The Sun.
London, England, 1869-11-01 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, INOVEMBER 1, 1869,,

CiLIIMP,RCIAL IMMORA LITY.

(From the Anglo-American Times.)
The City Editor of the Times continues to en-
lighten his English readers about American Securi-

ties. He says :
" On the other hand, the efflux of capital for the pur-
chase of American securities appears destined for a time
to experience a remarkable check, the revelations as to the
universal extent of judicial corruption in the leading State
of the Union having created an amount of distrust which
extends in some degree to every class of investment in
that country."

His choice of words is the most remarkable part of
the sentence. " Universal" suits his object, which
is to convey a notion of general dishonesty, and this
was strengthened by a leader next day on Secretary
BouTwELL's speech at Philadelphia. But the Bonds

keep rising, being highernow than ever before known.
People see that there is no more dishonesty, if as
much, in New York than in London; that it is not in
degree that it differs, but in foam. There is more
audacity, more open gambling, more avowed sharp

practice in the American metropolis than in the
English ; but the more hateful dishonesty is in the

latter. The " Gold Gamble" was a pitched battle
of a set of raiders; it was an organized scheme to
burst through commercial restraints, and plunder
at all hazards. Take the paper from which we have
_ .

made the above extract to furnish an instance of the

English style of doing the same sort of business.

Here it is, almost the next sentence :
"The liquidators of the Imperial Mercantile Credit As-
sociation (Limited) have announced another call of .£2 10s.

per share, payable on the Ist of December."

. _
Our American readers are not likely to know what
that means, so we must tell them. This Finance Com-

pany was the amalgamation of two, at the head of

which were asserted to be some of the best business

names in London. The strength of both conjoined
was pronounced to be a sort of galaxy of commer-
cial magnificence, and their light so shone over the
country that the moths flew in thousands into the
flame.

There were the ill-advised widows—there

were the clergymen—the half-pay officers—all the
greedy who desired to share in the Twenty per
Cent. per annum paid in equal instalments every
half year. Blessings were showered on these
able men of business, as long as the poor things
only felt the genial glow ; and the shares of £5O,
on which £5 had been paid, rose to a hand-
some premium. It was a pleasure when the ge-
nial fac2s of that board of heavy respectability

smiled on the fluttering moths while announcing
the satisfactory business accomplished, the large
sum carried to the reserve, with the handsome balance
remaining for dividend, and no meeting was more
genial than the last, which occurred early in 1866,
when the usual dividend of 20 per cent was declared.

Three months after, the Company had smashed, and
the astonished shareholders then in the fire have
been learning ever since the value of the prospec-
tuses, of the audited accounts published, of the Chair-
man's speeches, and of the well-known names of the
able business men standing highest in the commer-
cial world of London. The enterprise was an ab-
solute and horrible ruin. Instead of the £5 share
being worth £9, a man was well out of it who mul-
tiplied and gave three times the sum paid up to be
rid of his liability. Yet men whose characters now
are not to be impeached, certified the sound nature
of the business done, and the large profits accumu-
lated three months before the shutters closed. Take
another instance recorded in the came article:—
" The chairman of the Credit Foncier of England has
convened a meeting of the Imperial Land Company of
It arseilles, now in liquidation, for Friday next, for the
purpose of submitting to them a statement of the condi-
tion and prospects of that company."
The chairman sent out a circular stating that the
liquidators of. the Imperial Land Company of
Marseilles were, in one word, making the most they
could for themselves and friends out of the assets;
and that bad the shareholders guarded their inte-
rests they would not have sanctioned those gentle-
men being placed in a position which enabled them
do so. Here is their reply :
" Our investigations have led to the astounding dis-
covery that the promoters of this company, while profess-
ing to pay for the purpose of certain property in Mar-
seilles the sum of £1,109,323, in reality paid only £344,604,
while the difference, £76,1,719, found its way into the
pockets of certain persons from whom we, the liquidators,
shall seek to recover it, and certainly we intend to take
proceedings for that purpose."

