The Sun.
London, England, 1853-06-03 00:00:00

§-xt..rx/4

LONDON, FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 1853.

The Directors of the Bank of England have
much to answer for. They have again most
unwisely and unnecessarily tampered with the
circulating medium of the country, utterly indif-
ferent as to the probable results of the step they
have so recklessly taken. They must be but too
well aware of the consequences that may follow
their determination—that distrust may be substi-
tuted for confidence, stagnation for activity—a
commercial crisis for the general prosperity so
lately perceptible. And all these evils may arise,
from the rash exercise of the extraordinary power
so unadvisedly and improvidently vested in their
hands. Never was there a time in every respect
more inopportune than that which they have
selected for the experiment on which they
have adventured. There were symptoms of a
panic on the Bourse and the Stock Exchange,—
a panic, not arising from undue speculation, or
reckless expenditure at home, but from the doubts
occasioned by the unwarrantable demands of the
AUTOCRAT. The only speculations which they
could hope to check in the United Kingdom were
those which gave employment to those whose
labour constituted their only capital,—specula-
tions which brought contentment and happiness
to the domestic hearths of the working classes—
which kept the mills and factories working full
time, and enabled the artisan, or operative, or
agricultural labourer, to obtain " a fair day's
wages for a fair day's work." These are the
" evils" which the Bank Directors are so anxious
to avert, and for which purpose they are willing
to encounter any risk, and to incur any degree of
odium. And it must be admitted that they have
adopted the most efficient means for the purpose
—that is to say, if the sound good sense and in-
domitable resolution of the community should not
once more be exhibited, and the voice of public
opinion laugh to scorn the Dame PARTINGTON-
Iike effort.

It may be asked, Why should not the Directors
be at liberty, as well as the Managers of any other
joint-stock concern, to fix the price for their own
commodities, to state the rate at which they will
be willing to advance money on unquestionable
securities of the description in which they are in
the habit of dealing ? Why should they not be
allowed to charge 4, or even 5 per cent. interest
for their money, if they should think proper ?
The answer, however, is plain. It is because they
have a quasi national character—because they
assume to themselves the privilege and duty
of regulating the currency, and setting an
example that is invariably very generally, if not
universally, followed. If they were regarded
merely as the managers of a trading corporation,
looking solely to the pecuniary interests of their
proprietors, they might—no matter how great
their capital or unbounded their resources—act in
the manner which they deemed most expedient,
more especially if they varied their rate of dis-
count from day to day, according to the nature
of the security, and the demand for pecuniary
accommodation. But it is the formality of the
acct, the peculiar nature of their functions, that
ns the mischief. They had a certain de-
theirgf .'b'li
cliarPtrsi. ty previous to the revival of
1844, but from which they
were relievred 531
that unwise and impolitic
measure.
adium ffectatso
if deanol
azi.th the
TLebyy still, however, occasionally
circulating me-
the legislative sanaitioenactnaents had received
mated. thus to MOW hnt, and they cannot be per-
to 'assume, and at anothaelirdt cold--at one time
sibility ; particularly as thci:irepudiate, respon-
variably misel.hvous, calcnlatendt terf erence is
in"
danger, and to render more intense the •
increase the
excitement
of the moment.

Once more then, we ask, whit has renderedi
this undue action in the money necessary,
or ssary
'
or desirable ? The nation has not yet forgotten
the panic of 1847, or its disastrous results, and
the'excessive caution then induced. There was as
great necessity for the spur as for the bridle, so
far as our domestic affairs were concerned. Never
was' the trade and commerce of the country in a
sounder or more healthy condition. M the Times

