The Express.
London, England, 1847-08-09 00:00:00

opinion formed. The Bask broker was iu the market
as a seller of Exchequer Bills, and disposed of some
nrnls, it was understood, at 4s. and ss. discount,
but whether for account of the Bank or not was not
known. The bills were last marked 4s. to la. dis-
count. India Bonds, 75. to 2s. discount. Reduced
Threes, 87,1 to Three-and-a-Quarter per Cents.,
mg to 9. Long Annuities, 9to 1-16.
Foreign stocks were quoted as yesterday with
trivial differences, but scarcely dealt in at all. Four
only were marked for business done. Portuguese
were dealt in at 30, quoted 29 to 31. Spanish Fives,
201 to 1 ; the Threes, 30 to 1. Dutch Two-and-a-
Half per Cents., 56 to 1 ; the Fours, 89 to 1. Rus-
sian, 110 to 112. Danish, 84 to 6. Mexican, 171 to
18. Ecuador, 31 to 1. Buenos Ayres, 36 to 9.
Great complaints are rife among the commercial
community, both in town and country, of the strin-
gent course of Bank action. However fairly and
leniently, it is observed, that establishment may be
disposed to deal out accommodation to the industrial
interests, yet the benefit of that consideration being
limited to the requirements of its own customers,
and in each case circumscribed within the
exact line of credit marked against each name, the I
public at large are not at all indemnified for the
'serious embarrassments to which they are necessarily
subjected. For, the loan and discount dealings of the
Bank, vast in amount as they are in the individual
sense of the one institution, shrink relatively with
the aggregate mass of the monetary transactions of
the country into greatly diminished proportions.
The importance attaching to its movements, however,
as the custos of the legal tender paper money of
the empire cannot be overrated, and hence, upon its
least signal of distrust or distress, credit becomes more
or less deranged or suspended. The banks and
money dealers everywhere refuse, or limit inconve-
niently in consequence, their discounts and ad-
vances securities, however substantial the securi-
ties offered, or undoubted the credit of parties, and
however ample their own means, or even—no trivial
detriment in the trade of banking—with unemployed
and unproductive funds in excess. Thus it is that
industry is punished or paralysed indirectly upon any
eccentric action of the Bank. At the present moment
the banks and discount houses of the City are said to
be generally well in funds, and to spare ; the fact, as
may be stated on good authority, is acknowledged in
more quarters than one. Yet, virtually compelled,
directly or indirectly, to regulate their movements by
those of the Bank of England, at the risk of their
own credit being impeached, and their resources cur-
tailed in time of possible need, they are forced to join
in making money " tight," when naturally it should
be easy enough. They sue, however, in some degree,
, Icompensated for less business by the larger profits de-
rived from following the higher Bank rates of charge
for accommodation.
The doctors of the Bank Charter Act have laid
down the dogma, that when coin and bullion are
leaving, and foreign exchange is adverse, the im-
perative monetary policy of the Bank should be to
force down prices and discourage imports. Yet, by a
singular contradiction, in commercial application the
doctrine of the same school more correctly is, as FO
long and eloquently expounded, " Take care of the
imports, the exports will take care of themselves;"
in other words, promote importation to all possible
extent by fiscally unshackling it, and exportation
must follow commensurately. It is not easy for
common-sense people to understand what mission the
Bank, as a money dealer, should have to regulate any
prices but those of money. In meddling with commo-
dities, the prices of which are variously governed by
distinct and differing causes, and with imports, it is
stepping out of its orbit, in contempt of the good old
axiom—ne sutor ultra crepidarn. The business of the
Bank is, or should be, simply with the state of its
exchequer. If drawn upon too freely it has only to
retrench without reference to extraneous events or
causes. But, assuming the sound policy of repressing
imports, because supposed to be in excess, it should
be policy as sound at least to encourage exports, as
the only certain and legitimate means by which the
otherwise injurious drain of metallic treasure might
be neutralised, or profitably turned to account. Yet
exports, which left to themselves would have
these effects, are not only not encouraged,
but are positively impeded or interdicted by
this currency dogma, which is thus alike
aimed against friend and foe, and can only attempt
to cure one wound by inflicting others deeper
and more perilous still. Take the following cases,
samples of a sack, of the achievements of, in empirical
phraseology, this infallible nostrum they may be
relied upon for fact.
