The Sun.
London, England, 1856-11-19 00:00:00

quillity. How much, for example, that is un-
questionably of a warlike character is there not
steadily looming in sight upon the political field
of vision at this moment—at this moment when
we are all crying "Peace, peace," according to the
old parrot wont of communities threatened with
some grand explosion of internecine and inter-
national conflict—probable WAR to the East with
Persia—possible WAR to the West with America !

Yonder a hostile Shah—yonder an inimical Pre-
sident ! Besides this—a variety of Timed ques-

tions, breeding and ill-blood among the na-
tions of Europe. Questions such as those involved
in the affairs of Naples—in those of the Isle of Ser-
pents—in those of the Straits of Yenikale ! Miser-
able little bones of contention over which the "dogs
of war" may very soon wrangle themselves iate
fresh struggles----fierce and sanguinary. And all
this while—with a rupture threatened at the Court
of Teheran, and another talked of in the council
chambers of King BOMEA, and gloom, and doubt,
and terrors of all kinds settling heavily down
upon the newly inaugurated Presidency of
BIICHANA.N—the gay old Barnacle, the spark-
ling old Barnacle, the light in hand old
Barnacle (meaning, of course, my Lord
Viscount PALMERSTON) is babbling at Manchester
with a sort of a jaunty superciliousness about the
haughty and supreme resolve of England, of the
Allies, to preserve this bran-new Peace—the Peace
of Paris—the Precious Peace—inviolate ! Words !
words ! That is all we have had yet—that is all
we are likely at this rate ever to obtain from our
present policy as the fruits of our magniloquent
diplomacy, as the results of our sanguinary cam-
paigns, as the climax and glory of all our ostenta-
tiously conducted negotiations. Russia, for ex-
ample, at the same time, retaining to the last the
battle-field of the Crimea, having Sebastopol re-
stored to her to reconstruct again at her leisure in all
its vast and formidable scheme orsystem of fortifica-
cations, having her former rank admitted anew at
the councils of the aggregated powers of Christen-
dom, having no indemnity extorted from her in
expiation of her wanton, and shameless, and
ruinous, and infamous aggressions ! Austria hold-
ing, month after month, within her grasp the
" material guarantee "—filched from the chief
contenders at the very outset of the conflict,
and retained in spite of them all long after
the date of its ultimate conclusion—the " ma-
terial guarantee" of the Danubian Princi-
palities ! Naples still to the last outraging
uninterruptedly the conscience of the Civilised
West by her judicial atrocities and the flagrantly
despotic ferocity constituting the secret motive
power of her abhorred Government ! Nothing,
in fact, anywhere discoverable in the condition
of the European family of nations calculated in
any way to console or to encourage—beyond the
happy reconsolidation of late of what appeared
very recently to have been rather seriously jeopar-
dised, namely, the one great pledge of the ulterior
triumph of Right over Might i❑ Christendom, the
glorious and, please GOD, solid and pernianent
Alliance, Aggressive and Defensive, cemented
between the two leading Powers of the world,
those of the French and English Governments !
That is the mainstay—that is the chief solace—that
is the sole good, as it seems to us, born out of all
this mass of incalculable and complicated evils.
The Anglo-French Alliance ! It may yet prove,
with the blessing of DIVINE PROVIDENCE it will
yet prove, the talisman of good to Christendom !
That is to say, of course, upon the one condition of
the sincerity of the two Cabinets, of the identity of
their views upon all the principal questions at issue,
upon thecordial recognition by each of what ought in
reason to be the common aim of both, the blending
together of the interests, and hopes, and aspira-
tions at once of the twin peoples and of their
Sovereigns. The Anglo-French Alliance once
absolutely consolidated—and the two countries
may laugh to score the simultaneous apparition
of the auguries of evil—advancing upon then' both,
or upon either of them, from the East and from
the West, from Persia or from the United States,
from any one or all of the surrounding nations of
the European Continent, from the old or from the
Lew hemisphere. Binding their rods of empire
together about• the weapons of their blende,,l
Power, the Axe of Battle must perforce be Lome
and remain in their grasp, the Fasces of an irre-
sistible domination.

