The Express.
London, England, 1853-09-14 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14.

IT is said that another rise is about to take place
in the Bank rate of discount; and because the pur-
pose aimed at by the previous rise,—influencing
the Rate of Exchange,—has not been attained, the
next rise, we are told, is to be one per cent. Only
imprudent partisans would represent the Bank an
having a purpose to serve beyond its own interest
as a Bank. For the Old Lady of Threadneedh-
street to aspire to guide instead of following td
Money Market is a b:under. What there may be is
the present condition of the Bank to authorise a fur-
ther advance, its accounts the week after next will
reveal ; but as yet the market rate, uninfluenced by
apprthcosions generated by the Bank, does not seem
to warrant an immediate rise to five per cent. As
the depository of the public taxes now accumulating
in.its coffers, and as the exclusively privileged bor-
rower of the public capital at no interest, the Bank
has obligations, if not duties, different from other
banks, and for it avowedly to throw obstacles in the
way of trade is, to say the least, very unbecoming.
Experience should teach its Directors to be patient
and prudent. If there be any overtrading now it is
partly due to the low rate of interest which pre-
vailed in 1832, to which the Bank contributed, by a
hasty greediness then, in reducing its rate to 2 per
cent. That proceeding was at the time deservedly
censured, and the Bank Directors, if they are not
incapable of learning, might have been taught, as
they were wrong then, they may be wrong now. A
chock given to trade at present, by raising the rate
of

two or three vessels have just
arrived from Australia bringing payment most likely
of several successful adventurers, and when we may be
on the eve of a great increase of capital,—would be
most untimely. But the Directors, however skilful
in enriching their proprietary, have never shown
themselves by their acts such philosophic economists,
or such far-string statesmen, u to induce the public
to believe that a foolish step may not be taken.
The great stimulus to the late present rapid in.
crease of business is undoubtedly the gold disco-
veries,—not, as is usually supposed, from adding to the
circulating medium the mere instrument for dif-
fusing wealth, for that could have been increased by
the issue of Bank notes,—but from adding a large and
unexpected sum to the wealth of the world in that
particular form which all men intensely desire.
Those discoveries begot a vast increase of trade, which
is the chief cause of the relative scarcity of capital.
A great part of the increase in the exports took
place last year ; we have heard of no considerable
losses by wrecks or fires ; the markets hare not been
overdone in Australia ; on the contrary, the latest
accounts brought demands for mono goods. All that
have been sent thither have been well sold, and them
is every probability that the vast trade will be as
profitable as it is great. As payment in part of the
goods shipped to Australia, we may speedily upset
back a large portion of the eight or ten millings d
sovereigns sent thither to be returned. Thesib
these are not actually the capital so much required,
which consists of corn, and cloth, and ships, and other
useful things, yet they are precisely what the Bank
wants, and what,--coming hither,—would increase
our command over the actual capital of other countries.
What is true of Australia_ true of California.
The market. there, far from being overdone, are very
brisk. More shipments are required; and if, accord-
ing to the Alla-California of August 1, on some
few articles, shippers may suffer a loss, on the
majority of articles there will be large profits. Only
the extension of these trades has led to the great
demand for capital; and if they are successful, all
the capital they have absorbed will be speedily
replaced with a large profit. As that occurs, the
present borrowers will become lenders or depositors
and the condition of the market will be reversed:
Discount will fall. To give a forced check to trade
under such circumstances, would be to depreciate the
value of capital and inflict a great injury on the
public.

