The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-09 00:00:00

GRAND TRUNK OF CANADA.

The traffic receipts on this company's lines for the week
ending Nov. 19, amounted for local passengers to £7,439,
for foreign passengers to .C 2,852, for emigrants to £23, for
mails, &c., to E 42, for local freight and live stock to
£10,554, and for foreign freight and live stock to £3,113;
total, £24,623, against £24,307 fOr thu corresponding week
of last year, showing an increase of £316. The total re•
to the above date amounted to
i.B c4i7P23 7,4oo,nlantidie forlst theof July
sam e period last year to £421,403,
showing. an increase of £51,067, or 1214 per cent.

THE BANK OF FRAN CE.

(From toe 7.7 a, is Correspondent of the Times )

Isaau Periere, of the Credit Mobilier, has un-
dertaken to enlighten the public at home and abroad
on the question of banks, or, more correctly speak-
ing, of the Bank of France, and to warn them of
the consequences of the monopoly long enjoyed by
that great establishment. He has published a thick
pamphlet of 216 pages, sold at the trifling cost of
entitled " La Banque de France, et I'Organisa•
tion du Credit en France." Of the measure of his
attack on that establishment, which has survived
so many disasters, you may judge from this pas-
sage in the section headed " Monopoly of the Bank
of France:—

" The question of the unity of paper covers a
question of monopoly,.or rather, in this particular
instance, of the abuse of monopoly. The Bank of
France,delivered from all sort of competition by the
use of this great word unity,' avails itself of its
privileged position to free itself from every rule in
order to .make heavy hurdesta press
,on commerce
and industry, and to deprive more and more the
funds of the State of all assistance and of all sup-
port. The business of the country has augmented
tenfold; the paper representing moveable wealth,
such es rentes, shares, and debentures, has increased
more than fivefold for the last ten years, and the
Bank of France, which should have proportioned

its resources to these new necessities, to this new
state of things, has, on _the contrary, diminished
that which it ought to have devoted to them, by
withdrawing from the industry which it profits by
the totality of its capital, and placing it in divers
permanent investments, and particularly in rentes,
just as a private individual would do who had no
duty to discharge towards third parties. This com-
plete absence of disposable capital produces the
gravest perturbations and the most abnormal phe-
nomena. The situation is pregnant with danger to
the public, but it is fruitful of advantage to the

In a series of chapters DT. Pereire argues the
questions whether the increase of the rate of interest
is the forced and inevitable consequences of the
diminution of the reserve of the Bank of France,
and where there are not other means of keeping
up that reserve to the amount admitted to be neces-
sary—whether the rise in the rate of discount is
the consequence of the scarcity or the exportation
of the precious metals—and whether the rate of in-
terest represents the natural price of money—whe-
ther the Bank of France is really under tbo necessity
of raising the rate of interest whenever it is raised
in a neighbouring country. lie has a few chapters
also on the Bank of England; of the causes which
have led to its actual constitution, and on the diffe-
rence between it and the Bank of France; of the
rate of intelc:zz, at the proper mission of banks
in general ; of liberty and monopoly ; and on the
necessity of an inquiry into the constitution of the
Bank of France.

In the concluding chapter, in which ho sums up,
he puts forth
That, as has been seen in the preceding chapters
the unity of paper money, payable at sight, is no
other than that of metallic money, and therefore it
is of little importance whether paper is issued by
one or by many establishments, provided that its
convertibility into cash be constantly secured—
that this question of the unity of bank paper covers
a pretension to exclt, ice monopoly whiib is atused
in order to profit by commerce and industry, under
the pretence of reserving for the country its metallic
reserves—that the measures adopted for the rise in
the rate of discount adopted by the Bank when its
reserver diminialazs—migbt be avoided, if it were
obliged to use the means at its disposal to procure
for itself the gold and silver it wants—that these
means consist of the purchase of the precious
metals own capital—with the real capital
accruing either its
from the successive realisation of
its Rentes or from the augmentation of its capital,
the amount of which is not one.half that of the
Bank of England—that the rate of discount is abso.
lutely independent of the abundance or the scarcity
of money ; and that the rate of interest is by no
means the price of money,that price, which depends
on the cost of production of gold and silver and of

relative quantity in the market, not being re-
otherwise than by an equivalent in mer-
chandisekind whatever; that the Bank of
France e
not
generally tnecessarily obliged to raise the rate of
n tssre
ens
suprosed, when it is raised
theirit)r
tte, i s dao s nfany
in other countries, particularly in England; that,
is point of fact, there exists between the constitu-
tion of the Banko f Francei and that of the Bank of
England a serious d
fference, which renders quite
illusory the danger of the outflow of money from
i
France to England n case of the rate of interest of

the of England being higher than in France ;
that Bankui
in
is too restricted
England interest is raised only because the
m
n t of notes which the Bank is authorised to
issue ; that in France it is raised
only because the Bank has not sufficient cash in
ao
its wants ; that banks should be sub-
interest, successively de-
creasing as a compensation for the right accorded
t
whipooihftaal:hreeyduction in the rate of interest;
of disposing, without interest, of a cone
m
taomaximum of
and which constitutes in their
favour a rich subsidy, and procures for them ad-
s
should share with the public
oei de relationet thewerdah tlos
iltvanhatani tott nof
ahtgeheesfomission of banks is to facilitate the circu-
lationcapital and to let it pass, on the best pos-
Bible conditions, from the hands that hold it to those
who employ it ; that the Bank of France, being in
possession has totally lost
sight
of its mission, and bas come to regard the
capital it has been permitted to raise gratuitously
of a monopoly in fad,
on circulation as a private property, which it may
procures for itself
eeof commerce and
great profits it thus
isunns
doe
ur andmstenormous
as; bpturhsoael; t
nht that tt
spitehi et po therebyrt.prejudice
de
realises it satisfies incompletely the requirements of
industry and totally neglects those of credit and
public works; that there is no possibility of reduc-
ing these profits, of putting au end to the ruinous
crisis which occurs every year, and of responding to
the necessities of the country but by the competi-
tion of other capital, or by an organisation of credit
in which the privilege of the Bank of France shall
with modern in.
where reforms are
sbtei
true
tvi
si snesd—aanhddptlha
that
te di
ni n harmony England,
equally necessary, there exists the right of modify.
ing the privilege of the Bank on a year's notice;

but that in Franco one is completely disarmed un.
til 1897—that is to say, during a space of time which
represents a generation, unless the Government,
unless the public authorities, hasten to take mea-
sures for putting an end to the deplorable state of
things witnessed since the law of 1857, and which,
particularly since the month of September last year,
has paralysed all the operations of commerce, in
dustry, and credit throughout the whole of France.
Such are the principles, such is the situation,' says
M. Pereire."

M. Pereira naturally concludes that the only remedy for
such a state of things is the founding of a new establish-
ment capable of rivalling the Bank of France, unless the
Bank think proper to profoundly modify its privileges, and
above all, to renounce the benefit it derives from the law
of 1867 with respect to its power of raising the rate of in-
terest. This new establishment should possess a capital far
greater than that of the Bank of France. It is not merely
to 180,000,000 f such capital should be limited ; it should be
400,000,000 f or 500,000,000 f, in order to meet the immense
requirements that aro to be satisfied, A part of it might,