populated. The sawyers are fully employed, and they can't cut wood at all fast enough to supply the demand for it.

I may observe, before I conclude, that the grass crops never looked better than they do now, and that the hay harvest is not generally commenced. As regards the markets, from all I can learn, they are governed by, and are about the same as at Wellington.

The Hutt settlers do not seem to trouble themselves much about politics; and, in truth, however much the circumstance may be regretted, they don't in any rural district, providing always they are fully occupied and are doing well. They, in the mass, care as little about charters of incorporation as kid gloves, and require them no more than a bullock breeches. I fear, should the Hutt district be invested, under the present despotism, with corporate privileges the bona fide settlers, too much occupied with their own business, will leave the public business to be managed by a few bustling, meddling, and interested individuals, whose ambition and leisure will prompt and enable them to devise means of obtaining power, honour, and wealth, for themselves and kindred, at the cost of the industrious settlers; when the first will become "the little tyrants of a little corporation," and the last, in the long run, verily, but unwittingly, their slaves.

THE GOLD QUESTION.

Some Observations on the Recent Supplies of Gold. By Mr. ANDREW JOHNSON, of the Bank of England. Pelham Richardson, Cornhill. THE writer of the above very sensible pamphlet generally takes the same view of the subject as Mr. Scheer and Mr. Browne (whose essays upon this important question we noticed last month), and though differing with the former gentleman upon some opinions which he has expressed, yet states that he believes that little can be added to his intelligent array of reasons for concluding that the recent supply of gold and silver will have but little, if any effect upon the general price of commodities. Mr. Johnson's essay possesses great value, from the practical opinions which he has brought to bear upon the subject. And not the least important are his opinions upon that vexed question," the fixed price of gold," upon which he remarks:

"It is surprising what a mass of confusion is exhibited by the prevalent notions upon this topic. Nothing is more common than such remarks as these:- What is the Bank to do if it continues to buy gold at £3 17s. 9d. per ounce standard, when every day is lessening its value?' Or again, 'If something be not soon done, and things continue as they are, the bank must be ruined !'—and objectors are triumphantly referred to the recent change in the currency of France, where gold has to a great extent displaced silver, formerly the almost exclusive coin; but this instance no more applies to the real point at issue than ground exists for the fears it is intended to support. Such misapprehensions are best met by a contrary assertion, that shall be as startling as themselves; by this means men are forced into a consideration of the real facts involved, which they would not attend to if brought before them in a simply scientific form. Such an assertion I proceed to make in the hope that it may lead to such desirable consequences, and it is, that there is no fixed price for gold. What!' I can imagine will be exclaimed in a thousand quarters, no fixed price! surely this man has forgotten Peel's Act; this is but another instance of the very confusion of ideas he complains of.' But what is price, if it be not the relation in which every commodity stands to the money of the country? and how can the price of gold, which is our money, be determined by a relation to itself? how can the measure of the value of all other things be a measure to itself also? The fact is, that what is called the price of gold is merely an equivalency of denomination: £3 17s. 10d.=1 ounce standard gold, which is as much as to say that the price of a sovereign is a sovereign. Peel's Bill enacted that the Bank should give its notes for all gold that was offered them at £3 17s. 9d. per ounce standard, which was virtually giving the public that sum of coined money for gold of a like standard weight. How the bank could possibly be injured by an operation which virtually give them 1d. per ounce for the trouble of sending the gold so bought, with their notes, to the Mint for gratuitous conversion into coin, and as a compensation for loss of time during the process, it is difficult to conceive, and has never been attempted to be explained by any of the terrorists who indulge in the remarks criticised. On the notes so parted with by the Bank being presented for repayment, the bank returns for them, in sovereigns, the same weight of gold that was given for them, minus 1d. per ounce on that weight, so that any variation that might have taken place during the interval in the value or exchange power of the gold by no means affects the Bank, they having made the profit provided in the act, totally irrespective of any

change that may have taken place in the meantime in the value of the gold.

"All these misconceptions rest upon a very common confusion of the notion of value with that of price, most distinct ideas, but most commonly used interchangeably by persons who have paid no attention to the theory or true facts of all mercantile transactions.

"A few lines back it was said that the Bank sent the gold to the Mint for gratuitous conversion into coin, and until very recently this was the case; but since the late alterations at the Mint a new regulation has been issued, which in some degree invalidates the absolute truth of this position. It was the case before Sir J. Herschel's appointment that the Mint gratuitously converted all gold into coin, whatever might be its quality; but since that time a charge is made upon all gold that is less fine than standard, to cover the expense of refining such gold, or bringing it up to that degree of purity which will fit it for coinage. This expense used to be borne by the nation, but is now of course a charge upon such persons as sell gold below the standard fineness, and to that extent limits the general position that the public can require of the Bank £8 17s. 9d. for every ounce of standard gold that they present to it.