Trade has in the last year been more rapidly ex-
tended in America than here. In New York the
banks, carrying on their business with great spirit
and activity, had made advances very nearly equal
to the whole amount of their capital, their circula-1
tion, and the deposits of their customers, in-
cluding all the bullion in their possession.
On August 6, their capital was estimated at
44,196,793 dole., their specie at 9,746,432, their
circulation at 9,510,463 dols., their deposits at
68,410,756 dos., and their loans were 97,896,617
dole. The sum of their loanable means, therefore,
was 112,118,014 dole.; of this 67,921,221 were bor-
rowed, and they lent a sum of 97,896,817 dole.
With each a condition of the banks, and with trade
extended 26 per cent mere than in 1852, there was,
some reason for the apprehensions which a short
time ago prevailed. The crisis has, however, oc-
curred at New York, the returns from California
have equalled expectation, and, after a little alarm,
trade has again expanded itself into new and wider
channels. The example of New York is an indica-
tion of what will probably occur here. After a little
alarm, the returns from Australia will arrive, capital
will be replaced and become comparatively abund-
ant, and trade will require to expand more, in order
to reap larger profits.
The present time, as far as we can see, differs in
some essential particulars from all previous periods
of business excitement. First of all, there is in
the new manes of gold an actual and a large ad-
dition to wealth. There is next a great exer-
tion made to obtain a share of that wealth.
A vast deal of latent productive energy has
been called into activity, and more wealth has
everywhere been created. There is no panic--
at least there was none—before the semi-official an-
nouncement made on Monday that the Bank meant
to raise its rate one per cent. When such an event
is about to take place it is observed that its private
securities are invariably enlarged. That was the
case the week before las'. The intentions of the
Directors are divined or communicated, and the
friends of the Directors hasten to borrow. One-
half per cent. on 700,0001. is 3,3001.—a very pretty
sum to be divided between two or three gentlemen
who had the good luck to obtain loans to that extent
from the Bank a day or two before the rise was de-
clued. The Bank may thus create an artificial run
on itself, and create a panic, which it seems, in fact,
almost to have done ; but, apart from that, there is
no mistrust in trade.

There is nowhere now that we can perceive any
waste of capital, or any misapplication of it,—though
unnecessary consumption, now causing great evil,
may be provoked by idle parade. No great loss of
capital is now to be feared as on former occasions of
actual or apprehended commercial convulsion. Ex-',
oept in building many new and large ships, erecting
new factories, and in underdraining the soil, no great
and certainly no unnecessary conversion of fixed into
floating capital is now going on. There arc few rail-

way schemes in agitation, few great combinations or
companies, except for banking purposes, which will not
absorb any capital. All the extended trade is trade
by individuals, and all that can bo dreaded is that
the returns may be small or may be delayed. There
is good reason to suppose that the present intense
demand for capital may abate at no distant period.
Therefore any measure to put a sudden check on trade,
in order to quiet the fears of some alarmed monopo-
lists,—is wholly unwarranted by circumstances.
If any Bank Director, or the Bank itself as a
body, were the ardent promoter of that Free Trade,
by which the nation has been rescued from starvation,
the zealous exertions have been modestly concealed
from public knowledge. The body had probably a
partiality for the landowners, and Protectionist feel-
ings may yet linger in the Bank parlour, nourished
by Tory traditions. It may, like Colonel SIBTIIORP,
be a little alarmed at too much prosperity, and,
recollecting certain blown-up bubbles of Bank paper,
may deem the prosperity very hollow and deceitful
and think present expansion cannot be too soon
checked. For tho honour of Protectionism, a con-
vulsion, under Free Trade, might not be amiss. A
panic] would be a comfort to some of the old cronies
who remember chiefly the gains made by ministering
to the enormous extravagance of war, which reduced
the bulk of the people to pauperism and beggary.
There may be a notion somewhere that we are buying
too much food abroad, and that it is desirable to
influence the Exchanges and stop the efflux of gold
for this purpose. The short harvest, and the ne-
cessity to buy more corn abroad, are alleged as the
grounds of the Bank's threatened farther rise in the
rate of discount. For its own advantage and pre-
sumed safety it may try to check the operations by
which the people are to be supplied with bread.
The Bank would fain step into the place of the land-
lords, and regulate the imports of food by the
sliding scale of the gold in the Bank coffers. This
is very wrong and very foolish. Let it follow
the money market, and we have not one word to say
against it : but, on the other hand, when it has a
large sum of the public money at its command, and
is exciusively privileged to borrow the capital of
the people to the extent of 24,000,0001. on its pro-
mises to pay, let it attempt to control the market, for
the purpose of checking the corn trade, or any other
trade, begetting panic, distress, idleness, hunger, and
convulsions, and the public indignation will not
longer tolerate its privileged existence.
To check the corn trade, in order to prevent the
export of gold, means, that the riches which the
beneficial discoveries in California and Australia, have
poured into our lap, and stimulated our exertions, shall
not be diffused amongst the Russian peasantry, the
Egyptian Fellabs, and the American agriculturists
rewarding their exertions, and stimulating them to
produce more food, the very thing now required by
society. Capital is scarce; it can be only augmented
by industry. No kind of capital is of so much im-
portance as food, the production of that where cir-
cumstances make its production easy, is now espe-
cially to be encouraged, and to stop the export of
gold wherewith to buy corn, is to stop its produc-
tion. To raise the rate of discount to check the Corn
Trade, means that the march of civilisation bringing
peace, harmony, and wealth in its train, is to be
arrested for the solace of a few frightened Directors,
and for the imagined advantage of the Bank of Eng-
land. Whatever other reasons the partisans of the
Bank may allege for its conduct, let them preserve a
guarded silence on the Corn Trade.

