The Sun.
London, England, 1847-10-06 00:00:00

betnial

LONDON, WEDNESDAY. OCTOBER 6, 1847.

The state of the money market is now the chief
object of interest to persons of every rank and grade
in society. The fearful results that have been ap-
parent, when houses of the highest character and
undoubted solvency have been compelled to suspend
payment even for a limited period, although possessed
of assets far exceeding the amount of their liabilities,
has, indeed, had a startling effect upon all classes in
the community, and the public generally have begun
to inquire into that system of finance which has led
to such unhappy and imforseen results, to question its
soundness and efficiency, and to see the vital import-
ance, nay the imperative necessity, of some great
and comprehensive measures of reform. The spirit
linquiry once thoroughly awakened, will not easily
set aside. Although the people may not at present
he unanimous as to the nature or extent of the remedies
essential to the restoration of our national prosperity,
they are fully alive to the evils of the present system,
and the great danger of an obstinate and pertinacious
adherence to certain arbitrary rules that have reduced
both public and private credit to the lowest ebb, and
which, if blindly persevered in, must ultimately re
duce the nation itself to little better than a state of
bankruptcy. Already many victims have been sacri•
ficed at the shrine of the bullionists. Mercantile
houses which have been in existence the greater part
of a century—and which could not have attained to
the high position in which they were placed, and the
universal credit they possessed until within the last
few weeks, in a lesser period—have been compelled to
stop payment, not from over-trading or undue
speculation, not from being reduced to a state
of insolvency, but simply because they were
unable to procure the usual facilities for
carrying on their transactions ; they could not obtain
a representative of the wealth they really possessed
to transfer from hand to hand. Property of every
description has been depreciated in value; the reduc-
ti,°.in the value of the funded debt has, within
r
beef Period, amounted to fully 10 per cent. That
alone would show a loss to the nation of nearly eighty
millions of pounds
sterling and if we assume that
°
other descriptions '
Property lands, houses, railway
shares, merchandize, and "
in
fact, allth other articles of trade
and commerce,
property or capital of the
country, general accumulated
ntrY. has been deterio-
rated to an equal extent, and w
la,lt.ieye that we are
naaoctr, the public,
fully justified in asserting it as
generally, have suffered within little
a loss amounting to not less than from tie t" a year
hundred millions of pounds sterling. And wile t; four
cause the unfortunate failure of the harvest four
cause
Be-
and the mysterious visitation by which the potato crop
was destroyed, rendered a large mportation of food
necessary, in order to pay for which 7,000,000/. in
bullion was temporarily abstracted from the coffers of
the Bank, which was therefore compelled by the
atrocious Act of 1844 to restrict its issues until they
were insufficient for the ordinary purposes of trade,
and this frightful calamity, involving thousands in
ruin, was thus precipitated.
It is manifest that these evils have been occasioned,
not by any want of real capital, but in consequence
of a deficient circulation to represent it. There is
an abundance of capital, but unfortunately it is
dormant, and although the national resources have
been greatly augmented of late years, the circulation
has not been proportionately increased. Every mile of
railway that is constructed—every new house or
building that is erected—every acre of land that is
drained and rendered more fertile and productive—
every new machine that passes from the hands of the
manufacturer, is an addition to the actual capital of
the country. But there is no corresponding addition
to the circulation—there is no means of representing