The Sun.
London, England, 1825-12-30 00:00:00

[THE TI M ES.]

There are persons who imagine, that because
we have deplored the excess to which the coun-
try banks carried their paper, and have stre-
nuously urged the adoption of measures for pre-
venting such an evil hereafter, our object is to
produce an evil of an opposite kind—viz. an ex-
cessive contraction of the currency to a point
which might impede the spirit and freedom of
commerce. The specific mischief which we un-
derstand to be, that by an extreme diminution of
the currency, and proportionate reduction of
prkct.s, it would become more difficult to pay the
taxes, and thus to provide for the interest of the
debt, &c. Now we do not know that any pub-
lic writer in this country has advised the Legis-
lature to cure the overflow of bad money, by
creating t& want of better—we at least never
dreamed of such an absurdity, and we had a
right to be more fairly construed.—Our position
has been this :—There is no sufficient guarantee
now existing for the opulence of country bankers.
Any man who pleases may set up a bank ; an
attorney, or shopkeeper, or half-pay officer,
without 1,0001. in the world, may take a house
in a country town, furnish one or both par-
lours as a room for business, with desks,
counters, a set of large rough-bound hooks.
having. " Day-book," " Ledger," &c. lettesed
upon them in gold, relieved by crimson—add
the monosyllabic abbreviation " CO." to his
name—and issue as many one-pound notes as he
can beg or borrow money to get handsomely en-
graved in London,and regularly passed at three-
pence a piece through the Stamp-office. WS,
we say, may be, under the present law, the outfit
of a country banker. Who will assert that such
has not frequently been the sum total of his bag
and baggage ? Do not a large proportion of the
failures which have spread such consternation
and ruin over whole districts, prove that ttie
bankers, who, by the very nature of their call-
ing, ought to have been the wealthiest members

of the community, whose funds they professed to
keep in safety, had been absolute insolvents for
arlosig series of years, and lived upon the con-
version of their neighbour's goods to their own
`personal uses? 'We affirm that the present law
attnws all this, and that experience proves
abundantly the freedom with which the system
Of country banking has taken advantage of the
law. A banker has no right to Murmur if a pecu-
liar 'degree of watchfulness is exercised over him
by the State-a lie is not like other traders, each
with hisJiMited set of correspondents, who have
means of •jiidging how be is qualified to transact
the'particular Hite of business which he follows,
and are therefore, in some degree, armed against I
• injury at his hands: The banker is one who I
meditates to live by the. extent of the public I
confidence reposed in hint, and who flotfrishes in
proportion to the numbers of men whose move-
able funds he succeeds in getting hold of. 'lle
proposes himself to the King's subjects in the
character of a General Trustee. is therefore,
we maintain, the bounden duty of fhe Legisla-
ture to secure the country agahist the abuse of a
trust so general and momentous. Indeed, the
temptations to become a country banker are in-1
verse!), as the pecuniary qualifications for the
office; because the men who have (he least to
lose entertain the least fear of the responsibility
incidental to it, and can be little effected by
their ultimate failure and defeat.—But if the se-
curities he called for, where do they exist ?. In
London they are (generally speaking), pro-
vided, by the practice which renders it impe-
rative on a town banker to pay only in specie or
Bank of England notes. A similar guarantee for
the public is found in Lancashire, where no-
thing is seen but the coin of the realm, or
notes of the Bank of England. No man
murmurs at the principles on which bank-
ing is conducted here or there, because the
bulk of those who carry on the business must be
men of considerable capital. This circumstance,
then, brings us to a reconsideration of the argu-
ment which was glanced at in a former part of
the present article—viz. that a certain contraction
of the currency would obstruct the payment of
the taxes, and so forth. We have never at any
moment lost sight of the fact that inconvenience
might for a short time result from a want of cir-
culating medium ; but with regard to the sort of
contraction we have recommended, it is described
in one short sentence, by stating, that we would
cut away the medium which represents poverty
rather than property, and thereby raise to its na-
tural value the paper which has its foundation in
legitimate credit. If it be said that necessary
payments and useful transactions would be im-
peded by a fusion of the whole currency
of England into Bank of England paper
and the King's coin, we ask plainly what
other currency circulates in London ? and in
London is business at a stand, or is there au
extraordinary nrrear of taxes ? So in Lanca-
shirel is there any outcry raised for a local
paper superadded to that of the Bank of Eng-
land ? Yet we suspect that if two spots were
to he named where more property is both trans-
ferred and concentrated, where commerce is
more bustling, and enterprise more resolute
and alive than in any other given portions of
the empire, London and Lancashire would
occur at mice to the mind of all the world.—
The fact is,. and we deem it a disgraceful one
to an enlightened people, that the mere act of
issuing paper is often identified amongst us
with the creation of wealth. It is mischievous
to confound them. Where real wealth, the real
produce of useful industry, abounds, there
will be seen its circulating representative, and
in the requisite proportions. If there be a
want of money, attested by an inordinate fall
of prices, what will be the policy of the mer-
chant ? Why, lie will see a state of the ex-
changes favourable to England in an unusual de-
gree ; he will therefore import gold in preference
to any other merchandise ; and from specie com-
manding an extraordinary value in comparison
with all other commodities, he will coin his bars
as fast as he imports them, until the course of
operation terminates in an adjustment of the
shaken balance, and prices return to their na•
tural, and therefore desirable, standard.