On Monday we traced the causes of the leading
monetary crises from, the commencement of the
war in 1793 to the restoration of cash pay-
ments under the Act of 1819. In every
instance the distress was created by an undue
reduction of the paper circulation, and altogether
removed, or greatly alleviated, by an increased
issue. We shall now show that, notwithstanding
the necessity for exchanging the bank note for
gold on demand, similar events took place under
the new regime, and that the only thing which
ever endangered the convertibility of the bank
note was, at first, the timidity of the Directors,
which occasioned the panics ; and subsequently
the mischievous operation of the so-called " self-
acting regulator of the currency," which invari-
ably moved in the wrong direction, making
money, when plentiful, a mere " drug in the
market," and when scarce increasing the pressure,
and occasioning the wildest excitement and most
abject terror, by a very Impolitic contraction of
the issues at the critical moment.
The very preparations for carrying the Act of
11319 into effect brought back all the calamities
of 1816. The Bank had keen steadily importing
gold in 1819, 20, 21. The natural results fol-
lowed, so that Government was compelled to come
forward with measures for the relief of the exist-
ing distress at the commencement of the session

'of 1822. The general object of the various bills
introduced was to force four millions of bank
notes into the hands of the public, or, as the
then Premier, Lord LITERPOOL, declared, " to
extend and quicken the circulation." He con-
fessed that the means adopted might be in some
degree inconsistent with the security of the
recently adopted standard, but they were obliged
to brave the danger. The exigencies of the time
admitted of no alternative, and loans of bank
Paper were made to the Government, to public
works, to parishes, to landed proprietors—in fact,
iu any quarter where adequate security could be
offered for repayment.
It is needless to say that the addition of so
l arge a proportion to the active circulation of the
Sauk of England speedily led to an addition to
provincial circulation—the private banks being
then subject to no restrictions—and, as a matter
of course, to the discount of bills of exchange
and advances on all legitimate instruments of
credit. We have it on the authority of Lord
OVERSTONE, that, on any contraction of the circu-
tion of the country, bills of exchange would be
contracted in a much greater degree--or, to use
"in a very increased ratio." The
converse of proposition is also true, and any
expansion
w p aonsnor
ion
of the currency is
o
sfoll
rexedchbayngae.greTathlye
n eineerretegasei meansdcexPalisadopted of bills
speedily restored credit.
The nation recovered from its depression.
Everything was couleur de rose, and the then
Citancellor of the Exchequer (now Earl RIPON)
Wila enabled to speak so confidently of the general

welfare that he acquired the soubriquet of " Mr.

PROSPERITY ROBINSON."

The wiseacres of the day did not, however, dis-
cover the fact that if a considerable expansion of
the circulating medium produced activity and
comfort to the people an opposite course must be
attended with very different results. In the be-
ginning of 1825 the screw was stringently ap-
plied, and by the middle of March no less than
1,300,000/. of the paper issues had been re-
called by the Bank. Between the 15th Marsh
and 15th May, a further reduction of 700,0001.
took place, and by November, in that year, no
less than 3,500,0001. had been cut off from the
amount of bank notes in the hands of the public.
The results will not speedily be forgotten. A
terrible panic ensued. The Bank was nearly
drained of its gold. Only a few hundred thou-
sands remained in its coffers. An application
was made to the Government to authorise what
seemed the only available course—a suspension
of cash payments. Fortunately, a wiser policy
prevailed. As Lord ASIIBITIZTON, who conferred
with Lord LTVERPOOL, Mr. HIISKISSON, and the
then Governor of the Bank, stated, " The neces-
sity and pressure was purely domestic. The credit
of the Bank, for all domestic purposes, was
perfect. There was no man in the coun-
try who was not ready to take its paper
as a means of circulation, and to give even his gold
for it the moment he was assured his neighbour
would take it from him again. What was wanted
was something which everybody was disposed to
trust as a substitute for what everybody distrusted,
and the paper of the Bank of England answered,
in such a state of things, the purpose as well as
gold ; it may be said to have done so even better,
as being more transmissible, and reaching more
readily and rapidly the point where it was wanted."

