1819: The Debates on Resumption

Abstract

The Ricardo Plan for resumption, as recommended by the Secret Committees, was debated in the Lords on 21 May. However before the debate proper, Lauderdale introduced a petition from the merchants of London requesting retention of the restriction on cash payments.^l The Earl was most sympathetic to the viewpoint of the petitioners inasmuch as ‘they objected to the plan of the Bank committees, as tending to produce a forced diminution of the circulating medium, and thereby to cause the greatest distress …’

No country in the world had ever established a currency without a fixed standard of value … It might be gold, it might be silver, it might be copper, or even iron. It might be anything that had real value in it; though the metals had been preferred for this purpose by the general consent of all nations. But it could not be paper, which has no value, and is only promise of value’.

The Earl of Liverpool

House of Lords, 21 May 1819.