[MORNING HERALD.]

The journals of all Europe, wherever there is
the least semblance of the freedom of the Press,
have recently teemed with speculations of the pro-
bable conseq uencesofthedeath ofthe Emperor Ale-
xander. All seem to agree that some great changes
must happen, though their premises and conclu-
sions widely differ. But in one point they agree
—that the change in Russian policy, whatever it
may be, will have a tendency hostile to the
ascendancy and interests of this country. Two
grand strokes of the new Russian policy are con-
templated with an equal degree of credulity and
complacency—the acquisition of Greece and of
European Turkey by the new Emperor ; and
after that, Isis making a gigantic bound to India,
and seizing himself of the vast extent of British
possessions in that quarter. Leaving aside these
somewhat doubtful questions as to the policy and
projects of the Emperor Constantine, the next,
and the more reasonable matter of consideration
•is, what are his means? There are two ways by
which the resources of Russia may be judged, the
accounts of those who profess to have personally
observed them, and the history of Russia for
the last half century ; and. from both, upon' a
close examination and comparison, it will be ap-
parent, that Russian power has been.of late ex-
travagantly over-rated, 'just as Russian civiliza-
tion was in the days of Peter and Catherine. It
was not till the latter sovereign reigned that
Russia became ranked as an integral part of civi-
lized Europe. Of the ambition of this able but
most odious sovereign to meddle and lead among
the European nations there can he no doubt ; but
she .knew too well the weakness of her own re-
sources in the great field of European contention ;
and she avoided contending it with any serious
designs, or any serious hazard, except against
Poles and Turki.. When the eccentric sa-
vage, her offspring, who succeeded her, de-
parted from her policy, the ephemeral suc-
cesses of the Russian arms against France only
proved the inefficiency of Russian resources,

and the sagacity and prudence of Cathe-
rine. The campaign of the Russian troops against
Buonaparte, at a later period, under the Em-
peror Alexander, tends clearly to the same con-
clusion ; that is, the inability of Russia to main-
tain an ascendancy permanently and indepen-
dently in Europe. At last the power of France,
was disorganized by the memorable campaign of
Moscow—it would be idle to call it a contest be-
tween Russia and France ; as well might the
heedless and unhappy expedition of the Emperor
Julian be regarded as a criterion of the compara-
tive strength and resources of Persia and the Ro-
man Empire. But even after this, when Russia
affected victory and a leading part, she was but a
member of a great confederacy of Europe against
France, and the deference yielded to the Ein-
peror Alexander after the fall of Buonaparte,
was evident ly a deference of circumstances, yield-
ed through etiquette, or from an absolute want of
general peace, not a superior position gained by the
force of arms. The sort or supremacy yielded atCon-
gresses and in negociations was in a great mea-
sure little beyond parade. Russia is, it is true,
a vast empire, containing between fifty-six and
sixty millions of people. But mere population
is any thing but strength, when left to itself
without wealth, industry, or the arts of civilised
life. The sources of power-in a nation are es-
sentially moral or intellectual, not numerical or
physical. Europe called in the hordes of Russia
to put down the common enemy, Buonaparte.
But that is one of those combinations of inte-
rests and circumstances Nvhich happen but once
[in several centuries.

