hey buy do not
require any commodity manufactured in this country, then they can have
their gold at the Bank any day by presenting their notes. As,
moreover, the holder of every bank-note has an equal claim, _pro
tanto_, on the bullion in the Bank coffers, the more gold there is in
them, the more will his note represent. In short, the act of 1844,
above alluded to, established the security of the Bank-of-England-note
in a way that seems perfect.

On the whole, therefore, it appears that a condition requisite to
national prosperity is in prospect for our country. Individual
exceptions there may be in the persons of annuitants, but even here
counteracting circumstances are continually at work. By improvements
in machinery, and facility of communication, the cost of production is
so much reduced as, in a greater or lesser degree, to balance the rise
of price consequent on an abundance of gold, should any such condition
of things actually occur; and an abundance of gold would undoubtedly,
as we have shewn, be favourable to all these improvements. Already,
the cost of production, or small amount of labour with which
commodities can be produced, compared with former periods, is an
important fact in all questions of income. The quantity of cotton
wool, for example, taken for consumption in the United Kingdom in
1814, was 53,777,802 lbs., and in 1849 was 775,469,008 lbs.; but its
value, which in 1814 was L.20,033,132, had only increased in 1849 to
L.26,771,432: so that fifteen times the quantity at the latter period
cost only about a third more money than the much smaller quantity in
the former. The price of cotton-yarn was 8s. 9d. per lb. in 1801, and
only 2s. 11d. in 1832, owing to improved machinery. Such examples
might be multiplied, and would increase in accelerated ratio in times
of increased prosperity. Other compensations would not be wanting. If
the actual income of an annuitant should be lowered, his taxes would
be lightened, his poor-rates perhaps abolished, his sons and daughters
able to find openings in every direction. He would not be called on
for charity; he might become enterprising and successful like his
neighbours. It is scarcely possible that individual adversity should
long co-exist with national prosperity.

A period may indeed arrive, discoveries may be in store, which may
render a change in the standard of value an absolute necessity. Such a
period, however, must be remote, and must be met by wise leg