The Sun.
London, England, 1860-12-21 00:00:00

STRAND THEAT.R.E.

Last evening Mr. J. Clarke, the favourite comedian,
took his benefit, on which occasion the house was crowded
to excess. The entertainments consisted of the new
and deservedly successful drama of the " Post
Boy," and several good farces, amongst which
was "Anthony and Cleopatra," The part of Anthony was
of course sustained by Mr. Clarke, who acquitted himself
with his usual ability. Miss M. Oliver appeared for the
first time as Cleopatra, and a more piquant piece of acting
cannot be imagined. The celebrated pas was given with
great spirit; and from the applause that followed the
descent of the curtain, a new "run" seems destined for
this very capital piece.

SAVINGS BANKS.—In the year ended the 20th of
November last the deposits made in the Bradford Savings-
bank exhibited t} total increase of £27,834 16s. Bd., and the
number of depositors an increase of 896. There were in
all 9,130 depositors, having open accounts amounting to
£207,617 19s. 9d. The sum received during the year
amounted to £61,839 6s. 9d., and the payments, including
awosiimteohsan flllo,gTp between
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the Havre
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of
fatovirnrmeeterest, to £39,672 12s. 7d. Last year
was the most prosperous one which the Bradford Savings-
bank has yet had.
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abolition of passports.

DISTRESS IA ?RADE CAUSED BY
LOANS TO FOREIGN GOVERAMENTS.

- Every attempt has been made upon each renewal
of the Bank Charter to push into circulation the
notes of that establishment, and to withdraw those
of ether banks, or load them with burdensome
restrictions and prohibitions. Thus to uphold one
single monopoly, to the great prejudice of the
public, is unjust to other bankers and to the entire
nation--the effect of which is now showing itself
in trade generally. Banks that used to accommo-
date their clients are now so circumscribed that
they can only do so with difficulty, always taking
care that large men only are those upon whom
they look favourably. The hard-working, plodding
man stands no chance during these torturing pres-
sures that now so frequently take place. Having
no voice nor position, his miseries must be endured
in silence; to the usurious discounter he is driven
by the pressure which he formed no part in brin.
ing about. Who forms that desolating 'oul-
destroying pressure now occurring at every eiange
of the wind ? Who, but the dealers in gold, com-
posed of speculators of the Bank of Engla4l down
to all speculators in betting rings and on exchanges,
men who toil not by production, but exercise tricks
that can be practised upon those that do. Now,
traffic in money has become such a profitable trade
that its members are grown rich, thereby powerful
enough to insult the common sense of the com-
mercial body by sending gold away, in
order to make it more scarce at home,
by which it becomes more valuable to them
and less attainable by commerce. This exportation
of money upon foreign loans and Government secu-
rity is now the great bane of English commerce.
First of all, because it is not bearing its proper share
in taxation ; gold lent abroad by the English people
ought ever :to be taxed wherever it goes by Great
Britain, otherwise taxation bears doubly hard upon
those remaining at home. The answer may by some
be made to this remark that the loaner rests in
England, therefore his profits are taxed in his
income and property tax. I must protest against
such a mode of argument, for money lent abroad in
loan to Governments ought to pay the self-same tax
that would attach to it were it to remain in Eng-
land. That same money remaining in England,
borrowed by a manufacturer, would pay a tax in
addition to the tax derived by the loaner ; the
loanee would also pay a tax upon the profit's of the
money borrowed ; this last tax is lost to England,
causing a double pressure of taxation upon those
who remain at home. This is taking a new view
of the consequences of foreign loans, and account-
ing for the difficulty English people now experi-
ence in paying their taxes, and also the increased
difficulty they have in paying their way at
all. Drained of their circulating, medium
at home, by having it taken out of
its natural channel, England's suffering has
grown to be unendurable. Anxieties are by
this money exportation rendered an inflic-
tion, destroying soul and body, destroying the best

and most honest minds ; for the devil-may-care
speculator feels nothing, has no conscience, forms
not one of the producing power, but trips up those
who do, and whose minds are necessarily so absorbed
wholly about productions that they do not study
money laws, though they so directly concern them.
The distress of 1860 is frightful and sinful to the
State that seeks not to apply the remedy.
This remedy is at hand, and needs only a little
honesty and fair legislation. It can be made to
appear to be very intricate, but in reality it is not,
nor need it appear to be in the eyes of any man
of business.

The money laws simplified are not intricate, the
technicalities of jobbing in money has nothing to
do with money ; the man that really understands
the monetary system knows as little about its
jobbery as possible.
Money laws to be wholesome must favour the
producing power, not the speculating power, which
never ought to have been allowed an existence.
All other nations are making attempts to supply
their public with a currency and circulating
medium, but Great Britain; this unfortunate
island, so rich in wealth, is most neglected in her
home circulation ; the result is fearfully felt in
England at the present moment. The tortures of
Neapolitan dungeons were not more agonising than
is that horrid pressure on the brain caused by the
sudden and frequent tightness in the money market
brought about by the tricks in the money loaners
and speculators. It is a sin of the worst descrip-
tion, for it leaves the honest industrious man worse
off by his industry, worse off by his attempts to be
honest; for while money tricksters have the
making of their own laws by which they impose
upon industry, there is no help nor hope for fair
enterprise.
The remedy is, first, to tax all the money lent
abroad—the tax to be paid by the borrowers so long
as the money shall be retained by them, at the same
rate that Great Britain pays, viz., 10d. per an-
num. Freetraders will call out, this is Protection !
Yes, I answer ; but against what ? It is Protection
against the ruin that must fall upon English com-
merce without it.
It also forms a provision for that extension of
banking operations, that must render England the
greatest nation in the world, without loss to her
domestic operations.
Great Britain will thus render all nations tribu-
tary to the vast empire from which they derive their
monetary resources.
It is unjust, indeed, to punish home commerce by
withdrawing from it that which it laboured so hard
to obtain, and having obtained, has a right to a
•
voice in retaining.

