The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-16 00:00:00

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
THIS DlY.—Morning, 3h. 40m.—Afternoon, 4h. 2m,
To-monßow.-Morning, 4h. 24m.—Afternoon, 4h. 46m,

LONDON, FRIDAY, NOV. 16, 1860.

The rapid reduction recently in the amount of
bullion contained in the coffers of the Bank of
England comes opportunely enough as a reminder
to us of how very acceptable the Chinese indem-
nity, in good hard cash, will be when it comes to
hand As come it will ;we may now be quite
certain of that, now that Lord ELGIN'S diplomatic
pen and paper have been thrown aside, to give place,
for yet a little longer, to the swords and guns at the
disposal of Sir HOPE GRANT, the Commander-in-
Chief. It is a satisfactory consideration, in regard
to these looked-for indemnities from the Chinese
Government to our own, that they are likely rather
to be increased than diminished when demanded at
the sword's point before Pekin, or, more surely still,
if demanded within Pekin, than when demanded at
the pen's point from the remote standing ground
of Tien-tsin. " Two millions" constituted, in effect,
the sine qua non insisted upon only the other day
at Tien-tsin, as foremost among the conditions of
peace—" two millions," and no more, were de-
manded, we say, only a couple of months back, at
Tien-tsin, by our ambassador and plenipotentiary
extraordinary. At Pekin, in Pekin, his " terms"
may rise—by the same proportion as that accord-
ing to which the leaves of the Sybil diminished—
from £2,000,000 to £3,000,000, or even £5,000,000 or
£10,000,000. Under any circumstances, it is only a
question of time,whether sooner or later, in the larger
amount or the smaller we shall be opening the gates Of
the national storehouse of gold and silver down at
the Bank of England to make way for the reception
there Of the corning shiploads of " cash" from the op-
posite extremities of this eastern hemisphere. It is
equally a
question of time also when " the other"
precious metal shall have poured in to our partially
emptied bullion.thests, so as efficiently to compen-
sate for the recent drain upon those our usually
ample and even afiluent bullion-deposits—when
this other and nobler
precious metal shall have
poured in, thus far compensati
vely at least—say
from our own Tom TinnLEß,s ground at the Anti- ,
podes, the goodly and still only half worked gold-
fields of Australia.

Meanwhile, however, does it not force itself more
and more strongly everyday upon our
conviction
that in more than one direction we are evidencing,
in this matter, astonishing obtuseness, that we
are
acting in it with, to say the very least of it, very
extraordinary indiscretion ? The wonder is, to begin
with, that we cannot apparently for the life of us
comprehend, what it might nevertheless have been
imagined would have been comprehensible to any
ordinary capaeity, that by putting in circulation
again the old fA.hioned o'2' 17(012?(? Mee we might
husband our resources in bullion, we might keep
it more securely here at home to ourselves ; parting
with our bullion more rarely—and then at twenty
or thirty per cent. profit—in our dealings with
the foreigners. According to the present system
our bullion is ever liable to be periodically drained
—whither, it really remains, to this hour, in a great
measure matter of utter bewilderment. Insomuch
that it is now within these last few days being
asked seriously where upon earth has disappeared ,
mysteriously all this gold • coin that has latterly

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THE SUN.