £250,000 of gold, and £4,113,607 of notes, total £4,363,607; Ireland about £250,000 of gold, and £4,882,173, total £5,132,173; being as average per head of £6 5s. for England; £1 98. for Scotland; and 18s. for Ireland; and whilst the annual gold supplies must further add to the money of England, there is not under the present legislation the slightest chance of increase for Scotland or Ireland. The increase of money in France since the recent gold discoveries and the removal of restrictions on trade and commerce is wonderful and astounding. In 1846, its specie was £120,000,000 sterling, it is now £240,000,000. The note circulation of the Bank of France was, in 1846, £10,487,600; in April, 1863, £31,007,231. The specie in its coffers was, in 1846, £4,043,280; in 1863, £15,066,975. The gold coined at the mint for the six years up to 1859 amounted in value to 2,857,763,260 francs, or £114,310,528 sterling, viz., in 1853, £12,518,560; in 1854, £21,061,128; in 1855, £17,897,122; in 1856, £20,331,279; in 1857, £22,002,459; and in 1858, £19,000,000. The gold coinage at the London mint for those six years was £37,206,234. Mr. Delahunty went on to say that Scotland and Ireland had each the true elements of wealth, namely, a hardy and intelligent population, and a country studded with harbours, and easy of access from all nations of the world. All they required was free trade-free exchange. This they had not as long as gold, the real money of the world, was excluded. This restriction and contraction of the money circulation paralysed industrious nations, impeded the free and quick exchanges of the local products of labour, obstructed the creation of commodities, prevented the establishment of manufactories, shut up the sources of employment, depressed and kept down the labourer, mechanic, trader, and merchant, and forced a large amount of the population to emigrate and seek employment in other lands. If, as he believed, the wellbeing and advancement of the Scotch and Irish people were greatly interfered with and injured by bad laws that contracted and limited the money circulation, the sooner some move was made to reform them the better. The mere extension to Scotland and Ireland of the English Act of 1826, prohibiting small notes, would effect that. Twelve lines of an Act of Parliament would accomplish this desirable result. It appeared to him that the banking and currency laws of England were very per

fect. They might be improved, but it should be done with caution. The securing of a large and extensive metal basis ensured the convertibility of the note without interfering with the flow of specie; but he should prefer that this were effected rather by increasing the amount or denomination of the note than by limiting the quantity, which system, it was alleged, had at times worked most injuriously for the commercial and trading interests.

Several gentlemen present expressed disapproval of the remarks of Mr. Delahunty, and expressed their satisfaction with the present note system of the Scotch banks.

THE PAPER TRADE.

Mr. J. EVANS read a paper, "On the Manner in which the British Paper Manufacture is Affected by Foreign Legislation." After a brief introduction, he stated that during the last few years the annual importation of rags into the United Kingdom amounted to 20,000 tons. The importation into the United States in 1857 was nearly equal. On the Continent of Europe the supply of rags was far in excess of the home demand. Great Britain and the United States bad derived their supply chiefly from the European markets. The price of British rags of home production was therefore regulated by that at which the same article could be imported from abroad. In all the countries on the Continent of Europe, with a few trifling exceptions, a heavy duty was levied on the export of rags. The French, Belgian, and German papermakers obtain their rags of the qualities exported to Britain cheaper than the British merchant could do by £5 and £9 per ton respectively, independent of any cost of freight. As the price of white rags in France and Belgium was not above £23 per ton, the makers there had an advantage in the cost of such materials of nearly 25 per cent. over the British maker; or assuming that it requires a ton and a half of rags to produce a ton of paper, an advantage of £7 10s. on the cost of the paper, or upwards of three farthings a pound. In the lower qualities, such, for instance, as yielded only half their weight in paper, the duty amounted to 50 or even 100 per cent., so as to be virtually prohibited. In Germany, where the export duty was £9 per ton, the difference in the cost of paper made from white rags was nearly 1d. per lb. In fact, the effect of these export duties on the rags was precisely the same as that of a bounty on the exportation of the paper made from them to the extent of from £7 to £14 per ton, or say from 15 to 30 per cent. on the value of the paper. Up to the period when the treaty of commerce with France came into operation in 1860, in consideration of the effect of these export duties on rags, there was a differential duty of 1d. per lb. in excess of the Excise duty levied on foreign papers coming to this country, so that practically the ill effect which would otherwise have resulted to the home trade from the bounty given by foreign Governments on the export of paper to this country was neutralised. Had that treaty

contained, as unquestionably it ought to have done, a provision, that in consideration of the free admission of French paper to this country our trade in French rags should also be free; and had a compensatory duty been maintained against the paper of other foreign countries until their duties on the export of rags were abolished, it is probable that eventually there would have been a perfectly free and open trade between this country and the Continent both in paper and in the materials of which it is made. As it is, a system has been recognised by the British Government, not of simple protection of foreign manufacturers against their British competitors in foreign markets, but of an aggressive protection by which, under the cover of a bounty conceded by foreign Governments, the foreign papermaker is enabled to supplant the British in his own market. It appears from the Board of Trade returns that the imports, which in the year 1859 were under 1,000,000 lb., were in the year 1862 upwards of 20,000,000 lb., and the organ of the French paper trade (Le Journal des Fabricans de Papier) boasts that the exports of French paper to England have already in the five or six months of 1863 more than equalled those of the whole year of 1862. Had the foreign papermakers been supplied, as they are now supplying themselves, with better and more extensive machinery, and had they also been better acquainted with the requirements of the English market, there is little doubt that the increase in the importation of foreign paper would have been even more considerable. In this country, however, during the last two years or so, the price of materials has risen rather than otherwise, while the price of paper, especially of printing papers, has been continually beaten down by foreign competition; so much so, that in many instances it has had to be manufactured at a loss, the only alternative for the manufacturer being to close his mills, and thus incur certain ruin, instead of living on his capital in the hope of better times and more evenhanded justice. Foreign Governments ought to abolish their export duties on the raw material so far as those countries are concerned into which the manufactured article is freely admitted; and this ought to be done the more readily, because the monopoly created by the export duties presses most unfairly upon their own rag merchants and producers of rags. Failing this, something ought to be, and must be, done by our own Government to place the paper manufacturers of this country on fair terms of competition with their foreign rivals, and that too must be done speedily; for, as a general rule, a manufacture once driven abroad could never be restored.