" In this state of things the remedy for the
difficulty was obvious, and unanimously agreed to
by us. Although the Bank had no specie left a
large additional issue of notes was rna,da, and
about 1,500,000 of those of 11., which were
ciccidentally found to be in existence, were circu-
lated. The relief was immediate ! The country
received a circulating currency in which everybody
had entire confidence, and the useless gold was re-
turned to the Bank 1 The notes by this proceeding
were increased from 19,748,0001., in December,
1825, to 24,479,0001. in March, 1826, and
having served to relieve the pressure they gradu-
ally subsided before the end of that year to their
ordinary amount again of 19,951,0001., while the
bullion in the Bank was successively increased by
this increase of paper in opposition to the theory
of 1844, which pressure from such cause effected
a necessary diminution !"

It would be impossible to adduce a clearer or
more unequivocal proof than the foregoing, estv
Wished on such incontrovertible testimony, of the
beneficial results arising from a course diametri-
cally opposed to the principles advocated by Mer-
cator, and subsequently adopted by Sir R. PEEL,
and embodied in the Act of 1844. An extension
of the issues by nearly four millions and three-
quarters was made within three mouths, at a time
when " the Bank had no specie left," and the con-
sequence was that " the useless gold returned to
the Bank." This, however, would scarcely have
been the case but for the fortunate discovery cf.
the condemned 11. notes, which to the full extent
replaced an equal number of sovereigns, which
had previously been circulating from hand to hand
in the transactions of every-day life. The paper
was so much more convenient than bullion
that it was eagerly sought after, and
had the Bank possessed the power of circulating
more than the 1,600,000/. of 11. notes, there ii-
no doubt that they would joyfully have been
accepted by the people, and that the results would
be still more striking and decisive. A national
bankruptcy was averted by their use, which, as
Mr. JEREMIAII .FIARMAN, a well-known and expe-
rienced Director of the Bank, in his evidence
before the Bank Charter Committee in 18391
declared, "saved the credit of the country." The
same gentleman, on being asked whether it would
not be a proper course to " redeem the issues,
1 when the bullion should be greatly drained by an
unfavourable exchange," answered " Yes ; but
then comes another question, and that is the risk
that it may occasion to the commercial world, and
the possibility that, by omitting to take that
measure, some favourable turn would take place,
and render the convulsion that might ensue from
the measure itself unnecessary." The fact that
the subsequent convulsions have all been occa-
sioned by undue panics arising from the stringent
application of the bank screw establishes the
accuracy of Mr. HARMAN'S reasoning.
It might be supposed that the tried efficiency
of the 11. notes at such an emergency would have
led to their general , adoption throughout the
country. But as if to prove the infatuation and
recklessness of Ministers on the currency ques-
tion, the very following year, in 1826, a letter
was addressed by the Premier and- the Chancellor
of the Exchequer (Lord LIVERPOOL and Mr.
RuerNsoN), suggesting the policy of altogether
abolishing all notes under 51., a recommendation
that was shortly afterwards carried into effect in
England, although it was successfully resisted in
Scotland and Ireland. The business of both
countries has ever since been conducted in these
notes, and it is notorious that sovereigns are only
seen in the hands of some wandering tourists,
and when taken by the inhabitants are either
exchanged for notes at the earliest opportunity,
or withdrawn from circulation for the purpose of

hoarding.
The crisis from 1836 to 1840 was again pro-
duced by the reduction of Bank paper, and was
protracted simply because the Directors had not
the courage to adopt in due time the course that
had always proved successful. In 1839 the cir-
culation had been contracted to 15,317,010/.
At length, when the American trade had been
completely paralysed, and many of the leading
firms either compelled to suspend payment or
brought to the verge of bankruptcy, a wiser and
more liberal policy prevailed. An addition of
more than four millions was gradually made to
the Bank issues, which in 1843 stood at
19,361,4101., and prosperity was thus restored
to the nation.

We have thus tra'zed the history of monetary
crises during the s, cond great epoch, from the
restoration of cash payments, under the Act of
1819, to the ena( ,fitment of the impolitic code of
1844, which was, directly opposed to all previous
expecienoe, and, which, as we shall prove on an-
other oeeasion,, has totally failed to verify the
anticip ationa of_ its authors and supporters. One-
pound.notes Laved the country. They were with-
drawn. An increased issue relieved distress, and
brought hat lk gold to the Bank, and that was ren-
dered impo: ,sible by the absurd regulations which
seemed expl -essly framed to ruin the trading and
manufacturing interexts.