Bankers must always be allowed good profits, and
trade must ever uphold a respectable body of men
as bankers. They necessarily must be responsible
and wealthy men ; but before Great Britain should
extend her influence wider over the face of the

globe, paramount to her extension is the just prin-
ciple of action on which all things should be based.
Her greatness should only be commensurate with
her fairness universally, because warfare and ex-
pense are ever the consequence of unjust oppression,
sooner, or later, undermined by unsound laws.
Its greatness apart from this can never be upheld ;
while also history shows us that a nation never has
had peaceful permanence where it has not had
justice.

Bankers might say, why it is impossible—foreign
loans never can be taxed ; individuals have a right
to lend their own money the same as merchants
have a right to export merchandise ; but I answer
that the merchandise and the medium by which
you measure the value of that merchandise are two
distinct values. By sending merchandise away
from England we do not increase the value of it,
because we have an indefinite power of production
by virtue of the money. The more we export, the
more we can make for further exportation. Not
so with money and gold bars. The money metals
are chosen because of their invariability of supply,
thereby giving a fixity of measurement of value,
Gold cannot be manufactured to an indifferent
extent ; a slow supply only furnishes the bullionists
with their specie. The difference is as great as
distinctions can make them between money definite
and manufactories indefinite.

Beyond this argument there is another of greater
importance: by exporting money on loans the nation
is minus that plus which the foreign state has
received. England, therefore, short of the very
amount gone abroad, suffers first by the want of it,
after that by the departure of that money which
while remaining in England would have yielded
an amount of taxation to the State which the re-
maining capital left has to pay.
Again, it may be said that England is taxed
upon her capital, therefore the loaner holds his
capital denomination, if not his money, and is
taxed upon his income therefrom.
This is true; but this would be the case were the
money lent at home•, the capital denomination would
be the same, but another at home would be
paying his income tax at home which he derived
from the loan at home ; this second income tax
is lost to the State, and, perchance, a third and a
fourth. Money multiplying by money made at
home causes more than a second payment of in
come tax from our sum of money loaned during

the year.
The capital twice turned over pays twice the

amount of income tax ; so in every way both the
State and the individuals composing it suffer, and
are minus all that amount lent also ; we are short
the profits as well as the tax that would be deriv-
able upon the money lent abroad to foreign Go-
vernments.

It is a game that answers well the purpose of
foreign countries, but it is astonishing that this
nation remaiY.is so short-sighted, or not so short
sighted, knowingly and selfishly carrying on this
money traific regardless of the injury we do to
commerce and to the nation.

Foreign countries may argue that gold is sent to
England first of all, and by the9e foreign supplies
England is enabled to resupply other countries,
but this is an argument without analogy, for when
builionists receive gold bars they buy them ; they
do not borrow them, but pay for them in bona fide
currency.

England has become the emporium both for th©
receipt and. export of bullion, but England bor-
rows not from other countries, so that other coun-
tries productive of gold stand in no different rela-
tion to England, than do countries that supply
other articles for manufacture, since they do not
lend. to England. In order to illustrate my mean-
ing; more clearly, take the round sum of £2,000,000
as the amount at present lent abroad.
This amount, taxed as a tributary tax, at the
rate only of our present income tax of 10d. in the
pound, would yield annually £8,333,333 Os. Bd., a
good. round sum to apply to the reduction of taxes
at home.

But 10d. is placed on the income, not on the
property, will be argued with much seeming
cogency. My answer is made by the fact of the
earnings of labour, which is property as much as
money lent. This, already-, is taxed at 10d. in the
pound.

We shall find that £200,000,000 is only a small
item in foreign loans. When we take out of the
amount of European nations the two great national
debts of England and France, estimating one to be
£780,000,000 and the other £340,000,00, we shall
find in round figures the sum of £1,023,000,000 to
be the amount remaining of the European national
debts, composed of—Russia, £300,000,000 ; Aus-
tria, £315,000,000 ; Spain, L 147,000,000 ; Holland,
£96,000,000 ; Prussia, £32,000,000; Sardinia,
£35,000,000 ; Belgium, £25,000,000 ; Denmark,
£23,000,000 ; all others, £50,000,000 total,

£1,023,000,000.
Taking therefrom £600,000,000 to have been
borrowed from England, at least, 10d. in the pound
would leave, as a tributary fax to Great Britain,
the enormous sum of £24,999,999. Now, 25 mil-
lions of money is enough to attract the attention of
a Chancellor of her Majesty's Exchequer. This
would be only placing the money lent abroad upon
the same rate of taxation as money earned at home.
If it be said that 10d. is too much, so much the

better; for foreign loans having furnished English
commerce so much, they ought to bear a prohibi-
tory tax, as home commerce is suffering just in pro-
portion to the amount lent abroad.