We do not get to the bottom of these proccedinga
in England, for the Law Courts are too tender of
commenial reputation, an I the press, un
like that of America, shies at this subject. hence
a rascality which involved millions sterling by the
scorehas scarcely furnishel a victim for the law.
Notwithstanding thattheknowledge of th..d6lionesty

of their fellows is implanted deep in the present gene-
ration, it has not been noised abroad, although all
the losses in New York from sharp practice, ten
times told, since the war would not equal that of
London in the single year-1866. The Erie clique
is made the most of, and that combination is at the
front of nearly all recent commercial offences in Ame-
rica against morality. But, in London, there are
many such combinations, though they be but poor
imitators. Yet, we go out of our congregation of re-
spectables to find instances to point morals and
adorn tales, and thunder denunciations against the
foreign iniquity over the heads of the solemn sin-
ners seated below with upturned eyes and demure
faces. The subject of greenback redemption is, as
usual, misrepresented by the Times. Mr. BouT-
WELL is described as pleading for honesty ; and the
view of the Finance Minister who endeavours to
entice his hearers into the payment in coin cannot
be, according to the Times, very re-assuring to the
creditor, that journal arriving at the conclusion that
it would be simpler and safer for Government Finan-
ciers to insist that
" A bargain is a bargain,' and that it is a sufficient rea-
son why the one party is bound to keep it that the other
party to it has made his arrangements on the faith of its
being kept."
As the Times gave itself ample space for the dis-
cussion of this subject, it might have explained that
the leader of the Democratic party was then stump-
ing the neighbouring State of Ohio, appealing to
the labouring men in the very words the Times
uses, that " a bargain is a bargain," and ought to
be kept according to the letter and to strict justice,
which, with great force, be showed was the payment
of the main part of the National Debt in greenbacks.
The Times assumes the absolute and unquestionable
right of the creditor to receive back the money he
had lent, and that specified in his contract ; and
this also is the ground of Mr. PENDLETON, the
money lent by the creditors being greenbacks, and
greenbacks also being the money specified in the
contract. Now,' says Mr. PE.NDLETON, those per-
sons who lent us greenbacks, and have Made an
enormous profit by the transaction, demand the
repayment in gold, although they made no such
stipulation when they lent the money. This was
what a leading politician and orator was saying in
Ohio on the eve of an important election, to which
Mr. BotrrwELL's speech was a reply. Viewed in
this light, the key is given, and Mr. BOUTWELL'S
argument fully understood ; but it does not suit
the Times to give this key, but to represent the
American people as parleying directly with dis-
honesty, and the Minister as endeavouring to prove
that they will act nobly in not being dishonest, as
well as wisely. It is curious to observe how in
each country the acts of the 'other are misrepre-
sented ; and it is a singular fact, which both ought
to take to heart and deeply ponder, that nearly all
the in either arises from this misrepresenta-
tion. Both go through frantic gesticulations, ham-
mering away at imaginary unfriendly ants, sending
their clubs through the empty air. That two such
nations should assume such positions is neither
more nor less than ridiculous. In a notice of the
Rev. NEWMAN HALL'S recent work, the Saturday
Review observes that no good is derived or can be
from flummery and the eternal brotherhood " bosh ;"
and we agree so far with the Review as to admit
that no sterling benefit can be extracted from what
is untrue. But, alas! it is not so with evil, for any
amount of injury may be the result of lies. Let us
in a kindly spirit on both sides recognize and write
the truth as nearly as we can ; and let England,
the source of the misrepresentation to which America
responded, and who repaid the generous leaning of
the younger on the opinion of the older with ridi-
cule and bitter vicious satire—set the other an
example of recanting error and discussing interna-
tional questions simply on their merits. Might we
• add, as a hint to the Saturday Review, that it would
be advisable, for it to learn a trifle about the, geo-
graphy of the country, such for instance, that St.
Louis is not in Illinois, and Colorado is not a State.

