The Express.
London, England, 1866-05-25 00:00:00

transient market movements wii

mischief would not esten4i

, •

and would,

bring its own cure. But, cinforisamidli,
credit is a tender plant, especially in trues lite
these, and the depreciation is only too likely to
work upon the fears of persons at a distance who
have no imam of judging accurately of the
manoeuvres by which it is produced. The only
practical remedy at the moment would seem to
consist in an organisation amongst bon/. fide
holders similar to that formed by the ad-
, verse speculators. Directors ought never to
be encouraged to traffic in the shares of the
companies which they manage ; but it is
quite competent for some of the large shareholders
to take counsel with their fellow partners, and, by
means of a common subscription, under prescribed
conditions, to commission brokers in the Stock
Exchange to buy all such shares as may be offered
within a certain limit of price during the present
crisis. In each case the only real question ought
to be that of price. Assuming that the sales were
merely speculative—and in nine cage out of ten
this is the fact, at least at the beginning of a fall—
the sellers would soon become tired, and think how ,
beat to beat a retreat, when they found that their
object was foiled, and that they could not produce
any appreaciable effect upon the price. The rally
that took place yesterday afternoon in Agra and
Idasterman's Bank shares, which, after being forced
down in the morning to 101., or 15 dis., re-
bounded suddenly to 181. at the close, shows
how liable speculators for a fall are, in
their turn, to panic' and how easily they may be
punished for any unfair practices, provided real
holders have sufficient confidence in themselves
and in the solidity of their property.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
(THIS DAY.)

THE NATIONJJ. DZBT.

The scheme explained last night by Mr. Glad-

stone of redeeming the national debt by the conversion
into terminable annuities of 24,000,0001. out of 800,000,0001.
which form its capital, is stated by the Times to be no
new scheme, and to have been sanctioned in principle by
one of the first acts passed this session. The Chancellor
of the Exchequer improved his position yesterday by put-
ting on one Ode the argument from the probable ex-
haustion of our coal fields, but in the opinion of the Times
he propounded many fallacies while meeting the stock
argument against paying off the debt at all. With the
moat respectful hesitation it hints the suspicion that the
right hon. gentleman is not himself thoroughly master of
his own plans. The special merit of the scheme evidently
lies in the pledge on the part of the nation to pay off a
capital debt of thirty millions or so by instalments
spread over the years between this and 1885. The
resolution is a good resolution, though it is rather
a small one ; but it is plain that it may be re-
voked at any time. The danger of having to borrow money
to repay a debt on which some enlarge vanishes because
the process of repayment may always be suspended ; the
merit of binding parliament to a course of redemption is
equally evanescent, since Mr. Gladstone, or any other
Chancellor of the Exchequer, might call upon parliament
to set aside what it had proposed. Terminable annui-
ties held by the National Debt Commissioners might be
converted back into permanent, just es permanent an-
nuities held by them have been converted into terminable.
We hesitate to declare this truth, because it is perhaps
desirable that a lavish House of Commons should be hood-
winked; but it is a truth, nevertheless, and Mr. Glad-
stone's scheme deserves to be adopted because of the hood-
winking.