INEQUALITIES OF

(Tram the Daily News.)

The well-known traveller whose future motions
have been predicated with such precision by imagina-
tive historians,—one of whose duties, some centuries
hence, will be to tell his contemporaries all about Lon-
don of the nineteenth century, from the fragmentary
Utti----A,. its site,—will, perhaps, in the
lAr
course of some adventurous excavation, dig up a
well-reserved copy of the Daily News of yesterday.
We can imagine the delight with which he will set to
work upon the precious document, and endeavour to
reproduce the life of the Englishman in 1853 for the
edification of his countrymen. Leaving him to the
astonishment and admiration which he must feel at
the perusal of the first few pages, in which he will
learn how cleverly we contrive to make the occurrence
of railway accidents almost certain—how sound are
all our arrangements for securing purity of election
—bow strict is the supervision exercised over our
prisons—and various other details of our social
economy, we will try to make out what would be his
impressions upon coming to the sixth page and
perusing the following facts :
HENRY CLAPSON, 23, and Waraam Hawrrr,
aged 17, were indict for stealing two codfish and
three haddocks, the property of the Great Northern
Railway Company, their masters. The prisoners
were found guilty, and each condemned to hard
labour in the House of Correction for one year.
JAMES PHILLIPS, aged 18, and HENRY MACKENZIE,
15, were indicted for stealing a watch. The jury
found them both guilty. The Judge sentenced
PHILLIPS to four years of penal servitude, and was
about to pus such &sentence on MACKENZIE as would
have the effect of sending him to Parkhurst, when
upon a statement made to him by the prisoner's
counsel that the watch was only worth 41., he
changed the sentence of PHILLIPS to two Tears'
hard labour, and gave MACKENZIE six months hard
labour.

he. CALLAHAN was indicted for stealing a purse
containing ls. 6d.; found guilty, and condemned to
penal servitude for four years.
ROBERT SMITH, for stealing a handkerchief
value 5a., is sentenoed to four years of penal ser-
vitude.

JuuY Mims's, for stealing a watch, value 101., is
sentenced to tour years of penal servitude.
Wm. liewtrr, who steals a set of harness, value
40s. ; /AMU MITCIIRLL, who steals a bag and half a
bushel of flour, value 65.; Wm. WOOD, who steals a
handkerchief, value 61.; are each condemned to four
years' penal servitude.
The perusal of these facts will throw considerable
light upon one portion of our institutions. What-
ever may be the defects of the English law, our tra-
veller will exclaim, want of respect for the rights of
property is not one of them. He will consider the
sentences severe or light according as he is by tempe-
rament inclined to a rigid or lax measure of punish-
ment ; but be will not fail to remark the care with
which the laws regarding property are put in force.
Continuing his studies he will come to the ad-
, ministration of justice in our police courts. The
first case that will strike him is one that ho will
consider as corroborating very strongly his view of
the English reverence for property. A drunkard
proved to have resisted with unmanly vio!ence the
officers of the police in the execution of their duty,
" lying on his back, and kicking and fighting with
extraordinary vigour," and who could not be brougbt
to the police-office without the escort of a strong
body of police, is fined 10s. Fancy the dismay of
our hypothetical traveller when he finds that, in the
England which has been so long the object of his
researches, the unlawful abstraction of eighteen pence
from an inviting pocket is punished by the horrors of
penal servitude for four years, while a murderous
assault upon the guardians of the public peace
is rated at 10s. Fancy the increase of his dismay
when he reads that the prisoner, unable to pay the
fine, is ordered to prison for seven days as an equi-
valent. "Extraordinary country," ho will exclaim,
" where property was valued so highly and personal
liberty was estimated at so low a rate, that a sacri-
fice of eighteen pence was considered something
greater than that of the surrender of one's per-
sonality to the tender mercies of agaoler for twenty-
four hours!" After this digression, we may ima-
gine our traveller to continuo his studies, when he
will fall upon similar facts.
JAMES TAYLOR was charged with assaulting AME-
LIA I.OINING under tho following circumstances : '1 he
complainant's husband had been compelled to take
out a summons against the defendant for
reasons which it is not necessary here to enter into.
Happening to meet the defendant by chance, the