The Sun.
London, England, 1839-07-27 00:00:00

MONEY MARKET and CITY NEWS

POST.—The rates of exchange were firmer on all the
lead,na points of the Continent this afternoon, and there
was very decidedly an increase of hills at a small shade of

impro.-ement, 13°6' On France and Holland. The rate on
Paris at three months was 25 50 524, Amsterdam 12 31 f,
Hamburg 13 10, Antwerp 122, and -Frankfort on the Mame
1504. The bills were offered by so many different parties
that there is no reason to apprehend that the operations
were in any respect artificial.
The late symptoms of money being a little more abuna•
ant, and consequently of rather less value, the tempo-
rary effect of the Fyment of tne quarterly dividends
has resuscitated the energies of the incorrigible nest
of gamblers that infest the Cotton :Make of Liverpool. A
considerable increase of the speculative and fictitious sales
has taken place for several days, and the decline of prices,
the legitimate resHlt of diminished consumption, has been
again arrested. No corresponding advance can be ob-
tained on the price of manufactured goods, and yet the rise
in the value of the raw material is adduced as an evidence
of the improvement of trade by the panders of the cupidity
of an anti-national money combination without a parallel
in point of magnitude in modern commercial history.

TIME S.—Great mystery still attaches to the alleged
transactions between the Banks of England and France,
and the question at any rate is very far from being disposed
of in the way some of the Bank oracles would desire to
have it supposed. It has tranFpired that Count d'Argont,
the Governor of the Bank of France, who was in London
early in the week, with the intention of proceeding on a
tour through the manufacturing districts in Scotland, has
returned suddenly to Paris ; that Mr. T. A. Curtis, the
late Governor of our Bank, is also gone thither, and
that he either has been or is to be joined by one of the
partners in the eminent bank which has been engaged to
draw bills on Paris. Such a coincidence is extremely un-
likely, unless in connexion with some measure of the kind
alluded to, and in fact, in spite of all the asseverations to
the contrary, there arc more here who believe it than who
do not, especially as the contradiction only amounts to this
—that such a transaction would be contrary to the charter
of both, and every one knows how easy it is to evade such
things, for a temporary object, when any great point is to
be carried. That bills are drawing on Paris, and to an
enormous amount, for the account of the Bank, no one now
ventures to deny. The complete elucidation of this affair
will of course take some further time.
It has been currently reuerted to-day in the City, that
at the meeting of the Bank Directors held yesterday, it
was debated whether the rate of interest should not be
raised to 6 per cent., and that, on the motion being pot,
the decision was against it by the casting vote of the Go-
vernor only. This would have inflicted another injury
both upon private and upon public credit, without, in all
probability, doing the Bank any goad. In the rest of
Europe the rate of interest is either falling, or already
lower than it is here, and the impression made thereby
among foreigners is much to the disadvantage of our mer-
chants. A far better course, to quote the opinion of some
very good judges, would be to contract the period for which
hills have to run, before they are offered lor discount, and
people do not fail to urge these frequent fluctuations of
late in the rate of interest as highly discreditable to the
present management of the Bank, and altogether a new
,teature in its administration. From the year 1773 to 1822,
near 50 years, one uniform rate of 5 per cent. was main-
tained, and since the latter period it has scarcely been kept
at the same level for six months at a time.
The transactions in the Funds to-day have been exceed.
ingly unimportant.

Some improvement was to be noted in the rates of ex.
change negotiated on Amsterdam, which were 12. 1i tc
at short. On Paris and Hamburg they were as before,
the former at short being 25. 20 to 221 ; the latter, al
three months, 13. 10.