MISCELLANEOUS NEWS.

THE ADMISSION OF LADIES TO THE MEDICAL
PROFESSION.

The University of Edinburgh is the first in this
country to declare it compatible with her sex that a
lady should be a student of medical science. The
" faculty " had already admitted the advisability of
the innovation, and it was left to the Council to
carry it out. By some members of this body, how-
ever, the reform was stoutly opposed; and on Friday
the matter was discussed. On a vote, the admission
of women was carried by a large majority.

Alt. Bright's plan, derivea—froM ttle—experience- 01
Prussia, for converting tenants into proprietors
by the payment of au increased rent.
But legal security of tenure is the great
neces*y, and must form the fundamental
feature of the scheme. "Legal security of
tenure means leases in one form or another.
The main object of the Government Land Bill, there-
fore, will probably be the extension of leases, or the
equivalent of leases, to a very large proportion of
Irish tenants. The means employed for effecting this
object will, no doubt, be various, and mostly indirect,
but it may be necessary to reserve a power in the last
resort to do that on behalf of a bad landlord which
a good landlord would do for himself. For the exer-
cise of any such power, as well as to superintend the
process of transition, a strong commission or board,
armed with:a large discretion, would have to be esta-
blished." The Lauded Estates Court and the Board of
Works are two institutions which afford useful pre-
cedents for official control in dealings with land. The
extent of interference required will be limited mostly
to promoting one object :
The tenant is almost sure that lie will never be turned
out, except for obstinate non-payment of rent, and that
his rent will never be unfairly raised ; but he cannot
be quite sure, for the kindest landlord may be succeeded
by a tyrannical heir, or sell to a rapacious purchaser. The
problem is to give him, and still more to give his less for-
tunate neighbour, this certainty, without reducing the
landlord to a mortgagee or rent charger. To despair of
this problem would, indeed, be unworthy of statesman-
ship, nor do we see any difficulty to be encountered
equal to those overcome last session by the Reformed Par-
liament.

The Spectator, noting that the public mind is
rapidly advancing on this question, and that land-
lords and Conservatives are not backward with
generous proposals, advocates fixity of tenure, rents
settled by a tribunal, and compensation to landlords.
It argues that even compensation for improvements
does not justify eviction ; there is a powerful feeling
in the minds of all men in all countries against
arbitrary dismissal, no matter on what terms.
There is some value, it pleads, in occupancy as
occupancy. No settlement is likely to answer the
purpose if it does not relieve the tenant's sense of in-
security by recognising in a legal way the injustice of
arbitrary eviction—that his " post" is in some sense
equivalent to a property of which he ought not to be
capriciously deprived. The Spectator thinks that Mr.
Gladstone may pronounce for a lease from the State,
either in perpetuity or for a term of years. "If
landlords knew their own interest, they would declare
for perpetuity of tenure, with rents raised every
twenty-one years—certain that their children would
be the richest men in the kingdom."
Tie Standard deduces from the misty prophecies
of th,e oracles that the custom of the Ulster tenant-
, right will be the basis of the Ministerial scheme.
But will this concession satisfy the Irish ? The
Standard thinks not. The demand at the various
meetings that have been held has been for fixity of
tenure; but the Ulster custom falls far short of that
settlement. "The Ulster custom recognises no
permanent occupancy, an unvarying rent, or inde-
pendence of the occupier. It is simply a mode of
disposing of the one great practical injustice which
has been found to attend the Irish system of tenure,
namely, the non-recognition of the tenant's right to
his own improvements, upon a principle which on the
whole has been found to work, if not economically
well, at least politically and socially to the mutual
benefit of the landlords and the tenants of Ulster,
but for which there is no guarantee that it would
remedy any of the economical, political, or social
evils attendant upon the system of land tenure in the
other three provinces."