The Express.
London, England, 1847-10-04 00:00:00

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Ists Day —Mont.. 17 Ws. poi 10 ; Itters•••• rah. pest 110
Tallomi•—/lorsiag,= au. p.. 11 ; Win. siio per 11

LONDON, MONDAY, OCT. 4.

Ir is very startling, and not very comprehensible, to
observe the conflicting currents of two contrary and
opposing tides, that have prevailed in the opinions and
acts of uur public men and legislators of late years on
commercial questions. To set trade free of its fetters,
remove fiscal obstructions, abolish prohibitions, and
even sacrifice large interests to the still larger interests
of the public, have been the tendencies and achieve-
ments of men, ministers and legislators. And yet,
beneath this broad and rapid stream of free trade has
run another current, in a precisely opposite direction,
fettering commerce and interchange in its most impor-
tant element—viz., credit; and not merely in credit,
but what is equally important and more unjust, in the
medium of all trade and exchange, actual currency

and money.
There cannot be a doubt but that the pursuit and
realisation of these contrary principles has caused
much evil and many obstructions to arise in both.
And this has been even more the case, from the cir-
cumstance that we have allowed these contrary prin-
ciples to prevail, and to operate, of course diversely,
in this very same sphere of credit. We have, in fact,
applied the most stringent law of restriction and
monopoly to one kind and portion of credit, and have
given the utmost scope and facilities to another kind.
The credit we have fettered, too, is unfortunately
that of poorer and humbler and more industrious classes.
The credit we have left free, is that of the speculator,
the mighty operator in enterprise or trade. And
now the outcry and the tendency is, not to loosen the
bonds which fetter minor credit, but to extend the
restrictive system, and apply its ligatures to the larger
limbs and even to the very wings of trade, in order to
tie up and regulate all, and, in fact, allow no commer6
cial movement except by act of parliament.
The banking business, the entire trade in money,
having been effectually fettered, it is found to
be of very little use, unless the employer of
money be fettered too. The bankers being
already in limbo, the proposal is to thrust railway
companies and directors into the same narrow space.
This would be outrageously unfair and impracticable,
unless the merchant be made to feel the same restric-
tion. If the railway companies be accused of burying
gold in the bowels of English earth, it is not denied
that the gold fructifies there, and for the exclusive
benefit of England. If the liberty of doing this be
denied, how shall it be lawful to sink millions in
foreign ventures, in Cuban or Mexican mines,incutting
isthmuses at the other side of the globe, or even in
paying for China tea or Java sugar? The same
political economy which considers money to
be absorbed and fixed in a railroad, one
day to pay a dividend, must admit that a
similar amount of money is far more lost in
the consumption of luxuries like tea and sugar.
Three-fourths of the railroad capital is spent in bread
and cheese, the necessaries of life for laboureis.
There is, in fact, no comparison. Fetter the
merchant in the use of his capital and in his
command of credit you cannot, unless, indeed,
he is made to publish periodical accounts of his lia-
bilities and assets. The thought is idle. Credit, in
its large operations, cannot be interfered with.
The great nostrum of the day, as yet indeed but in
embryo, but which we may soon expect to see full
born, seems to be, that there must be preserved a
certain quantity of floating capital, in proportion to the
credit operations of the country, and that its abmsp-
tion into fixed capital most be prevented, if neenenry
and if possible, by law. We fear that most erroneous
ideas are entertained of the floating capital of a
country, of its functions, accumulations, and of the
distinct line supposed to separate it from fixed capital.
One should think, from much that we hear argued,
that, before the invention of railroads, the monied
savings of each year were allowed to accumulate in
short bills or loans, or in hoards or reserves. One should
think that there were no investments, no factories or
establishments built, at home or abroad, and that the
industrious man never went farther than the savings
bank With the fruits of his economy. Then, what is
floating capital—what fixed ? An exchequer bill is
considered floating capital ; a railroad share fixed.
What is the difference between them at this moment,
when the Bank will advance money no more upon
one than on the other ? A good commercial
bill, when the Bank is willing to discount
it, or when the exchanges have left suffi-
cient . quantity of gold to discount it, is
floating capita. In the present day it is fixed,
sunk, as mach as the money spent in building
London-bridge. Water is fixed or floating, according
to the 'temperature. At so many degrees it floats, at
so many less it freeze& Credit is the temperature
which rules capital, and according to the degree of
which it floats or fixes. At the present moment
everything is fixed capital, bat gold, which nobody
possesses, and which, as fruitless, no one Mom to
possess ; and the Bank, or the government, no more
than individuals. To complain that the want of
floating capital has produced the want of credit, is
just as if one said that the solidification of the river
into ice was the cause of the low degree of tempera-
tare. Restore but credit, and yon will soon have
plenty of capital and all kinds of capital afloat.
Now, we do not say that there should be opened,
either suddenly or gradually, a fictitious source of
credit, or that the state, to return to our metaphor,
should undertake to keep the temperature of creffit at
a high degree. All we desire is, that the regulation
of credit should be governed by the proper barometer
of commerce, that the immense and vital power of
giving value to floating capital, or denying it, and of
fixing the rate of interest to be paid for that stamp of
value, should not be entrusted to a set of men, not
only privileged to affix or withhold that stamp, but
for wd— to regulate their granting or refusal of it by the
state of the bullion market, a thing as distinct front
national credit as it is from the .lax of the stars.
We are no enemies to a convertible currency.
Quite the contrary. But the means and the surety of
conversion ought to be provided for in some other way
than by the present state of the law, which in hours of
distress nullifies credit, instead of facilitating it, sus-
pending sad fixing floating capital, indeed of increas-
ing it; which raises the rate of interest, not according
to the real scarcity of money, but of that very small
proportion and kind of it which flies abroad in times
of famine and distress, and which can only be brought
back at a price fixed by parliament, and possibly be-
neath its real value at the time, this very virtual
prohibition of gold being made to act as the signal
for refusing credit and otherwise obstructing and dis-
tressing the operations of the mercantile world. We
cannot but think the demand of a parliamentary
committee to inquire into this mass of doubt and
error as fair and as urgent, as any demand ever made
of the legislature.

To understand the Italian question—at the present
moment, the field on which the policies of the dif-
ferent states of Europe meet, and from which new
alliances and enmities may arise, extending in their
influence far beyond the confines of Italy—it is neces-
sary to cast a retrospect on the past interference of the
Five Powers in the affairs of that peninsula.
It is well known that the events of the French and
Belgian revolutions occasioned great agitation in Italy
about the time of the election of the late Pope. At 11
the same time the Roman finances and administration
were in such disorder, that when the inhabitants of
the Ecniagrlainse against the papal government, the
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viiiii7j74l7tfer°,77),Te:f ththee'icoaientanmpa raluiwereotoof the
m ul:l2lP:tealtear til'dtbz.ho wen:
bbsared under awn =abominable system of adman- in vain to keep back. At the view of
albstiClD, that it was unfair and impossible to demand whose resemblance to the emperor strui
solosimion or tranquillity unless these abuses all persons spontaneously raised their he
Imo sew and reformed. out " Vive ]'Em rear ! Viva la Lil
Ragland, which bad never troubled itself in Roman cries only ceased when the carriage was
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