declares (and it will not be suspected of unduly
favouring industry at the' expense of capital)—
" we should be alarmiSts if we said that there was
at this moment any reasonable or general antici-
pation of difficulty or collapse. No manufacture
has been overdone, no trade pushed too far, no
undertakings pledged beyond the limits of easy
performance, no millions cast on the. waters in the
shape of loans to insolvent or revolutionary States.
JOHN BULL, usually credulous, easy, sanguine,
and most incontinent of his cash, has not yet
ceased to ruminate over the decennial catastrophes
that have afflicted his purse. * * * What,
then, is there that should lead our great capitalists
to tighten the reins of confidence just at this mo-
ment I" We fully and cordially concur with our
contemporary in these opinions. There is, there
cln be, no adequate reason assigned for the pro-
ceeding, more especially when we consider that
the Bank had at the moment in its coffers, ac-
cording to the latest return, nearly eighteen mil-
lions in specie, and that the importations of gold
during the past week had been at the rate of
nearly a ton per diem.
There is only one rational solution of
the problem. The Chancellor of the Exchequer
had a great financial operation on the Lapis, by
which a considerable saving might have been
effectual, if matters went on favourably. This
was the last day for parties signifying their assents
to the conversion of their Stock into any of the
new securities offered as equivalents by Mr. GLAD-
STONE. The success of the operation mainly de-
pended on the course pursued by the Board during
the emergency. The holders of South Sea Stock
and other securities were waiting to observe the
conduct of the Bank, in order to regulate their
own. The operation has been seriously damaged,
if not altogether destroyed, by the proceedings of
the Directors. Mr. GLADSTONE and his colleagues
will certainly have no cause to applaud their exer-
tions in the present instance. They have injured
the cause which, if they'really possessed the na-
tional character they assume, they would have
felt bound to promote to the best and utmost
of their ability. It will be for the Govern-
ment which they have thus seriously damaged
to take care, when there shall be another applica-
tion for a renewal of the Bank Charter, that there
shall no longer be any mistake on the subject—
that they shall not be entrusted with powers to
be used only for mischief.
We shall not now allude to the rumours as to
the breaking out of the secrets of the Bank par-
lour, and the undue advantages afforded to the
friends of some of the Directors. Suffice it to
say, that the suspicions to which we long Bi
alluded have been considerably strengthened, that
the hints and surmises have received additional
confirmation, and are now beginning to assume a
consistent and tangible shape, by no means favour-
able to the reputation of some of the City Magnates.

We ought to have read Lord STANLEY'S
pamphlet on Church Rates before the debate on
that question. We are not sorry, however, that,
accidentally, we failed to do so, since it enables
us to invite more specific attention to it. An
attentive perusal of it has given us the greatest
pleasure, and we earnestly recommend it to every
honest and fair-minded Churchman as the most
satisfactory tract we have seen on the subject,
and to every Dissenter as an illustration of the
candour, justice, and high appreciation of religious
liberty which he now can meet with from those
whose political and ecclesiastical connections ap-
pear at first sight most antagonistic to his own.
The pamphlet, moreover, condenses into a few
pages all the information which most readers
would care to have respecting—" (1.) The social
evils arising out of the present law of Church
Rates. (2.) The inefficiency of the law, the extent
to which it has fallen into desuetude, and the fa-
cility with which it may be evaded. (3.) Past and
present attempts towards its reform."

Lord STANLEY had the honour to be elected for
Lynn while absent on a tour in America ; and we
have little doubt that, with a mind of the charac-
ter displayed in this publication, he was deeply
impressed, like the present Earl of CARLISLE, then
Lord MORPETH, on a similar tour, with the im-
mense social advantage of the absolute religious
liberty enjoyed in the United States. Any ob-
servant English Statesman beholding with his own
eyes the entire absence of ecclesiastical friction in
the working of their State machinery, must be
tempted with the Noble Earl to "envy them their
perfect religious liberty." We believe most read-
ers of Lord STANLEY'S pamphlet will agree with
us that it shows in no small degree some of the
best qualities of the Statesman. With a full
perception of theory and its logical conse-
quences, he looks upon men as they are, and
society as it is—at the same time exhibits
a fair degree of comprehensiveness of mind,
and, above all, a calm, dispassionate judg-
ment, evidenced especially in his fair and
kindly sympathy with the feelings of those whose
religious views are opposed to his own. We
are pretty confident that this pamphlet will dis-
pose the better class of Dissenters, and of the
Liberals who act with them, to think that they
have in Lord STANLEY the promise of a rising
Statesman in harmony with the predominant cha-
racter of educated English feeling. The demand
is now, doubtless, for Statesmen disposed to rise
above class distinctions, to look with equal kindli-
ness upon every section and grade of the popula-
tion of the Empire, and to insist, above all, upon
religious equality as the great problem remaining
for our Legislators to solve. We strongly sus-
pect that the criticisms of an old politician, in
the recent debate, were very much due to
the advanced position which Lord STANLEY
takes in his pamphlet. Partly no one likes
to be cut out in his own line, and partly
every one even more dislikes to be clearly and
irrecoverably outstripped. His Lordship is per-
fectly right, and all the evidence, as well as the ob-
servation of every man not absolutely blind to what
passes around him, proves it, that Dissenters of
every kind do regard Church Rates as a tax in a
different sense to that in which they regard tithes.
The highest legal authorities, as he shows, state it
to be a personal tax, though proportioned accord-
ing to property. Unlike the other legal endow-
ments of the Church, it has to be laid and assessed
by the parishioners themselves. No one can
claim the tax if not thus laid ; while tithes are a
definite portion of the proceeds of property await-
ing a claimant. The occupier knows, at least,
that they are not his, and that he has no right to
keep them ;he never hired them. The landlord
knows they are not his ; he never bought them or
inherited them. With the Rate it is altogether
different. The Dissenting rate-payer, till the day
of his exemption, will feel that but for his neigh-
bour's shirking his fair contribution to the ex-
penses of his own worship, and imposing the pro-
portion he escapes upon Dissenters, the latter
would pay no such tax at all. Supposing that in
strict theory, however, all are bound to pay taxes
to the Established Church, yet his Lordship justly
observes :