Mr. THOMAS WRIGLEY read a paper on the same subject, in which he repeated the facts and arguments contained in the paper of Mr. Evans. He concluded that it was not wise or politic, in a national point of view, to permit foreign Governments to levy export duties on the raw materials of our manufactures, and at the same time admit the manufactured goods of those countries free from all restriction. And that it was not fair that one branch of trade should be forced to

accept that portion of the free-trade theory which recognised open competition with foreign manufacturers, when, in consequence of a tax upon its material, from which its foreign competitors and all other trades were exempt, it was deprived of the means of sustaining a successful competition.

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Mr. PETER M'LAGAN read a paper, on 'Agriculture as a Commercial Pursuit," which dealt with the questions of lease, the game laws, and the law of hypothec. His opinions generally, and especially on the latter point, coincided with those of Mr. Hope in his paper, printed at p. 776.

Mr. D. W. HENDERSON read a paper, on "The Town and Port of Leith since 1800," showing that since the beginning of the century the town and port of Leith had made remarkable progress in commercial and in maritime prosperity. He gave a brief history of the progress of the port, noticing the various improvements which had taken place from time to time, the cost of these improvements, and the rapid increase of shipping frequenting the port. In 1851 it stood at 22,650 tons; in 1855 it had risen to 25,404 tons; in 1860, to 34,394; and in 1863, to 41,915, having nearly doubled within ten years. In 1839, the total revenue amounted to £17,057 6s. 4d.; in 1849 it had risen to £29,209 10s. 11d.; in 1859, to £32,262 14s. 1d.; and in 1862, to £38,191 14s. 1d.; being an increase since 1839 of about £12,470. As equal proofs of progress and of improvement in the port, Mr. Henderson referred to the various branches of industry -flour milling; the iron trade; the manufacture of artificial manure, and others which were carried on with growing enterprise and Mr. Henderson then gave an account of the recent social and sanitary improvements in Leith, which have been given at length in the paper of Provost Lindsay.

success.

THE TRADE OF HAWICK.

Mr. WALTER WILSON read a paper, on "The Rise and Progress of Manufactures at Hawick." He remarked that the woollen manufacture took its rise there at an early date, from the extensive sheepwalks which surround it. The spinning of woollen-yarn was carried on by the women of the district. Before the erection of the first mill, in 1798, one manufacturer employed 100 women. Hosiery was the staple trade up to 1817, when, owing to the opposition of the workpeople to all improvements in machinery, the trade became so depressed that the millowners introduced the weaving of woollen cloth to keep their mills employed. Since that time the manufacture of tweeds had become the staple trade. Mr. Wilson gave the following table of wages in the hosiery trade from his father's works and his own, noticing that it was only in 1861 that the attempt to introduce improvements had succeeded, causing a consequent increase of

wages, which demonstrated the folly of resistance on the part of the work people:

Mr. T. A. BROWN read a paper, on "The Linen Trade of Dunfermline," in which the power-loom was only yet gradually displacing the hand-loom. At the works of Messrs. Erskine, Beveridge & Co., about 1,300 persons were employed, and 800 power-looms. The work was done chiefly by girls, who earned from 6s. to 8s. per week. There were two other power-loom factories in the town, and a third was about to be built for 500 looms. More than half the linen produced was exported.

Mr. STEPHEN BOURNE read an interesting paper, on "Free Labour Cotton in Jamaica." He gave an account of a company formed in London, in 1859, for the purpose of raising cotton in Jamaica. Mr. S. Gurney, M.P., became chairman of the directors. They had raised about £17,000, purchased three estates in Jamaica, and leased a fourth with the right of purchase at a given price. The money expended in the purchase of these estates, the supply of machinery, implements, stock, &c, had amounted to about £12,000. They had a sufficient balance at the banker's to extend the cultivation (now they had land of their own, effective machinery, fresh and proved seed, experienced and upright agents, and 300 effective labourers) to 1,000 acres, which they hoped to have planted early next year. They had sold cotton at an average price of 2s. 5d. per pound, which was at least 20 per cent. more than that of ordinary American cotton. Their cotton had been made into excellent twill and cotton thread, and some of it spun as high as 180, and even higher. Their own shareholders could take from them at least twenty times as much cotton as they could grow on their present scale. He advocated the great increase of that scale; and that the millions of acres of uncultivated land in the island should be vested in a Government commission, who should let it for cotton cultivation at first for a mere nominal rent.

DECIMALS.

Mr. JAMES ALEXANDER contributed a paper advocating the adoption of a change in the value of the farthing, making it five in