The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.--In this age of discoveries, when wealth
is everywhere springing up under our feet in un-
expected forms, we must look for a little impatience
at the sober pace and staid ways of those " vene-
rable matrons," the Banks of England and France.
A writer in the Journal des Debats has undertaken
to do justice to a sentiment with which we are fami-
liar enough in this country, but which appears to
prevail also on the other side of the Channel. The
inexhaustible source of wealth which lie conceives
we are under-estimating, overlooking, and allowing
to lie comparatively waste is no other than credit.
It cannot indeed be said that " credit" suffers much
neglect in the commercial world at large, or that
public opinion requires enlightening as to its value' •
but there are two great unbelievers—two great ob-
stacles, in the shape of the " Old Lady" in Thread-
neealc.-streot and the elderly a. 00 oalnioust to
keep pace with her in the next greatest centre of
commercial transactions. The writer directs his
attack upon the Bank of France, and accuses it of
a timid and servile adherence to the English example.
He intimates, however, that so long as this example
is set by a bank of vastly greater wealth and large
range of business the lesser establishment has hardly
a choice but to follow the lead of the greater. It is
the greater that is in fault. We need hardly stop
to ask whether this is not an excess of charity to
French offenders. It is admitted that they do not
suffer the sane restrictions as the Bank of England.
Their restraint is self-imposed, even though, as al-
leged, upon a model which they cannot close their
eyes to. The Bank of England rules the world, and
they have not the strength to disobey. Upon this
view of the case the charge falls upon the Bank of
England and its charter. Through a shadow we
are accused. Nor do the arguments at all differ
from those which we have heard a thousand times
employed in this country to advocate a more
" elastic" system, or, rather, a more adventurous
policy than that of the Bank of England. " Credit"
is the one cry of all those writers and talkers. They
see in it something inexhaustible and infinite, and
requiring only more national faith and co-operation
to be developed to any conceivable results. Let us
all trust one another ; let us expel the unbeliever or
stop his mouth ; let us break the bonds which an ex-
cessive caution has placed upon our mutual confi-
fidence, and we may all think ourselves rich, and be
thereby rich. How far such confidence would go if
it were universal, or could be sustained by a vigo-
rous effort of universal will, we need not inquire.
The writer in the Journal des Debats must address
himself to a much wider circle—indeed, to the world
—if he hopes ever to see mutual confidence carried
to such a magnificent result. In money matters, as
in other points, this is an unbelieving world. We
will confine ourselves to his remarks as they bear
on the Bank of England. As a general rule, and
under ordinary circumstances, we cannot think it
our province either to censure or to defend the
course of the Bank of England. No doubt it has
special duties to the public in respect of its special
relations to the State, its pre-eminent position, and
its wide influence. But no doubt, on the whole, it
acts as any other banking company would do under
the same circumstances, having a prudent regard to
its own interests,tempered with a certain amount of
forbearance. But it is not our place to single out
any bank for animadversion, and the Bank of Eng-
land is only one bank among many. What is at-
tacked by the writer before us is the legislative re-
strictions which ties the hands of the Bank. and
prevents it from attempting to realise the dream of
unlimited credit. At a certain point it really is need-
less to bring in the figures, for this is a question not
of figures but of principle, the Bank finding itself
unable to issue more notes, and therefore not in a
condition to lend its credit with safety. What the
writer argues for is that the issue of notes should be
left to the discretion of the Bank; and that, like any
other commercial company drawing upon its credit,
it should have full powers for sustaining its credit
by purchasing bullion at the market price whenever
that operation may be necessary. The operation,
however, is one of indefinite risk and cost. The
resuscitation ofr, credit may sometimes require a
very great expenditure, and, as the whole world
is interested in the process, hardly any sacrifice can
be deemed too much. It is the point in which timi-
dity, as shown in anticipatory restrictions, becomes
a universal injury. The writer therefore maintains
that the State ought to repay the Bank the 11 mil-
lions it is assumed to have borrowed, and leave the
