The Sun.
London, England, 1852-10-13 00:00:00

BANKING INSTITUTE.

A meeting of members of the association was held
yesterday evening at their rooms, 63, Threadneedle-
street, for the purpose of hearing a paper read by Mr.
Francis, of the Bank of England, on " The advan-
tages of Commercial Crises." The chair was taken by
Mr. Alderman Challis, M.P., who opened the pro-
ceedings with a few preliminary observations, after
which

Mr. FRANCIS proceeded to say that his object was
as much to raise a question as to offer an opinion.
When speaking of a commercial crisis he did not mean
merely one of those panics which frequently occurred,
but, taking a broader view, included in his considera-
tion the long previous period of prosperity of which
the panic was the climax. The word " panic" had
been a word fraught with superstitious terrors to
the commercial world, but looking at it as only the
termination of a long period of previous excitement,
he would venture to suggest that it should not
be looked on as an unmixed evil, but as a fact,
which although often sad in its immediate
consequences, often produced great good in its ulterior
results. But whether for good or evil, panics were
now fairly naturalised among us, the last being that
of 1847; and the worst might be said of them in the
words of Shakspere—" There is a soul of goodness
in things evil." Of the good it might be said, that
public companies were the offspring of such excite-
ments ; but although Mr. Gilbart bad called this the
age of public companies, be would venture to remark
that there were public companies in this country so
far back as the year 1294, one of which farmed the
Customs at 201. a day, or something more than
6,000/. a year, the same being now worth 21 mil-
lions.—(Hear, hear.) Periods of excitement had
given us the Knish), Turkey, and Hudson's Bay Com-
panies, and to a similar cause we owed most of our
banking, water, and railway companies. In the excite-
ment of 1694, the great bank to which he had the

onour to belong- was established, and the princi-
ples of banks of credit were ventilated. In 1720,
another excitement sent forth some new principles,
and of all the companies then started, not more than
ten per cent. could be called bubbles, although some
of the schemes might be called Utopian. Oae was for
naturalising silkworms, for which purpose a planta-
tion of mulberry trees was laid out at Chelsea; another
proposed a hospital for bastard children ; and a third
undertook to import asses from Spain, to improve the
breed of British mules.—(Laughter.) But, on the
other hand, the guarantee principle was then mooted,
the project for improving children's fortunes, and that
of mutual marine insurance, which was now likely to
be carried out. Life and fire assurance companies
were also started, and although scouted and lampooned
at the time, were now ascertained to be true in prin-
ciple. Thirty per cent. of our charities emanated
from those periods; amongst other instances of which
he might mention the munificent foundation of
Guy's Hospital, which now enjoyed an income of
25,000/. a year. One proposal was to extract silver
from lead, and it was thought so ridiculous as to be
lampooned by Swift ; but the process was now known
to be perfectly feasible, and to have been carried on
extensively in ancient times. Amongst the curiosi-
ties of the time he might mention a company for the
insurance of female chastity, one from making deal
boards from sawdust, and one for a general fishery
for gudgeon.—(Laughter.) But then the germs of
free trade were planted during the mania, which was
only a sort of convulsive leap to the greatness we had
since reached. The next crisis was in 1793, which
resulted in 500 bankruptcies, and the failure of up-
wards of 100 country banks. But then it gave us
the first step towards the formation of our magnificent
decks and bridges—of one of which (Waterloo) Ca-
nova said it was worth while coming all the way
from Rome to see it. That year gave us Waterloo,
Southwark, and Vauxhall bridges. The crisis of
1825 was heralded by symptoms of pros-
perity in every branch of trade and com mercle.
Up to that remarkable period, the principle of puoi
rem
companies bad been slowly but surely
a
progressing,
rkable
srate as-
may be collected from a somewhat
state-
ment of:_ those associations which were formed prior to
i 8