The Sun.
London, England, 1847-10-26 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

SUSPENSION OF THE BANK CHARTER
BILL.
FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
TIMES.—It is with no little embarrassment that
we approach the great act of Ministerial responsibility
which we announced yesterday afternoon. We are
bound to make every allowance for the peculiar diffi-
culties and anxieties of those who are placed at the
helm, and also to take into account their peculiar
opportunities of information. The man who has to
stand in the gap and be the foremost and most osten-
sible champion of a principle in its worst hour of trial,
has no easy post, and, if he gives way, demands rather
compassion than reproof. We can only judge, how-
ever, by what we see and know. Though we
should believe that Ministers found it morally im-
possible to stand against the manifold appeals to
their pity or their terror, yet that is no reason
why we should give up our own deliberate opinions.
We also are exposed to a storm of remonstrances.
They do not shake our resolution, however much
they may interfere with our comfort. We do
not give way. Should it be answered that a journalist
can easily afford to be obstinate, we beg to reply that
journalists and Chancellors of the Exchequer are
amenable to one and the same law—the law of re-
sults. Very few months will pronounce the ap-
proval or the condemnation of the present Ministerial
course. Should the verdict of time be against us,
we shall not be permitted to forget our mistaken and
ill-timed dissent. We have plenty of neighbours
who will only be too happy to recal that fact to our
own and the public recollection. The Ministerial
measure is a remedy for a temporary panic, not for a
real, a permanent, and an increasing pressure. If
this be little more than a panic, if confidence is all that
is wanted, if hoarding is to be discouraged, employ-
ment set free, and enterprise invited; if also these
objects were not attainable in any other pay, then,
undoubtedly, Government has done the right thing.
This supposition has, however, but slender founda-
tion. It rests only on a hopeful and too confiding
temperament. There is a panic, it is true, and just
now a very wild and ridiculous panic, driving men
to foolish and cowardly proceedings. But there is
also an actual pressure—a pressure which has been
gradually increasing for more than a twelvemonth,
which, under existing circumstances, is likely to in-
crease, and which may very possibly soon be aggra-
vated to any conceivable degree by events quite
within the scope of possibility, not to say more. The
fact of the pressure thus far is a matter of history,
and cannot be denied. The question is—Will it
because
thelast ?c
aaunsde s h°
arew stilllong ?in olpereratainonsw. erf-t yiseasl;most for-
bidden to speak of railways, potatoes, and cotton, to
ears polite. We mention them not for the sake of
the past, but just to remind the people of two impor-
tant facts—first, that through the vast increase of
our imports and diminution of our exports, we
are at this moment rather deep in the
books of the foreigner; secondly, that imports
are likely to continue very great, and exports
are certain to remain very low. This condition
of affairs can only lead to one possible result,
—the same as that which would infallibly happen to
the journeyman who should go on importing into his
tenement meat, drink, and clothing, to the value of
thirty shillings a week, all the time only exporting
work to no greater amount than twenty-five shillings.
His capital, if he had any, would stiffer a continual
drain. Such is the drain now before us. A refer-
ence to the past—the merest glance of retrospection—
is sufficient to show that Government has not hitherto
sufficiently realised the grave and growing character
of this pressure. They refer to last April. The
panic of last April subsided; but the pressure did
not. That Ministers fully thought their difficulties
over may be presumed from the circumstance
that before the end of that month they brought for-
ward again the proposition of lending 620,0001. to
certain Irish railways. The subsequent six months
have not justified the wisdom of that security. It
is due to ourselves to observe, that when the First
Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer think fit to say, in their note to the autho-
rities of the Bank, that they were encouraged to
expect the prevailing distrust would subside, "by
the speedy cessation of a similar state of feeling in
the month of April last," we have not the honour to
be included in that statement. If they will do us
'IC favour to rc.firl enm.

