The Sun.
London, England, 1833-06-28 00:00:00

.of the realm or Bank of England notes at their.
own option. And, if this were all, there un-
questionably would be nothing of which they
could fairly complain. But those who limit
their view of the subject to this, which
is one of its smallest parts, evidently intend
only to mislead and delude the public.
The arrangement with the Bank of Eng-
land comprehends a series of measures, of
which the intention and the tendency is acknow-
ledged to be—of which the final effect evidently
must be—to overthrow the whole existing system
of country banking ; and in becoming a party
to such an arrangement, without communication
with the country bankers, Lord Althorp, it can-
not be denied, committed one of the grossest
breaches of faith that ever disgraced a Minister
of England. 'We do not say that it will be pro-
ductive of evil to the country to encourage the
establishment of joint-stock banks, or to give them
advantages both in respect to the proportion of
their capital required to be actually paid up, and
to the extent of liability with which their part-
ners or shareholders shall be individually charged,
or to make these advantages dependent upon the
condition that the joint-stock banks shall employ
Bank of England notes as the medium of their
dealings with the public; but we do say that it
is sheer effrontery on the part of the apologists
of Lord Althorp either to pretend that the
system of which these several regulations
are the component parts can ever be esta•
blished in this country without detriment to
the business of the existing banks—without
extinguishing their business indeed so far as it
depends upon the circulation of their own notes,
or to deny that this is the ultimate purpose of
the whole project. It would be astonishing, if
from such a quarter any thing could astonish,
that the apologists of Lord Althorp should ven-
ture to allege that the arrangement with the
Bank of England is not injurious to the coun-
try bankers in the face of his Lordship's com-
munication claiming from the Directors of the
Bank of England the surrender of a large pro-
portion of their present emoluments, expressly
upon the ground that his proposed plan will at
once occasio❑ a great and profitable increase of
the issues of that establishment, and lead to the
eventual extinction of every other description of
paper currency. We are not of opinion that
the subsisting arrangement between the Govern-
ment and the Bank (of which, by the bye, much
abler men than Lord Althorp are the real au-
thors) would prove injurious to the community,
provided the country bankers generally would
lend their willing aid to carry it into effect,
which we believe they might easily have
been induced to do by a few very reasonable
modifications and concessions. They would
probably, for example, not have been generally
averse to the substitution of the Bank of Eng-
land paper for their own, as the instrument of
accommodation to their connections, and the
medium of traffic in their several neighbour-
hoods, could this change be freed from the ob-
jection that it leaves them too much at the
mercy of the Bank with respect to their supplies
of currency from that establishment, and, by
necessary consequence, too much exposed to
the dangers of an excessive and unfair deduc-
tion from their present profit, or to the dan-
ger, in other words, of being compelled to pay
to the Bank too high a price for the use of
its paper. Some definite arrangement as to
these important points seems indeed indispen-
sable, if it be not intended to lay the whole
body of country bankers, the joint-stock banks
included, prostrate at the feet of the gigantic
establishment of Threadneedle-street, and to
deprive the nation of the immense advantages
flowing from that relief and assistance which
the country bankers afford in innumerable
instances, and which, being wholly depen-
dent upon personal knowledge and per-
sonal confidence, could not be submitted to
the officers and servants of any banking corpo-
ration cr joint-stock company, or, if submitted,
would have no intelligible claim to their atten-
tion. In the concoction of the Ministerial plan
(as in every thing else that the present Ministers
undertake) there has, however, been such a
degree of mingled blundering and bad faith as
bids fair to impede if not to prevent its success.
The country bankers, with whose co-operation
it would probably be a beneficial measure, and
without whose co-operation it must be a mis-
chievous one, have been goaded into hostility,
by a neglect as insulting as it is irrational,: by a
deception which is at once odious and ridiculous.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer has pro-
ceeded upon this subject as if he thought that
all his difficulties were at an end if he could but
contrive to steal a march upon the country
bankers, and complete his bargain with the Bank
of England without the knowledge of those to
whom he had promised to communicate all his
proceedings. The Noble Lord will reap, we
have no doubt, the proper harvest of his folly
anti duplicity.—Morning Post.