The Sun.
London, England, 1839-11-08 00:00:00

A letter, which we insert, on the gold currency,
directs attention to another evil connected with the
Bank management, which deserves public attention.
It appears that a great deal of our gold currency,
by the wear and tear of commerce, and proba-
bly by sweating—which, by the bye, is a process
bank notes cannot be subjected to has become
light, or of lees than the standard weight ; and it
further appears, of which we have been before in-
formed, that the Bank of England refuses to take a
single light sovereign. On that account, as all the
revenue is remitted to the Bank, the Excise-officers
reject gold, and will take only paper. The conse-
quence is that the light .overeigns remain in circu-
lation, or are locked up in the vaults of bankers,
Those who possess them will not carry them to the
Bank to receive less for them as bullion than they
can get by passing them to others in the way of
commerce, and the Bank is deprived of much bul-
lion which might otherwise serve to replenish its
coffers, and so enable it to enlarge the circulation.
We may observe that this is another evil of a gold
currency, for gold coin being softer than silver coin
wears faster, and being more valuable rewards the
sweater more than silver. We cannot expect the
evil will now be remedied by changing the standard,
but so far as it can be remedied by the Government
without changing the standard, a remedy ought to
be applied. It might call in all the coin deficient
in value, and be at the loss of re-melting and re-
coining it. The Government might give an indem-
nity to the Bank for any loss it might sustain by
receiving such coin, as it some time age in-
demnified it for the loss caused by the
silver coinage, and so enable it to collect the gold
in its coffers, which is now hoarded up in York-
shire, and save it, as our correspondent remarks,
from the humiliation of soliciting, like a pauper,
relief from a foreign banking establishment. What-
ever mode may be adopted, as long as the Legisla-
ture insists on regulating the coin as a Royal pre-
rogative, and will not allow men to issue their own
promises to pay under a certain value, it is bound,
at whatever cost, and at whatever risk of being
cheated by the sweaters, to keep the gold coin at
full standard value, so that it shall be received at
the bank counter as well as at the bar of a gin-shop.
We, however, are decidedly of opinion that this re.
medy should be applied by the Government itself
at an office constituted by it, and under its own
control and management, and should not be en-
trusted to the Bank of England.
In fact the letter of our Correspondent reveals
to us a power possessed by the Bank over the
coin, the extent of which was not before appa-
rent. It is no longer the Royal Mint, no longer
the QUEEN who exercises the prerogative of coin-
ing and determining whether coin shall be kept
in circulation or not, it is the Bank of England.
In addition to being the exclusive issuer of paper
Ipromises to pay on demand within the metro-
Pulis,—to having these paper promises lyingly
and falsely pronounced by the law an actual pay-
ment, it has also the power of regulating thc
coinage in its hands. Either of these three pri-
vileges would be too much for any company of
merchants—whose great business is to make the
most they can, without much
regard to the princi-
ples of honesty—they looking to the sharpness of
others to keep them honest but
united, they consti-
tute a greater power than the SOVEREIGN herself
possesses, or than any Sovereign ever claimed. We
were always of opinion that Lord ALTHORP and
Mr. POULETT THOMSON, when the Bank Char-
ter was renewed, made a most improvident arrange-
ment, and induced the Pariiament to confer on the
Bank, directed by greedy, and sometimes scamp_
ish and bankrupt merchants, a power over the for-
tunes of indididuals which it would never be allowed
in its own body, and of its own immediate autho-
rity, itself to exercise.
What is now the consequence ? All commerce,
all manufactures, every enterprise can only be car. I We are glad to see from a communication in
ried on in subserviency to the operations of the another part of
the Paper, that Lord DUDLEY
Bank. To guard itself from the loss of the frac- STUART and his worthy coadjutors are making
Lion of a shilling it will take none but full weight • every exertion to render the Fancy Ball at the
sovereigns; to
keep its legal tenders at their , Guildhall worthy of its object. But eight years
professes to issue no more of ago England and Flanec rung with thc (I,:cds ui
nominal value it
them, though for its own convenience its breaks j the brave defenders of Warsaw, and every heart