The Shadow of Great Britain

Chapter 794: Chapter 373 Stop the Duke, Take the Gold!

Block the Duke, seize the gold!

If there were a vote for the popular phrase of 1832 in Britain, the aforementioned sentence would surely be the hottest favorite.

When Duke Wellington announced that he was to form a cabinet on behalf of the king, almost overnight, the streets and alleys of London were plastered with this slogan.

The small London Financial City was packed with people from all corners of the city, holding various jobs, with different educational backgrounds and life experiences.

The only thing they had in common was that each person was waving their life savings high in the air, in British Pounds or other negotiable instruments.

Speaking of Britain’s currency system, the first thing that comes to mind is Sir Isaac Newton’s famous report “Representation to His Majesty’s Commissioners for the Treasury”, presented to Parliament while he was the Master of the Mint. This laid the groundwork for Britain’s gold standard system.

However, during Master Newton’s tenure, the gold standard had not been legally implemented; it was practiced merely as a temporary regulation. The official establishment of the gold standard system in legal terms had to wait until the “Coinage Act” passed by Parliament in 1816.

At that time, in order to boost the domestic economy, which was in disrepair following the Napoleonic Wars, and to save the credibility of the British Pound, the British Government enacted the “Coinage Act”, published the “Gold Standard Currency Law”, and ordered the ceasing of minting the guinea gold coins, which had been in circulation for 150 years, to recoin domestic metal currency. The newly minted gold coin was named the sovereign, cast with standard gold of 91.67% purity, with one sovereign valued at one British Pound.

By 1819, under Sir Peel’s urging, the supplementary regulation to the “Coinage Act”, the “Peel’s Act”, was approved by both houses of Parliament, which further legislated the value of an ounce of gold at 3 Pounds, 17 Shillings, and 10 Pennies, equating to one Pound sterling to 7.32238 grains of gold.

With gold as the basis for issuing currency, the credit of the British Pound naturally became more robust, and British Public Debt quickly became a high-quality investment project well regarded worldwide.

But having enjoyed the benefits of the gold standard, one must also endure its constraints.

Anyone with eyesight knew that even if all the gold mined worldwide were supplied to Britain, it might not keep up with Britain’s economy growing at breakneck speed.

And in order to satisfy the surging monetary demand during Britain’s economic development phase, the nation’s major banks inevitably could not strictly adhere to the Treasury’s requirement: only print as many British Pounds as there were gold reserves.

Yet oversupplying currency did not mean the collapse of Britain’s gold standard system, as long as everyone closed their eyes, deceived themselves, and did not rush to the banks en masse demanding gold exchanges. Britain could still enjoy prosperity and harmony.

But if most people decided to be wise, that would be problematic. In other words, the banking crisis of 1827 and the subsequent economic recession in Britain were caused by an excess of honest and sensible individuals.

Since that banking crisis, Britons finally understood that when it came to money matters, it was best not to attempt to be the sole sober person in a crowd of drunkards. Gold could be exchanged, but not en masse. If everyone exchanged at the same time, the end result would be no one being able to exchange at all.

Among Britain’s intelligent population, some exceptionally talented individuals learned the inverse operation of the gold standard from some reactionary elements with ulterior motives.

If I can’t exchange, then I will make sure that those nobles, bankers, and merchants can’t either. My life savings amount to only a few dozen Pounds, and although without this money, I might not even afford a meal in the following months, those with hundreds of thousands in their pockets will be in the same boat as I am. What do I have to fear?

When they saw their own banks’ thresholds nearly trampled by the bank-runners, even industry leaders such as Rothschild and Barings had no choice but to declare a temporary suspension of exchange services after five days.

As for the smaller banks, most had surrendered by day three.

Seeing the unfavorable trend, these bankers simply shut down their companies, declaring their firm opposition to Duke Wellington’s cabinet formation and that due to a strike and protest demonstration by all their employees, they would suspend operations until the reform bill was passed.

At this critical juncture of survival, regardless of whether these bankers genuinely supported parliamentary reform, they would barricade the entrance to Parliament at dawn every day, holding signs and shouting the slogan “Block the Duke, seize the gold!”, hoping to catch the slower-reacting competitors unawares and force them out of business.

Arthur was naturally well aware of the various strange occurrences in London during this period, for Scotland Yard’s most important task at the time was to send people to stand guard at the doors of major banks.

Although he had previously mentioned the matter of seizing gold to Mr. Price of the Capital Political Alliance, the current bank run frenzy in London attracted not only those wanting to pressure the government through their actions but also.

Many ‘high-end technical talents,’ already known at Scotland Yard’s Criminal Records Center, also caught this new trend. They planned to move out of the saturated market and venture into this blue ocean.

And, according to the lovely Miss Fiona’s report, many of London’s notable criminal groups also sensitively realized the industry’s future development direction. After ‘board of directors’ meetings and collective voting, they set new strategic goals for the group’s development, adjusted the layout of the year, and determined that ‘parliamentary reform’ and ‘banking run’ were the central tasks and priorities for this year’s workload.