The Sun.
London, England, 1856-11-14 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY -EVENING, NOVEMBER l4, 1856.

it will speedily be increased I" These gloomy
predictions have already been fulV and completely
verified. The Bark Directors yesterday resolved
on an advance to an uniform rate of interest of
per cent., thus abolishing the distinction that
previously existed between bills coming to matu-
rity at more or less than sixty days. Nor is
this all. It was also decided that bills
having more than 30 days to run will not be re-
discounted for the brokers; so that virtually credit
cannot now be obtained for more than a single
month, and that at the ruinous charge of 'T per
cent. by the Leviathan, which implies a cost of
at least 8 or 9 per cent. to trading and manufac-
turing firms. The discount houses, following the
old lady's lead, have advanced their rate for
money held on call to 6 per cent., and a similar
allowance is made on deposits by the joint-stock
banks. We are told that the announcement of
the advance caused "considerable surprise." We
must say that we did not by any means share
in the feeling. We saw the imperative
necessity of the Bank adopting stringent
measures for its own security if the unwise
and impolitic provisions of the Bank Char-
ter Act of 1844 are still to be maintained
intact. Every continental nation was coolly
providing for its own wants at our ex-
.sose. France is outbidding us in our own mar-
kas, and purchasing the bullion forwarded to our
shores, at higher prices than the Bank of England
is allowed to offer. Austria has, since the begin.
ning of the year, increased its stock of bullion by
some three millions and a quarter, or about 60
per cent. addition to what it previously
held. Russia is making convulsive efforts
to insure the payment of no less than
FORTY THREE MILLIONS OF POUNDS sterling in
specie, for the alleged purpose of constructing a
line of military railways, which can never by any
possibility pLy as commercial speculations. There
was a steady and continuous drain of bullion from
our shores, which there was no possible chance
of arresting, and the Directors were therefore
compelled to resort to the only means in their
Dower, however inadequate, of checking the out-
fl of the precious metals.
But although the attempt occasions the most
injurious consequences to domestic industry, it
has but little effect in arresting the evil. As the
Times declared last month, at the time of the last
turn of the Bank screw, "if the Bank of France"
(and, we may add, of Vienna or St. Petersburg) "are
determined to buy gold at any sacrifice, no addition
of one or two per cent. per annum will be regarded.
The only limit to such an operation must be
found in the exhaustion of their power to buy up
bills on this country, or to obtain credit here."
This ii unquestionably true. The remedy is
utterly inadequate to the disease I It may cause
wide-spread ruin and distress amongst the work-
ing population, bring many houses of unquestion-
able solvency to the verge of ruin, if not to
actual bankruptcy, and occasioning a serious
reduction in value of All classes of securities,
public and private, and bitter privations to the
working classes. Surely it is time that s ,me real
attempt should be made to arrest the monster
grievance ere the golden opportunity has passed
away, to provide an adequate remedy before the
patioit is in a moribund condition.
A, we have repeatedly explained, the only
suitatle mode is to provide a domestic currency
that will not be Available either for exportation
or hoarding—a currency which, "being required
solely for internal commerce, no necessity could
exist for gold being held against any portion of
it." Even the Times itself long since admitted
the efficiency of such a circulating medium, de-
claeing that " es deposit of qovertime.lt Stock, or
the fact of its being receivable fur duties, would at
all times keep it from, fluet,fation, in value ! "
Eters, then, is the just solution of the important
and interesting problem. We can only prevent
that disastrous fluctuation, which CoBDEN de-
clared to have occasioned greater mischief than
the failure of all the banks that ever stopped pay-
ment, by the creation of a really National Bank,
issuing really National Notes of small and con-
venient denominations, which would answer every
domestic exigency and render gold, what it
ought to be, a commodity, in which we could
compete with other nations when they strove to
carry it off at inadequate prices from before our
very faces.

The Times tells us that " the present advance
should be viewed without the slightest commer-
cial apprehension !" What-:--7 per cent. for
money, and an inadequate supply even at that
exorbitant rate, not to occesion any uneasiness
amongst those whose business requires great faci-
lities for obtaining the pecuniary accommodation
absolutely indispensable I It says that " What
is going on is merely a scramble on the part of
other countries for our money, and as, to avoid a
final crash in their speculations, they are ready to
offer anything, they will of course succeed, unless
! we take care to keep up to the full range of their
biddings !" Tiuis is truly a peesing prospect for
industrial interests. Tie-er must coolly behold
1 other countries scrambling for English money, and
I be prepared to outbid them, not because there is
any want of capital, but merely of its measure
and representative. Although our resources are
almost inexhaustible, there is a "famine" of cur-
rency that produces the most serious mischief,
And this will only be added to the longer we ab-
' stain from looking steadily at our position in a
true point of view, and immediately adopting the
remedial measures which the magnitude of the
emergency and the vast interests at stake impera-
tively require.
The use of national one pound notes to the
extent of twenty millions sterling would econo-
mise the precious metals, and render gold, now
uselessly circulating from hand to, hand in the
tramsee,ione of every-•lay We, available for our
r
, foreign tr. Lde. It would, as Mr. JAMES WILSON
long since declared, be to all intents and pur-
peees as beneficial to the national prosperity as
if a mine of gold of equal value had been disco-
vered in the heart of England ! Why, then, is the
step delayed ? Why do we suffer our bullion to
be exported without adopting energetic means to
arrest the continurmi eh%) ? Simply because we
allow 'the trtoneyocncy to wallow in wealth
at the expense of the many, and, by a
perverse
adherence to rules, the impulicy
whereof has been 10r,,,,,
since clearly established,
sacrifice the welfare
pity. The crisis wilalatdhihsatpipmine epssroobfabthlye leade°m untotia"
remedy. Nine years •
thesaed national enthusiasm
difficulties were overcome
the moment the
,by the suspension of
I
the Act the excitement
was impossible to keepupaway, and it
produced menntary
reform.
The people were bartlbOfie e d bye fictitious
investigation that was never intended to produce
any results, but was merely to tide
over
the dith'culte• until the question could be
quietly shelved. We are now suffering for
our folly, and it will be our own faults if
we can again be deceiveL We shall only have
ourselves to blame for any privations we may be
compelled to undergo. The Bank Charter Act
has virtually expired, and we are still enduring
severe sufferings from its baleful operation. We'
see the evil, but we hare not exhibited the energy