the favour to read some remarks that appeared in this
place on the 28th of April, they will find our distrust
had in no wise abated ; but that, on the contrary,
we felt less confidence than ever, in consequence of
the Irish railway loan ; and were emboldened to pre-
dict circumstantially, and to the very letter, the pre-
sent most melancholy condition of affairs. The mea-
sure destined, we cannot but fear, to give to October
25, 1847, rather a disastrous prominence in the
chronicles of trade, will allay the panic and increase the
pressure. It will give a new start to all the causes which

have lately so much augrnen
and hampered reproduction
t e
illd e
`Veenx p ddioi ure ,
not,b uttbcehr ee cfokreed,
taunatilelyipsauterreanndveriemdm. immediate
future that we fear. The Banku effecc thsa. r t
eI is
Charter Act
fora
vtihr e-
perhaps,future
arforward
abse
a suppliedgreat bmyo money-l.
e rlp o soevse
ronfin that tn Actow
comes may,
proposesbut
toa
..e reGnadrerra.n g
Ie mt ent s ;
new principle is introducteee
odpth.
bolster up the credit of the country by increasing the
circulation. That is an impossible attempt. When.
ever the new principle shall come into actual ope-
graotlido,n,buitt will be
afotuintadwthAilal
quan-
tity
weeks,o f papereven
thattffeorced an additional
fuewse.months vmaar elmapasye,pabseeforae few
e
new principle is put to
the proof. When it is, it
will be seen whether we can diminish the gold in the
Bank without inducing a panic, a run for gold, and
other disasters far more
more serious than those which
of
it was the object the measure to obviate.
Except so far as the measure certainly does an-
pear in its tendency a fatal blow to "Peel's Bill,"
we are bound to say that
y iat it is guarded with about as
good securities as
aGovernment wishing to inspire
confidence could possibly require. For the present
the minimum of S per
the loan of foreign cent. is not likely to interrupt
gold. The Continental tor the influx of foreign
capitalists will still have
scope for a harvest. The appropriation suggested for
the extra profit derived f
likely to provoke any unrom this measure is one not
in 'Threadneedle-street. T
wonted display of liberality
he discount is claimed for
the public chest, where •
it will possibly be wanted
before long to pay a premium for gold.
Government also
the measure -in hand, intends to keep
breakers ahead. The ad stop when it sees
difficulty,n however, is
when to stop. There will be temptation on all sides
to go on. The experience of this as well as other
countries assures us that
bthere are times when
a large profit may be made means of capital bor-
rowed at Bor 9 per cent. The borrower can well
afford to purchase produce depreciated 20 or 30 per
cent. below its average price
even at this rate. In
share the present state of themarket, when the
shares of good lines sell at little
more than half their
productive value, and when ninety-five days may
see a great change for the better, i
.p will answer to
purchase them even with money
borrowed for "J.
It is
Russell" and " C. Wood." possible, therefore,
that the facilities now offered may soon be sought,
and the measure come into actual operation. Should
that be the case, the Government will find
itself in a
new dilemma. It will again have to l
e ect for itself,
on its own responsibility, whether to go on expand-
ing, or trying to expand the credit and
ofpaper of the
country, or to impose by the strokea pen that
check which it did not retain in the regular
operation
of the Bill.
CIIRONICLE.—We feel that we may safely con-
gratulate both the Ministry and the country on the
events of yesterday. An act of prompt and • vigorous
statesmanship has rescued the one from the
which inevitably overtakes the feeble, the fa'
misguided,
and the pusillanimous; and the abrogation
dangerous and irritating law has conferred upon
of
a the
other a welcome and necessary interval of rest,
a period of excitementaand collision which after
will
for
ever render the closing months of the present
and
year
a
melancholy page in the history of our country
our commerce. At present we chiefly see and
feel
the immediate blessings of the relief in its reviving
influence over a prostrate credit and a stagnantindus-
try. We behold the return of a tinge of cheerfulness
over a landscape from which we have seen withr
much solicitude the departure, day by day, of first onee
ray of sunshine and then another, until the advent of
an utter darkness appeared to be close at hand.
eur marts and our exchanges are again instinct
with a hopeful activity, and under the impulse of
a pardonable alacrity we are in haste to conclude
that a measure, of which the benificence is so soon
and so plainly apparent, may well content itself with
the testimonials which the happy transitions of the
present moment so profusely furnish of its wisdom
and its efficacy. We suspect that, to the students of
a future and less deeply interested generation, the
instant and salutary relief, great though it be, will
become_ by far the most secondary consideration.
They will not fail to perceive that the timely inter-
vention of the royal prerogative at a critical juncture
was the means of averting a severe trial and a great
scandal from the institutions of the country ' • that a
people smarting under an accumulationof evils,
which by the most persevering and ti
pa ent argument