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

SPIRIT of tke 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 way, then,
undoubtedly, Government bas `Slone 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
last ? and how long ? We answer—Yes ; because
the causes are still in operation. It is almost 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 whd 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 snffer 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 620,000/. to
certain Irish railways. The subsequent six months
have not justified the wisdom of that security. It
is due to ourselves to olsserve, 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
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 augmented expenditure,but checked
and hampered reproduction. We do not, therefore,
anticipate any immediate ill effects. It is for the
future that we fear. The Bank Charter Act is vir-
tually surrendered. The purposes of that Act may,
perhaps, be supplied by other arrangements; but a
new principle is introduced. Government now comes
forward as a great money-lender. It proposes to
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-
ration, it will be found that Government can lend its
gold, but cannot at its will force an additional quan-
tity of paper into use. A few days may pass, a few
weeks, or even a few months may elapse, before the
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 serious than those which
it was the object of 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 it is guarded with about as
good securities as a Government wishing to inspire
confidence could possibly require. For the present
the minimum of 8 per cent. is not likely to interrupt
the loan of foreign credit or the influx of foreign
gold. The Continental capitalists will still have
scope for a harvest. The appropriation suggested for
the extra profit derived from this measure is one not
likely to provoke any unwonted display of liberality
in Threadneedle-street. The discount is claimed for
the public chest, where
it will possibly be wanted
before long to pay a premium for gold.
Government also evidently intends to keep
the measure in hand, and stop when it sees
breakers ahead. The difficulty, 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 there are times when
a large profit may be made by 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
of
good
o
its
linen
s average
the present state of the share market, when the
shares sell price even at this rate. In
at little more than half their
productive value, and when ninety-five days may
see a great change for the better, it will answer to
purchase them even with money borrowed for "J.
Russell" and "C. Wood." It is 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 elect for itself,
on its own responsibility, whether to go on expand-
ing, or trying to expand the credit and paper of the
country, or to impose by the stroke of a pen that
check which it did not retain in the regular operation
of the Bill.
CHRONICLE.—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 fate
which inevitably overtakes the feeble, the misguided,
and the pusillanimous; and the abrogation of a
dangerous and irritating law has conferred upon the
other a welcome and necessary interval of rest, after
a perio • d of excitement and collision which will for
ever render the closing months of the present year a
melancholy page in the history of our country and
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 stagnant indus-
try. We behold the re turn of a tinge of cheerfulness
over a landscape from which we have seen with so
much solicitude the departure, day by day, of first one
ray of sunshine and then
another, until the advent of
an utter darkness appeared to be close at hand.
Our 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
ne t that, to the students of
c
and its efficacy. We suspect a
future and less deeply interested generation, the
relief, instant and salutary great though it be, will
t secondary consideration.
become by far the
perceivemost
that the timely They will not fail to at a critical juncture
inter-
vention of the royal prerogative trial
a severeand a great
was the means of averting
scandal from the institutions of the country ; tbat a
people smarting under
an accumulation of evils,
which by the most persevering and patient argument