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

[NEW TIMES.]

Au Evening contemporary very truly said on
Sifttirday, that the scarcity of money was never
so sev'er'ely felt in the city as on that day. On
att otber hand, a Morning Paper, which had been
tilt first and loudest to sound the alarm, and had
created nine tenths of the evil by its exaggera-
ticin, kuddenly turned round on Saturday, and
exclaimed-" as for the famous alarms, the agi-
tations, the forebodings of disaster, we feel them
init-L2-we never' felt them"! ! ! Really, this
beiti' any thing in Cobbett! Why, this same
Janina], not a fortnight ago, actually rejoiced.
snd 'rioted in the confusion which it had done so
mach to create._.,.," Let it work," said the Edi-
tor, " let the fermentation exhaust itself—the
cir'egs will subside--the froth will evaporate."
/31' the dregs and • the froth, it seems, this cold
bibbiled writer meant Banking,-houses of the first
reSpPctability in London, and Some of large con-
-111P-CiiotlS in Yorkshire and elsewhere. But enotigh
or the heartlessness and inconsitencies of such a
publication ! Let us turn our, thoughts to more
iMportant considerations. It is Certain that the
waht-Af confidence is carried at the present mo-
ment to a most dangerous extreme. Houses
mhotinding in bills and Securities, perfectly cer,.
tainnad fully adequate to any possible demand
on'`tlie:n, are paralyzed h the simple circum-
stanee that they cannot, be converted into money.
At tfich:ll moment, We 'think the great', body of
merthants and bankers should make-4 common
effait to restore Public credit, they might agree to
tard'O'Cli other's hills, where the parties were of
known solitlity,a Certain number of the most influ-
ential indiviidtiats might even enter into a common
gulthiltee with each other against loss, by the
adaribn of such a 'measure. Were this done, the

Bank might venture to enlarge its Issues for tem-
porary accommodation and perhaps Govern-
ment itself, though wisely cautious not to en-
courage an excess of paper circulation, might
-,see it to meet an extraordinary emergency
by an extraordinary relief. Let us not be mis-
understood as alluding to any measure like
a suspension of cash payments. This would
be contrary to our whole system at pre-
sent. Neither would' we advocate any real ex-
tension of the limits of the currency ; but it must
be remembered, that the actual and effective cur-
rencx of the metropolis has receded far within
those limits. The want of confidence has for the
moment had the same effect as burying so much
gold. Let this evil be met and overcome, and
then the physical resources of the country, which
at present are paralysed for want of an exchange-
able symbol, or representative of value, would
soon display their whole power, and restore our
suspended prosperity.

