The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-07-25 00:00:00

friend

ocen squandered up to the 30th June,
1856, must be passed over sub silentio. But in " the
" National Balance Sheet" for the next twelve
months, we can have no such items as 21,551,242/.
812,995/. for navy, and 8,378,5821. for
48,733,8291. ought at any

All that has

for army, 17,

prdnance purposes

time to purchase the peace of the world, without
the shedding of one drop of blood. It is.
however, a vast deal too much to waste on
fears, dreams, and prospects of a future war.
We are not amongst those, who believe that the
National Debt is an affair which can be paid off
in a hurry, or within our own time ; but if we
thought it practicable for the CHANCELLOR of the
EXCHEQUER to raise 48,733,8191. yearly, for any
purpose, not immediately connected with a gigantic
struggle for existence, we should certainly recom-
mend its being applied to the redemption of the
dead weight, which it would completely wipe away
in a little over sixteen years. But the repetition
of such fiscal afflictions is wholly out of the ques-
tion. War is quite bad enough when it does really
overtake us, without thinking of continuing its
worst penalties, after all danger has passed
away.

The country cannot be asked to pay 23,000,0001•
on the importation of articles of food, and
the raw material required for our manufac-
s, to keep up what Sir FENWICK WlLLums
would call " an efficient army," nor will the pro.
perty, and small income classes pay 15,000,000/.
per annum to support fleets large enough to
intimidate all the nations of the earth. And it is
well for the responsible ministers of the Crown to
hear these things, and ponder over them before
they again meet the public in Parliament. A

numerous army is seldom an efficient one, if we
may judge from what we have seen of the
hordes of Russia and the numerical strength
of other foreign forces. 100,000 soldiers,
with our majestic fleets, are enough for
all purposes of defensive warfare, and as we
are not likely to entrust the destinies of the British
Empire to an ALEXANDER, we may wait in all safety
for others to attack us, before we need prepare for
aggressive enterprises. Thus far the PALMERSTON
Cabinet have not been to blame for the immense
drafts made on the national purse, but from
this moment their responsibility commences,
and it remains for the PREMIER and Sir CORNE-
WALL LEWIS to show that they are the men for
the crisis of peace, as well as the ready dis-
pensers of the nation's liberality and disregard
of cost, in a just cause and in proper season.

CREDIT ! credit ! appears to have been all that

Europe has required for centuries to carry on the
great works of civilisation. That the discovery

was not made some generations back, is the
greatest wonder connected with the marvellous
creation and magical growth of the Credit Mobilier
system on the Continent. There is nothing which
can be more simple than the forming of a company,
who are to issue shares and to pawn their own
credit, in order to enable them to make advances
on the names and chattles of others. Thimble-
rig owes its popularity to its extraordinary simpli-
city. The man who cannot see which of three
thimbles a fair sized pea is under, ought to " take
" that" and lose his money. The " flat" is scarcely
fit to live in this advanced age. Now, there is
nothing more common than the repetition of the
fact, that the moral arguments used against indi-
viduals may be applied with equal, if not greater,
force to nations; and here the rational portions
of European society may be asked to decide
under which thimble the Credit Mobilier pea lies.
There are but three descriptions of credit ;—That
of the State, incorporated bodies, and the individual
citizen. Here we have the three great essentials
of the Credit Mobilier game, which the Germans
very appropriately call ein fingerhuts. The pisum,
or pea, is quite as diminutive an affair, when
taken figuratively, as that used at Ascot or
Newmarket.

It is a small, irregular, and ever•moving ball,
which represents the power to pay possessed by
those who play with the thimbles. It is the true
symbol of those innumerable cycloids, circles,
parallelograms, and hyperbolical lines by which
our industrial, commercial, trading, banking,
political, and fiscal movements once in every year
resolve themselves into a given amount of hard
cash. This little rolling pea should, therefore, be
watched carefully. Call it henceforth " cash

" payments," and let us see how the odds
stand what its! value really is in the
great game in which it plays so conspicuous

It is rather late in the nineteenth
century for all the world to be laughing at
enlightened Europe. Credit can create nothing
but debt. " I promise to pay," as a system, is
going rapidly out of fashion, and not without very
cogent reasons, and we fear—" I promise to lend,"
speculation, will speedily die in a far less
axemplary way. The chattel property of the word
is pretty equally divided, when we consider that
the Ballarat of the Australian, and the " diggings"
of the Californian Aborigine, possess greater
moveable riches than the whole of Europe, and
produce more wealth than all the oceans and
navigable rivers of the Old and New World.
But what was all their metallic treasure
worth before it was brought to market, and
reduced to cash ? The moveable property of this
and every other country, is just as valuable, simply
because it cannot be dispensed with. Still its
value, be it in Government Stock, Municipal,
Railway, or other Corporate Securities, or in
private or personal effects, will depend on the
power or facility with which it can be converted
into cash. The new credit bubble of the Conti-
nent has been raised on the old bullion, or precious
metal basis ; and since the speculators are
beginning to lend money to foreign Courts,
for rather novel purposes, as we have seen in the
case of the Credit Mobilier aid given to Spain, we
think the object and end of the whole system may
be very clearly understood. While the bubble can
be kept inflated it will answer the purposes of such
men as O'DoNNELL, but when it is put in motion
by any other class of people, we fear it will be
openly denounced in " high circles," after one-half
of Europe have paid bitterly for their credulity.

a part.

We know the difficulty which men in business
in this country find in getting the cash required to
balance-their trade accounts once or twice in the
All the credit on earth will not carry one
beyond a certain point, and its use, where there is
not twenty shillings to the pound in reserve, only
makes bad worse. Let us, then, review the Credit
establishments, now so popular on the Continent,
)37 some rational standard. Let us see what their
capital is composed of, what their securities are,
the class of customers they have, the means of their
debtors, and whether their operations are not very
considerably greater than the whole convertible
means of the States in which they exist. Their
entire stability and respectability, according to the
English reading of monetary transactions, depend
on that word—convertibility. The extraordinary
desire shown for the establishment of these

✓
"credit banks," as they are called, proclaims an
alarming want of money ; but those who accept
their proffered credit, and rush into debt, forget
that these institutions do not add one farthing to
the legal tender of their respective States, and that
they are only so many costly additions to the
money manipulations previously in existence.
Such schemes must end in disappointment and
loss. They neither add stability to commerce, by