able" of the torchlight meetings. It was held in defiance of Fielden's warning that the Government was prepared to prosecute the conveners of and participators in such gatherings. The speeches, O'Connor's included, were apparently milder than usual. A week later he repudiated physical force in the Northern Star. He did not prevent the insertion in the same paper of a letter from O'Connell denouncing himself, Oastler, and Stephens by name. It seemed as if harmony were completely restored, but it was a very delusive peace which reigned, and equally short-lived.
NOTE ON ATTWOOD'S CURRENCY THEORIES
That these were really deserving of the ridicule heaped upon them by Place will be evident to the attentive reader of the reprint of Attwood's article of 1822 in the Birmingham Journal of May 5, 1832. The source of all social evils was the resumption of cash payments in 1819, which made debts, contracted previous to 1819 in an inflated currency, payable in a restricted currency, and thus enhanced the burdens of debtors. The argument runs thus:
In 1791 Currency and Prices were in a normal state. From thence till 1797 the Currency became depreciated and prices rose owing to the creation of £5 Bank of England notes, the extension of other note issues, and the growing burden of taxes and loans. By 1797 currency was depreciated 50 per cent. Not only paper but gold too was depreciated, the latter, as Cobbett showed, by sympathy. From 1797 onwards, by reason of the Bank Restriction, there was a further rise in the prices of property and labour of from 50 to 70 per cent, making 100 per cent or 120 per cent in all. Thus the loans and obligations contracted between 1797 and 1819 were contracted in a currency which possessed only one half the value it had before the war. This applied both to public and private contracts, to industrial debts as well as to the rents of farms. Furthermore the high taxation during the war was only possible through the inflation of the currency, since the high prices reduced the actual value absorbed by the taxation (e.g. a tax of 40s. was discharged by goods worth only 20s.).
Public obligations contracted during the war amounted to 1247 millions, private obligations to 1245 millions, making roughly 2500 millions. Government by removing the Bank Restriction practically doubled these obligations, making them 5000 millions. This measure was the measure of a body of creditors; hence their eagerness to double the burden of their debtors. Had Parliament been a body of debtors it would have halved the burden of debtors. A body composed of both would do what reason and justice required—coin ten old mint shillings into one pound sterling. Even this measure would leave prices double those of 1791.