" Men in all countries, and more especially in this
country, are not governed by theories, nor will a wise
Government push abstract reasonings to a hazardous
extreme. And, moreover, the theory of exclusive re-
ligious endowment, though it still to a considerable ex-
tent affects our practice, has been long disavowed. The
existence of Presbyterianism in Scotland, the Regium
Donum, the grant to Maynooth, the equal division of
Clergy Reserves among the various sects in Canada, are
all witnesses against it. And though the institutions of
an old country cannot be at once overthrown, nor its
traditions departed from without danger, yet we may
safely say, that whenever an opportunity is afforded of
dealing with Ecclesiastical establishments de novo—un-
fettered by past pledges or immemorial custom—the
principle on which the present generation is inclined to
act is that of strict religious equality. As a matter of
justice, it is felt to be wrong to call upon men to pay for
the propagation of opinions in which they do not share;
and as a matter of expediency it is certain that such an
attempt in the case of Church Rates could only end in
levied fret :1;e
disgraceful failure—failure, in all probability, fatal to the
ortheZ
to those undertaking it. I take Loth these views : but
the struggle whielte cost
that the amount of rates
, Do °yoeuwbh(l). demur to the former, I am content to say,
onforrnista, against the will of the
which can be
latter, is vi,
marked
attend its collection ?' "
tion, but the above pecuniary, moral and social, of
We had
reasonableness
:Twill
r much more for quota-
rtheael tooonnecernof
forr the religiaost:
ecningimvoena
sfaenirsei,,deana ofci
1 pervades the whole pamphlet the
country
which
The author asks i

whether, for the trifle of 80,0001. a-year, or
100,0001. at the utmost, 1,600 persons ought
to have been distrained upon in the last five
years, half the urban parishes in England agitated,
and the law appealed to till its uncertainty and
unpopularityhave combined to render it powerless?
He thinks the claim of Nonconformists to exemp-
tion from ecclesiastical taxation unanswerable ;
that their exemption by certificate would afford
an excellent definition of National Church-mem-
bership, now practically wholly wanting ; that
vestry meetings, consisting entirely of Church-
men, would begin to consult, in many respects,
for the good of their own Church, and thus ini-
tiate a very desirable co-operation of the laity in
the management of Church affairs. He anticipates,
in proportion to the spread of education, that di-
versity of religious opinion will increase, " uniformity
of religious belief being, as a general rule, incom-
patible with a state of general mental activity !"
(Let OXFORD and Sir HARRY INGLIS hearken),
hence, that parishes now quiet will soon become
the scenes of these disgraceful contests. Indeed,
we can assure the speakers who talked of the
present absence of petitions of contentions, that
it arises from very ominous causes ; partly, that
in almost all the parishes where the battle has
been resolutely fought, Rates have ceased to be
levied ; but, chiefly, because these contests have
provoked Dissenters to take higher ground. The
peddling harrassing nature of the Church-rate
battles was the grand reason assigned for establish-
ing an Anti-State-Church Association, to whose
influence with constituencies St. Stephen's itself
can bear witness in the person of many of its
Members. It is perfectly certain, that already,
in thousands of country parishes, where nothing
is heard of publicly, Dissenters who find them-
selves powerless against landlords, magistrates,
and clergymen, feel the impost as gallingly as
in the towns which have rejected it, and feel it all
the more keenly from the comparative wealth of
the imposers. Lord STANLEY, indeed, asks almost
indignantly—" Is it, or is it not, worth while for
an ecclesiastical corporation, possessing revenues
which amount to 5,000,0001. (by a low computa-
tion), to compel more than 3,000,000 of British
subjects to submit to laws which they believe un-
ust, and to pay a tax, acquiescence in which goes
against their conscience, for the sake of an increase
of two per cent. upon its income ?" We can
assure Lord JOHN RUSSELL that the country will
not hold him to have answered Lord STANLEY
when he lugubriously held up his hands in the
House of Commons, exclaiming, " This two per
cent., this two per cent., how else can -we raise
this two per cent !" JOHN BULL will assuredly
tell him, in his own gruffest tone, and in Sir
HARRY INGLIS'S newest Oxonian, "to put his
hands in his own breeches' pocket to repair his
own church."