The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-03-21 00:00:00

FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 1856

WHILE we are anticipating a monetary and
financial crisis in England, in Paris the cry is, it

!it comes ! What ! another bugbear as we
England is peace-sick, and France has
taken the fever. " There is nothing like being in
" the fashion," as the Irish tenant, with only one
shoe, said when he met his landlord without a

comes

are alive.

crown to his hat ; meaning, we suppose, that
neither could walk very far on certain extremities.
May this prove the case with the two great Western
Allies. May their difficultie3, if they are to have
any, differ as widely as the link of fashion which
the shoeless Irishman saw between his own condi-
tion and that of his landlord's. The variety will
sooth the sufferers, even if their diseases should
prove fatal. But what is the matter with France ?
Are her wolves eating up the lambs, and will her
Bears devour the Bulls,after the manner of the
Trinobantes who still infest the neighbourhood of
Capel-court ? There must be a stop put to such

The Emperor NAPOLEON has the
remedy. Keep Bulls and Bears at home, and do
not let them go abroad to employ their leisure
hours in enterprise, or their spare cash in trade, or
in any other way in foreign speculations, that they
may eat each other up, and be done with them at once
arid for ever ! There is something in this recipe, but
we should be sorry to be compelled to administer
the dose. An innocent Bear might, with a certain

enormities

degree of affection, ask one what harm his simple
mirth could do where there are so many horned
animals, ready to gore him and make him disgorge
all his gains? Here fan3y the Bull's coming at one
in a frenzy of just indignation, and demanding one's
right to interfere where there is really a good
system of finance which has proved equal
to all emergencies, in existence ! Before a body
could well reply to such an interrogation he might
lespatched in search of a lost meteor

find bums

in the neighbourhood of Tim Pleiades, or some

other of his high acquaintances.
But to be serious. What does it all mean ? A
financial crisis in France—a country that buys its
gold in the cheapest market and sells it in the dearest.
Stop all the foreign enterprise of the French
people, while their very existence depends

attainment of one foreign com-
modity—gold I In this Tyrian Isle we may
murder eloquence, and tell the admirers of Cato
that they are blockheads, but how the Press of
any civilised country could attempt any thing
half so suicidal, as to give publicity to such rub-
bish we cannot understand. Can the French
Government be afraid that the gold of France

on the

would go to pay for the construction of a railway
from St. Petersburg toiNicolaief or Sebastopol?
e feel anxious to know how long it would take
to lay out such a project, and. complete it, and
then to see how it could be made to pay a dividend
of one farthing on a 1,0001. share. Is Russia
going to add the high office of Swindler-general, to
that of general Butcher? Is she to wait for
the construction of railways before she completes
her aggressive designs, on the nations of Eastern
Europe ? Here we feel disposed to ask iu the
language of a well-known spouse—" Is that you
" talking Mr. Caudle ? " With railroads Russia
would conquer Europe ? Just so ! and pay dividends
out of the profits of war? That's it !
France, we think, might be left entirely to its
own discretion, where advantages and losses are
so equally divided. Nine-tenths of what we hear
on such public topics would be a disgrace to the
good sense and common understanding of a parish
schoolroom. Our Allies have no money to lend
and are the most cautious dealers in stocks.
And while their national bank goes on buying gold
at a nominal loss, to keep down the rates of di
count. sustain industry, and preserve the credit of
the merchant, there can be no real financial crisis
in France. The return of peace may kill a few
" Stags," and knock over some " Ducks" on the
Bourse, but what of that ? There is doubt-
less a great dcal of hoarding going on among
the French people, especially in the p rovinces, but
those feelings of uneasiness from which this evil
dates, will disappear once the question of peace or
war is decided. If the contest is to be continued
the French nation will, to a man, aid the Exchequer
as they have always done. If we are to have peace,
returning confidence will bring the specie with it
into more active circulation. What France

did in 1854 and 1856 she will do again this year.
Her trade and revenue go on increasing steadily,
and although she may have large deficiencies to
ood,
they are trifles compared to those of
this country

make

and while her commerce is exposed
to no interruption, there is no danger to be appre-
hended beyond the sudden collapse of a few over
inflated Stock Exchange balloons.
The Emperor NAPOLEON may, however, think it
right to check the speculations of the French in
foreign enterprises; but it will not be done without
timely notice—for if such a step were taken hastily,
it would prove the ruin of thousands• luterfeiing
with the free action of money, and a people's desire
-grow rich, has too often proved the worst of
national calamities. Loins PHILLIPPE knew this, and

]y let speculators go on, but played with, and
3 hands of the monied classes and stock-

into th

jobbers

and there are not a few stories told abot

I
the almost fabulous wealth he realised by his
successful operations—first as a Bull, and next

as a Bear. It is quite true that such things are
highly dishonourable ; but when subjects will play

at balls, their rulers will have a game at bowls ;
and since this has long been reduced to a trade,
with its Guilds to give it bye-laws, and to keep

rascally jobbers within something like the pale of
honesty, it would be hard to dislover what more can
be done. If the object be to get rid of these gamblers
altogether, we really do not see a shorter cut than
allowing, and even encouraging them, to invest their
last farthing inßussian, Austrian , and Prussian rail;
ways! Russian railway shares would be our "fancy'
for such a purpose. The Imperial line from
St. Petersburg to Sebastopol via Moscow, Warsaw,
Nicolaief, and Odessa, would get rid of as many
enterprising French capitalists, as a Isle of Man.
Grand Trunk Line, capital 20,000,0001, " all paid
up," and fully incorporated—liability unlimited. As
for the use Russia, or any other military and half
civilised country can make of railroads in war,
France may safely leave that branch of the
subject for the amusement of Napoleon IV., and
a remote posterity.