Bank the free use of that sum. The argument goes
towards the removal of all restrictions. The first
deliverance, however, is to be from this sleeping
partner, the State, that, just for its own conve-
nience, and to secure its own regular share in a per-
fectly safe banking business, clips the wings of the
Bank, and disables it from what is really sometimes
an act of common humanity. The State, indeed,
descends from the clouds sometimes to liberate the
Bank from the chains it has itself imposed, and it
hereby confesses the failure of its system. But its
principle is safety and restriction. It is, so this
writer appears to think, the principle of the foster-
mother, that knows not the true nature of the child
committed to its charge, and that, to save itself risk
and trouble, checks a generous development. The
first duty of banks is to commerce, not to govern-
ments. The State is a bad banker, timid, jealous,
and pitiless ; it will not do good lest it do evil. It
robs commerce of a friend to make it a slave, and
thereby obtains a little servile aid at the cost of a
noble and profitable alliance. We wish to do full
justice to reasoning which is not new to us, though
in a foreign tongue. There is, however, an impor-
tant point at the very heart of the question which it
seems to us the writer has overlooked. The restric-
tion so much complained of is not to check banking
enterprise, but simply to secure the convertibility of
the Bank note, and make the paper currency as safe
as a metallic. The State is nota partner in a bank-

ing business, except only that it claims the natural
profit arising from the substitution of paper for
money. The country is found to have in its desks
and its pockets a certain average of Bank notes, and
the State considers itself entitled to the profit on that
sum. It also protects paper money from the chances
of depreciation, or, rather, utter worthlessness, by
certain other regulations, applying not only to: the
Bank of England, but to every other Bank in Eng-
land. All this comes under the question of cur-
rency, and has nothing whatever to do with com-
merce, or what is called commercial paper. All the
nonsense that has been talked and written about
the currency arises from confounding it with com-
merce, and from supposing that commercial credit
could be rendered permanently elastic by any per-
manent increase of the circulating medium. As
commercial bodies the Banks of England and of
France may lend their credit as much as they please,
and if they are not equal to the occasion there are
other companies or individual capitalists ready to
take their place. We shall not speak of merely
passing occasions, crises as they are called. They
have been met, they can be met, and they may pos-
sibly have to be met again. They really have little
place in this discussion. The writer aims at a
general enlargement of the currency in some way
which shall keep it enlarged to the demands of
speculation and render it a source of material wealth.
At times it would require sustaining at extraordinary
cost. This sacrifice in the interest of commercial
enterprise he would meet, as it seems to us, by lay-
ing up for that purpose the ordinary profit on the
substitution of bank-notes for coin. That profit is
due to the State, and is not a mere waif and stray
to be flung on a gambling table, or due to the pro-.
motion of speculative enterprise. It would soon
disappear in the vastness of the operations necessary
to sustain the commerce and credit of a country
deliberately embarking in the career shadowed
before us. What should we all come to if it came
to be understood, not without reason, that the State
paid annually a large sum in order to provide means
for the purchase, on any terms, of any quantity of
gold that might be necessary for the redemption of
any number of bank-notes, at any nominal value,
that the Bank of England might choose to issue ?
The writer has mistaken the principle of the enact-
ment,' which he thinks only a case of bad banking.
The Government of this country refuses to bank,
as it refuses to trade or do anything else the people
can and will do better themselves. That is the
reason why in the Bank Charter Act it has sepa-
rated the Issue from the Banking Department, and
confined itself to putting the former on a secure
footing. _ _

HERALn.—During thelast few days we have seen.
not a few.newspaper paragraphs containing signifi-
cant particulars with regard to various petty strikes
that are in progress in different parts of the coun-
try. The great strike of the North Staffordshire
ironworkers has come to an end : it does not appear
on what terms. The public will care very little
whether masters or men have carried their point,
being satisfied to know that the quarrel has been,
in some way or other, decided or accommodated.