An Anglo-American house, known and respected
for many years equally for prudence and ability, for
unimpeachable credit and substantial capital, acting
almost, if not altogether, as a house of agency, have
orders from their correspondents in the United States
to ship goods to the amount of 50,0001. Upon these
orders comes the Bank screw, when their execution is
at once abandoned, and advice sent out accordingly.
" Whatever our means,* said one of the part-
ners (the partners are English), "we cannot
afford to be victimised by these currency caprices
and convulsions. Our agency profit is 21 per cent.; we
pay for what we purchase in fourteen days; in six
weeks we should receive bills on England from our
friends on the other side, parties of undoubted credit ;
hut by the time they reached us it is not at all impro-
bable that we may be in the midst of a money panic,
with the rates of discount at 16 or 20 per cent. for
high class paper, as in April last, if discounts attain-
able at all. Now, 50,000/. of exports would have
balanced the same amount of imports received, and
the difference to the Bank and the country betwixt
paying out 50,0001. in bard money, and having it in
hand, is pretty much the same as 100,0001. The
house rationally concluded that for 21 per cent. profit,
with the probable chance of being mulcted of 10 or
20 per cent. on discount of their remittances, in addi-
tion to the risk which with every prudent merchant
is an item in the account, and interest running on
capital laid out besides, the operation could result
only in loss, or anxiety equivalent.
A Manchester manufacturer, now or recently here,
with orders for fabrics to the extent of many thou-
sands of pounds, upon the same calculation has
stopped their execution, and betakes himself to the
continent for a few months to avoid being entangled
with business which might possibly wreck him on the
advent of a monetary tornado.
The general complaints, so far u directed against
the Bank specifically, are however manifestly unjust.
The legislature, under the inspiration of the currency
doctors, has imposed certain fetters upon that institu-
tion from which it cannot escape, if it would.
Within the last month it has been drained of about
1,200,0001. of metallic money. To answer nearly
13,000,0001. of deposits it has a reserve of no more
than 4,339,0001., which in ordinary time would be
sufficient to cover demands. Yet, after all, it has
in its coffers hard money to the extent of 9,331,0001.,
of which all above five millions is lying there un-
profitably to itself, unnecessary for its security, and
most prejudicially for the public interest. The fright
about two or three millions of gold in April last has
been the leading and only cause of those monstrous
revolutions in the prices of breadstuffs which have
been witnessed within little more than three months,
and have entailed already, and, still more, are likely
to end in, so much individual ruin. From 60a, wheat,
during the time, has been seen at 120 a, with the
horrors of scarcity in face, whilst, after violent
reactions one way and the other, from 120 s. it has
again descended to about 60s. The renewed but
more reasonable fright now about a French loan,
and the abstraction of treasure consequent, is
unjustly and injuriously acting as an interdiction
of exports to the United States, by which imports
would be balanced, or overbalanced to profit, which
can scarcely fail in result to renew a demand for gold
from that quarter. As the consequence of Bank
action, bills to the amount of 400,0001. have been just re-
turned to the United States unaccepted ; therefore when
the imported commodities drawn against are sold, the
proceeds will probably have to be remitted in sove-
reign. If, in April, the Bank, frightened out of its
propriety by an absurd legislation, could have per-
mitted the exit of some two, thre, or four millions
more of gold, as without risk or inconvenience it
might have done, by this time the reflux would
have set in, and the gold in return by every packet to
their former domicile ; imports would have been mo-
derated—exports extended—prices maintained in an
equable ratio—industrial interests spared painful
when not ruinous sacrifices—great numbers of honour-
able and respectable merchants and traders saved
from ruin. Such are the reasoned convictions gene-
rally entertained and expressed in the most =light-
ened quarters of the city.
Following close upon the restrictive policy of the
Bank other failures have to be recorded to-day. The