[MORNING POST.]

French Papers to the 28th instant, and the
;toile of Wednesday, arrived last night by ex-
press. They contain some intelligence from
Greece which, we sincerely hope, will prove
correct. It is said that, on the 13th of Novem-
ber, the gallant Karaiskaki surprised the Turkish
army at its head-quarters near Mksolonghi.—
The attack took place at noon, at a time 'when
the Turks slept in the greatest security. Great
numbers are stated to have been killed, and the
military chest to have been taken. The plunder
and the prisoners were carried to l'aiissolonglii,
and Karaiskaki returned the same night to
his quarters in Acarnania, where he attack-
ed another division of Turks at Carvassara
(the ancient Austracia), took all their provi-
sions, and forced the enemy to emblrk with
SO much precipitation that numbers perished
in the water. A third action ensued in the
vicinity of Carvassara, in which a whole de-
tachment of Turkish Cavalry and a convoy of
provisions and treasure were carried off by the
Greeks. About the same period Gonrras, the
brave commander of the Army in Eastern Greece,
having !earned that a Turkish corps was coining
from Thessaly with a convoy of provisions and
ammunition, took a portion of the force with
which he besieged the Ottomans shot up in Sas
lona, and after several forced marches overtook
the enemy, defeated them, and carried off the
convoy. On his way back he fell in with 700
Albanians, who were returning to their coun-
try with 'the accumulated plunder of the campaign,
of which he soon gained possession, and after
disarming the Albanians, who had quitted Reds-
chid's army without orders, he allowed them to
continue their way home. The letters which con-
tain these details confidently anticipate the des-
truction of the Seraskier's army if he persists in
wintering near Missolonghi, and the atzticipation
is certainly likely to be realized if the operations
of the Greek Partisans are faithfully described,
and their activity continues to increase with the
difficulties of the enemy and the hardships of the
season. One thing is evident, and the fact is of
no small importance ; the losses of Redschid
Paella have been such, since he began the siege
of Missolonghi, that if all the troops brought
from Egypt and landed at Navarino were united
with his army, they would not restore its original
strength. When we reflect on the diminution
which Ibraharres force has also experienced, by
illness, fatigue, want of provisions, and repeated
conflicts with the guerillas of the Morea, it will ap-
pear that notwithstanding the boasted numbers of
the reinforcements from Alexandria, they will
not place the Ottoman Commanders in a !.)otter or
even in so good a situation as they occupied
at the beginning of the campaign. There is,
therefore, no cause to despair of the salvation of
the Greeks, even should the recent events iu
Russia not bring kmighty champion of their sa-
cred cause into the field. A just view of their
means of carrying on the contest, compared with
those of their enemies, will be found in a letter
from Mr. Blaquiere. It contains much valuable
information respecting the real state of things in
Greece, and as it conies from one who has had
personal opportunities of ascertaining the truth of
what he describes, it is gratifying to find that he
betrays no despondency as to its issue. We agree
with him, however, that without aid the struggle
must be long and difficult, and that a little
assistance at this moment might hasten its ter-
mination, and render it a happy and triumphant
one. That this aid will be withholden, we can-
not believe, even were there not !lighter motives
than those of interest to suggest its propriety.--
At the same time we regret to find it stated in
these Papers that Lord Cochrane, who had been
reported on his way to Greece, is at present at
Brussels, and we both hope and trust from the
silence of the Fiends!! Journals respecting his
sojourn in that city, that the statement in the
eur is unfounded, and that his Lordship is
not now far distant from the foes whom his.name
alone would conquer.