But we might have selected during the last week
three or four incidents illustrative of the temper and
conduct of men on strike which ought to convince
thoughtful men that it is inconsistent with sound
policy and public duty to treat these matters with
the indifference which has hitherto marked the
attitude of the Government and the Legislature.
We may as well say at the outset that we are utterly
averse to anything like a revival of the old combi-
nation laws. It is just and it is necessary that the
operatives should be free to combine in efforts to
raise their wages or resist injustice—just, because
it is impossible to deny to the mass the right we
assert for individuals of fixing the price at which
they will sell their labour ; and necessary, because
it is only by combination that they can place them-
selves on anything like equal terms with their em-
ployers. Singly, they would be helpless, and forced
to accept almost any terms, and submit to almost
any bondage that their masters might impose.
And further, the effect of legislative repression, as
experience has shown, is to render combinations
much more dangerous and desperate than they
have been since the law has tolerated them. The
' men will unite in any case ; and if they cannot
openly combine they will secretly conspire ; and,
feeling themselves to be at issue with the law,
will defy the law with the recklessness of outlaws
and the cunning of conspirators. The measures
which we desire would tend to secure, not to
interfere with, perfect liberty of action on
the part of the artisan ; the acts which we desire to
punish are not abuses of individual liberty, but
outrages upon it. One day we read that' a number
of men have refused to work for a particular master
unless he dismissed some labourers who had refused
to join the trades union. Next day we find that an
operative who has given offence in a similar way has
been attached and beaten by his fellows. Or we
hear that some honest fellow who has walked fifty
miles to find work is " lying a mass of wounds in
the local hospital" because he dared to accept 6s.
where others were trying to get 7s. Again, we learn
that a body of men on strike have entered a timber-
yard, and driven some quietly-disposed persons from
their work ; the police interfere, not to punish the
rioters, but to secure the escape of their victims ;
and the local journals coolly observe that if the
timber merchants continue to employ "blacklegs" a
serious disturbance may be expected—i.e., if men
choose to get their work done on terms which are
accepted by their new workmen they will be mobbed
by those who have refused those terms. We cannot
think that the Government is doing its duty -while
outrages of this kind can be committed with im-
punity. It is the duty of the State to protect every
man in the enjoyment and lawful use of his property
and his industry. The timber merchant has a right
to employ any man he chooses, at any wages that
man will accept ; and if any set of men, whether
common thieves or discontented labourers, endea-
vour to disturb him in the exercise of that right,
the whole force of society ought to be employed
in his defence. It is not to be tolerated that
men who will not work themselves for a given
rate of wages should interfere with those who
are only too glad to obtain that rate—that they
should, that is, demand more than their labour
is worth, and then beat and threaten the men
who are willing to sell it for its market value.
If in this way they succeed in extorting higher
wages from the employer they have robbed him
just as nakedly as if they had taken the extra money
from his cash-box by open force ; and at the same
time they have robbed a number of unoffending men
or their property—namely, the labour which they
were anxious to sell at the market price. If a set
of bakers were to combine to sell no bread under
4d. the pound, and to be beat and break the win-
dows of all who did, it would not be many hours
before they would be soundly thrashed, arrested,
and carried to prison among the execrations of the
people ; yet this very thing is being daily done by
working men, and generally with perfect impunity.
It is the systematic practice of the trades unions to
compel obedience to their commands by an orga-
nised terrorism. Where they are strong enough they
will allow no work to be done by any man who
does not belong to the union. They order the
unionist workmen in the same employ to strike if
the poor fellow be not dismissed ; and the employer,
though loathing the tyranny and indignant at the
interference, is compelled to yield. If a similar
conspiracy were entered into to compel a banker to
dismiss a clerk, or a wholesale firm not to deal with
a particular shopkeeper, the conspirators would
promptly feel the vengeance of the law. The
unionists are never punished unless they use out-
rageous menaces or open violence, and rarely even
then. When the trades union determines on a strike
every one must join it at his peril. There may be
hundreds of men who are quite content with the
wages they are earning, or quite convinced that a
strike will make their position worse instead of bet-
ter. Indeed, this is generally if not universally the
case. Yet the workman who goes on earning his
30s. a week must strike for 325., and live meantime
on a precarious allowance of 10s. a week. It is as
much as his life is worth to go near the works.