"It is imagined by many that if the Bank were not forced by Act of Parliament to give £3 17s. 9d. for every ounce of standard gold presented to it, the great increase in the supplies of that metal would enable the Bank to purchase it at a lower rate; but so long as the present Mint regulations continue, such a result could not ensue from any increase in the supplies, however great. While gold is gratuitously coined at the Mint, the only difference between the Mint price of £3 17s. 10 d. per ounce standard and the market one is such a difference as will cover the interest upon the sum coined during the time it is detained in the Mint for that purpose; and the first effect of any offer on the part of the Bank of a less sum than £3 17s. 10 d., minus that difference, would be, that the holders of gold bullion would take it to the Mint to be coined, instead of to the Bank for notes.

"But why, it is often replied to such arguments as these, does the Bank stock of bullion so increase in its vaults, and why is money so cheap, if it be not the direct consequence of the large increase in the production and importation of gold from California and Australia?

"A little reflection must show that the present state of the money market cannot be the result of so confined a cause as partial alteration

U

of the form in which England receives her returns for commodities in the American and Australian markets. The present low rate of interest speaks simply of a past high rate of profit; the accumulations of all persons engaged in industrial pursuits have reached or touch upon that limit which renders their further employment in the various trades of which they are the result, no longer profitable, and such surplus capital as the trader can no longer invest advantageously in his own business, flows through the usual mercantile and banking channels into that general fund of capital seeking investment, which is usually called the money market, and the character of which is of course most strongly marked where the largest part of it exists, viz., at the Bank of England. Such a state of trade of course presents comparatively few borrowers, and even those who do borrow are enabled to do so without applying to the Bank.

"If there were not at the present time a very full employment in all the great branches of national industry, the addition of a few millions to the stock of gold in the country would only enable the Bank to increase her issues, as the notes received for such gold at the Bank would remain in circulation and thus bring those issues nearer to the limit allowed by her charter. That it is otherwise is a fact full of congratulation to all but holders of Bank Stock. The only evils to be feared, in such a state of things, are such as flow from that impatience of immediate profit which cannot be separated from a large unemployed capital.

"Until new forms of industry arise, or until new channels are found for the distribution of the production of old forms, the state of things must continue, unless that impatience above alluded to should give rise to a reckless and speculative spirit, of which the evil effects have been so often before felt, but which seem to be the fate of too much prosperity."

The author's observations upon the effect of the recent supplies of gold upon the relative values of gold and silver-on the proposals for Government interference in Australia-will also be found of interest, and serve to throw light upon this important, but to most persons, very obscure and perplexing question.

A Treatise on the Screw Propeller. the Screw Propeller. By JoHN BOURNE, C.E. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans.

As a contribution to the department of practical science connected with ship-building and steam navigation, the work now before us will rank second to none yet published. Mr. Bourne has evidently brought a vast amount of research and practical information to bear upon the important subject which he has selected for his treatise, and has spared no time or expense to render it a work not only of standard reference, but of popular instruction.

Perhaps at no period since the application of steam to marine purposes has there been a greater necessity for obtaining that power upon the most economical and effective principles than at present. The extension of ocean navigation by steam to every part of the world has called forth the rivalry of our energetic and enterprising Transatlantic relatives, and though we are not aware that they have as yet obtained any very decided superiority over us as regards the speed of their vessels used for ocean navigation, or in the construction of their ships and machinery, the latter being probably upon the whole inferior to that made in this country, yet such rapid strides have they made in a few years, that it behoves us to look out that they do not outstrip us in the race for ocean supremacy, a contest in which we have found them formidable competitors. And the question to be here decided is not a mere matter of speed, but is one in which commercial profit will form a very large and necessary qualification in the measure of success to be obtained by the competition referred to. The subject, however, involves, if possible, still more important considerations connected with the great shipping interests of this country, as at present constituted; and the most prominent of these is the probable adoption, and that at no very distant period, of steam as an auxiliary power by every merchant vessel employed in the foreign. commerce of the United Kingdom. This appears at first glance a

startling change, but it is one which is now contemplated by the majority of practical men as one of positive necessity, and one which will tend to the ultimate profit and extension of the great interest by whom this revolution will be accomplished, while to stand still would be to throw the commerce of the world into the hands of our rivals, or lead to its monopoly by such companies as the General Screw