[3l 0 RNING HERALD.]
We cannot help looking with some degree o,
concern, not to say of commiseration, upon the situation of per-
sons of undoubted, credit and opulence, who are at this time
Pilfering so severely from the immediate pressure arising from
the temporary state of the money-market ; and these feelings
are not a little enhanced when we witness the almost savage
exultation which the contemplation of the same distress appears
to give rise to in the minds of certain writers. There are two
peculiar kinds of hardship to which persons engaged in bank-
ing appear to be exposed : the one, the impossibility of imme-
diately calling in their resources to meet any sudden emergency
arising from groundless alarm ; the other, the apparent in-
justice of their being called upon to refund to their customers,
in cash, the amount of the deposits which they have received
in paper. It is impossible to look at the business of a banker
in any other light than as a trader in money. Money is
to him the tea, the silk, the cotton, or cochineal of the mer-
chant ; and to expect that the deposits of his customers
are to lay quietly locked up in his coffers till they are called
for, is as absurd as to suppose that the warehouses of the
other were to be the constant untouched receptacles of his
stock. If the banker's business, then, be trade in money,
trading with it upon the safest and most substantial security is
that which ought to inspire the greatest confidence ; yet, to
our unutterable surprise, we perceive a Morning Paper, which
wishes to be deemed an oracle upon this subject, actually up-
braiding bankers with lending their money upon mortgage, as
being tho most unwise and injudicious use which they could
make of IL The same writer, perhaps, would have us believe that
the City gambling-house, in Capel-court, is the only prudent
place in which a banker can employ his resources ! Few people,we
suspect, will be found to coincide in such wild and preposte-
rous notions as these; but, on the contrary, the greater part of the
public, we imagine, will conceive that the best proof of stability
in a banking establishment is its known abstinence from specu-
lation, and its employment of its capital at the moderate interest,
but sure security, arising from advances upon land. Admit-
ting this to be the case, it does appear to be a tremendous
hardship upon such persons that their credit is to be blasted,
and, through them, the stability of many similar establish-
ments assailed, because investments of that description are
not as available at the moment as sales of stock or Ex-
chequer bills would be ; and we do not, therefore, see why a
temporary advance by the Bank of England to any house so
situated ought to be questioned or even announced to the pub-
lic, more than any other private transactions with which the pub-
lic can have nothing to do. The other point to which we allude
is one which applies more particularly to the case of country
bankers, who are many of them at this moment suffering in-
finite distress—a distress too entailed in its consequences upon
a great mass of small traders as well as labourers, by being
called upon for, and unable to answer demands in gold for de-
posits, nine-tenths of which have been made to them in paper.
We do not mean to enter here into the intricate question of the
currency, or how far paper, to be of any real value, must be
invariably the representative of gold, and convertible to it on
demand ; but this we are sure of, that to expect that the vast
revenues, as well as the mercantile and other concerns of this
country, can be carried on in no way but in bullion, is
as impossible and impracticable as it would be to require
the whole population of the kingdom to meet on a given
day upon Salisbury plain, to decide some great national
question. We take Bank notes, bills of exchange, and the
other nu.merous representations of pecuniary enagements,
to be "as .essential substitutes for gold as writing is for
oral language ; and therefore the main consideration for
the holders of country paper is, not whether there is really
at every moment gold in the coffers of the country banker
to answer every demand ; but whether lie has in land, houses,
goods, or merchandize, monies'-worth, so as to insure the ulti-
mate safety and solvency of the concern. In short, it is confi-
dence and credit alone which can maintain those in their
business either as bankers or merchants of any other descrip-
tion; and when there are good grounds for reposing that confi-
dence, we know of few cases of greater hardship and injustice
than that persons so situated should be run down by clamour,
or that any part of the public should be so far misled as to join
in a panic which must ultimately injure the whole community.
—lt is similar to a false alarm of fire in a theatre, when the
audience, in rushing to escape, are generally the greatest suf-
ferers, though they may tear up the benches and pull down the
house in so doing.

SToult NAvxGATroN.—A numerous meeting of
Proprietors of the Stour Navigation and Sandwich Harbour
Compani, took place at the Guildhall, of the City of Canter-
bury, on Tuesday last. Sir E. Owen, K.C.B. was called to
the Chair. A voluminous Report of the whole of the proceed-
ings of the Directors was laid before the Meeting, which met
their entire approbation. The Report is favourable to the
undertaking; and states that, in consequence of the Reports
of the Engineers, the Directors had advertised for Tenders
to carry the works into immediate effect; that the Directors
had received several Tenders from very reputable and respon-
sible persons, for the completion of the whole of the works.
The Report goes on to say :—" That although the Engineers'
estimates are good in all relating to the Canterbury line, as well
as in the Gates, and Jetties and Harbour, between Sandwich
and the Sea, it does appear that the excavations will considerably
exceed them." We understand that the gentlemen who
tendered, stated that this excess arose in consequence of the ex-
treme demand, and very high price which is paid for labour of
that description, owing to the many similar works now in pro-
gress. The Report then says :—" The Directors feel bound
to state, that although the expence attending this great enter-
prise will much exceed whatever estimates have yet been pub-
lished, there now appears a certainty of its not amounting
to the whole of the resources provided by the Act of Parlia-
ment. Great, as will certainly be the expence attending
this important undertaking, the benefit to the country in its
vicinity, and the security it will offer to the Mercantile interests
in general, by placing many ships in safety, from the long
winter gales, by which they are exposed to danger in the
Downs the facility which it will offer to the Packets when
they cannot gain the Port of Dover, are so many sources of a
rising income, which promises to repay abundantly the enter-
prise."—We understand, that twelve tenders for the works
were sent in, and that the Whole expence of the undertaking,
including excavating, locks, tide,gates, bridge, jetties, harbour,
purchase of land, moneralready expended, and 5,0041. funded,
in case of accidents, for the Commissioners of Sewers, will not
exceed 100,000/.; hich leaves a stint of 15,000!. more to be
raised, to complete the undertaking. —( Kentish Gacette,
Dec. 9.)