The Sun.
London, England, 1841-06-10 00:00:00

•of the day at the London Tavern. Major Richardson, who
presided, addressed the meeting at some length, principally upon
the question of the valuations that have been put upon the
property. He and several other gentlemen in attendance, who
professed to have carefully examined the report and accounts
recently issued to the proprietors by the Directors,
and to have taken no ordinary pains to come at the truth, hare
-videntiv less faith in the accuracy of those documents than it
is desirable. they should have. They consider the valuations
alluded to more favourable than the
circumstances of the Cot .
pany will warrant, and that they have been unduly exagge.
rated as a means of securing the confidence of Shareholders in
the future management. This we cannot at all believe when
we come to look at the names of the Directors, as there are, at
all events, parties among them who are perfectly incapable of
sanctioning, and much less of practising, any deception of the
sort. The result of the proceedings was, that the approval and
adoption of the report and accounts should be suspended by
the Shareholders until a searching inquiry into the actual po-
sition of the Company shall have been made by an impartial
and competent Committee.
HERALD.—The first and only Report of the Bank Com-
mittee is but a meagre result from labours which had excited
so much interest, and from which such mighty doings were
anticipated. It savours strongly of the mountain and the
mouse. It would, however, have been extremely inconvenient
no doubt to have presented a formal and detailed Report, em-
bodying the proposition perhaps of important changes in the
circulation of the country, at the end of a Session, and in the
face of a new Parliament to be assembled. The proposal for
the publication of more frequent returns of the average bank
note circulation, not only of England and Wales, but, for the
first time, that of Scotland and Ireland also, with the bullion
averages of the bank of England, is, however, a satisfactory
and wholesome provision, and may serve materially to thrdlv
light upon the banking question in the course of the further in-
quiry to be resumed hereafter. The Committee would have
done well also to have devised the means for procuring
more exact information than is now possessed respecting the
amount of bids of exchange, distinguishing and classifying the
dates, which may be or have been in circulation from year to
year, or, which would be better still, duringtlrn successive
quarters eof each%year. The Stamp-office returns of stamps
• issued afford no sufficient index of.the varying que...ities of the
monetary movement of the country under the head of bills of
exchange, and it may be doubted whether the results arrived
at by the calculations of Mr. Leathern, the Wakefield banker,
can be relied upon as a fair approximation to the fact.
The returns of all the bills of exchange passed through,
or drawn by, the various banks throughout the empire,
with similar returns of the metropolitan banks, distin-
guishing the provincial bills made payable, or receivable
for presentation, at each, from those town drawn, would
greatly contribute to a correct appreciation of the bill
circulation, although after all it could not present a
complete view of it. For large amounts of hills and promis-
sory notes never pass through the hands of bankers at all, such
as were accepted or drawn payable at the counting-houses or
private dwellings of the parties themselves. Of these no means
exist for verifying the amounts, but such as may be arrived at
from collating the Stamp-office returns of bill stamps sold with
those returned as having been drawn, made payable at, or '
passed through the banks. The excess of the Stamp- '
office returns over these of the banks would be the mea-
sure, or a close approximation to it, of that bill circula-
tion coming within the category referred to, as not
passing through the banks. A difficulty or confusion
might arise with the banks and the Bank of England,
and the discount houses (for the latter also should be in-
eluded) in the case of bills re-discounted, once or oftener,
but, although it might cause some additional trouble, it is
presumed that by a proper classification of the bills under dis-
tinct heads, the difficulty might be obviated without ma-
terial inconvenience. It will scarcely be possible to come to
satisfactory conclusions on the monetary system and circulation
of the country without taking into account these important
elements of it. It would be desirable also that amounts and
particulars of foreign bills of exchange, both those made pay-
able here, and those drawn against foreign countries, should
be included in the returns or separately ascertained. These
suggestions may not be unseasonably considered against the
time when a bank committee shall be re-appointed.