If violence is not always used, and rarely proceeds to
the last extremity, it is because menace supplies
the place of force. The strike is maintained by
nothing but illegal terror. If the men were free
to follow their own inclination a large number
would not strike at all, and of those who did a con-
siderable proportion would very quickly return to
work. It is the duty of the state to see that there
shall be none of this coercion ; that every man shall
be at liberty to sell his industry at his own price,
and to work or refuse work at his pleasure; and
that no sort of molestation shall be offered by those
who do not choose to work to those who do. The
state is just as much bound to protect the industry
of the poor man as the property of the rich ; and
ought to punish as severely those who rob the
former of his only wealth as those who invade the
ample possessions of the latter. To prevent a man
from accepting work is to rob him of wages ; to in-
timidate him in order to make him leave work is to
wrong both him and his employer ; and wrongs of
this sort are so frequent and so dangerous to society
that, instead of the impunity they at present enjoy,
they should be punished with extreme and deterrent
severity. At present the criminals are treated with
an indulgence for which is is impossible to account
on the very few occasions on which they are brought
to justice ; a judge who really understood the cha-
racter of their guilt, and the system of terror and
tyranny which they help to sustain, would certainly
visit them with the utmost penalty permitted by the
law. There is no class of criminals whom it is so
necessary to put down with a strong hand—none
whose career is more mischievous to the community,
or produces more loss, alarm, suffering, and in-
security, than the men who take part in the perse-

cations, riots, and outrages connected with the trades
union system. Some pseudo-philanthropists profess
sympathy with their cause; some well meaning but
thoughtless people would extenuate their offences
by the plea of ignorance ; but all who really under-
stand the case of the working classes, and really
desire to render them practical service, will agree
in condemning these offenders as the worst enemies
of their order. We have carefully avoided any con-
demnation of the trades unions as such. If they
would abstain from invasions .of the freedom of
others—if they would honestly make up their minds
to let non-unionists alone, and to seek the attain-
ment of their objects only by lawful and equitable
means—they would be able to do good enough to
atone in some degree for the vast amount of evil
which has hitherto been almost the sole fruit of
their labours. Their functions as benefit clubs se-
cure them a stronghold on the interests and affec-
tions of the operatives ; and if they were really
managed by the best and wisest of their members—
the true representative men of the class—rather
than by young, ignorant, idle, and noisy dema-
gogues, they . would serve to diffuse among the
workmen:in their trades a considerable amount of
practical knowledge of great service both to them
and their employers. Deprive the unions of the
power of intimidation and extortion, and you de-
prive them of their. temptations to do mischief, and
of their attraction for mischief makers. They would
then become no more than benefit societies, com-
bining with their peculiar functions the office of a
discussion club for matters connected with the trade.
They would collect, as now, information from all
quarters concerning its interests and progress; and
not being, as now, an engine of tyranny over the
men and hostility towards the masters, they would be
able to render this information useful to both, and
a means of averting quarrels and misunderstandings
such as constantly arise from mutual ignorance.
Such service is, we are told, rendered by a few of
the best of the unions—chiefly, if not invariably,
we believe, in cases where theunion has no power of
coercion, from embracing only a portion of the trade
—and if the law was so applied as to put an end to
the wrongful power of the rest, their action, re-
strained within the law, and checked by the inde-
pendence of non-unionists, would probably prove,
on the whole, beneficial to all parties concerned.