The issulc of the struggle just terminated in the
United Sta ,tts, however deplorable, has neverthd-
less a sign. ',,ficance which must not ISe overlooked.
lion than a struggle of parties, it has been a
struggle of, principles, in which have been arrayed
on the on s nide the most unscrupulous and grasp.

ing, and on the other the wisest and best, of the
community—a struggle between light and dark-
ness, between liberty and slavery, between pro-
gress and retrogression in morals and in politics—
a struggle whose issue in the very nature of things
can be but temporary, and must lead to a pro-
longation of hostilities, in which the vanquished

will assuredly be the victors, and the victory

glorious and irreversible, even if circumscribed by

the secession of the Slave States.

The prospect may be too remote to influence
the policy of many years to come ; but it must
not be forgotten that in the recent struggle ele-
ments have come into play previously dormant—
that while the advocates of slavery and piracy
have merely closed their ranks, the friends of
liberty and respect for international law have
enlisted on their side new and powerful
recruits. The sleeping respectability, so to
speak, of the Union, and the dreamy
students have issued from their retreats, if
not in imposing numbers, still in ,threat-
ening array. The brute carcass may weary, and
force be scattered, but the might of honesty and
the sovereignty of mind enlisted in a great cause
against superable odds never wearies, never sleeps,
and never is ultimately beaten. The brave men
and women of America, whose exertions in a holy
cause deserve the admiration of Europe, have no
cause for despondency. As surely as the sun rose
on the morrow following their defeat, so surely,
if they do not belie all reasonable promise, the
victory, and possibly sooner than is anticipated,
will be theirs. They have but to struggle on,
and the rays of the,morning light will hail their
per severance from the mountain tops.
To descend, however, to a lower level, and deal
with matters of more immediate, if not universal,

_ .
concern—let us at once say there is nothing for

us but to accept the choice of the Southerners as
the choice of the entire American people. We
do so without malice, if without any very plea-

curable anticipations for the future. Fear is
beneath the dignity and greatness of this cowp-.
try., and cannot be entertained preparation
is what is called for, and we trust such prepara-
tion will be made. Though the prospect be
gloomy it is not positively dark. In the Presi-
dent Elect, if we have a politician whose antece-
dents are calculated to excite a degree of appre-
hension, we have also a man of sagacity acquainted
with affairs, and by no means ignorant of the
spirit and resources of this country. He has
lived among us, and, if aware of our weakness, is
also aware of our strength. He knows cur en•
gagements, and has but recently had the strongest
possible proof that the people as well as the
Minister are earnest and capable to fulfil them.
Knowing this, his cards may be difficult to play ;
but with Great Britain armed against the worst,
he may be disposed to find in such a spectacle one
of many colourable reasons for backing out of the
aggressive policy of the democratic platform to
which he is pledged. The probable selection of
Judge DOUGLAS as his principal adviser may be
an ugly feature of his presidency, that gentleman
being the repealer of the Missouri compromise,
and having shown himself the ablest and most
unscrupulous advocate of the extension of slavery.
Rut there will be time and opportunity for both
to turn round, and unscrupulesity is no pledge for
consistency. If a favourable occasion for the
seizure of Cuba, or for any other filibustering
exploit, arises, no doubt the President and his
Qabinet will be forward to embrace it. The just,
though ini quiteus, expectations of the South will
not be disappointed without sufficient reason.
The fate of Cuba may, neverthless, be other than
the Southerners anticipate. They have no super-
abundant wealth—the North cannot be expected
to put forth its strength ix aid of their policy
(its attitude will, in all probability, be menacing),
they have a dangerous slave population, and war
may even to them be made to appear too dangerous
a game to play at.
On the attitude of this country, backed by the
resources of her allies, may be said to depend the
foreign policy of the new President. He cannot
be anxious to earn the unenviable reputation of
a filibuster ; he cannot be expected to precipitate
events which must infallibly—if we do our duty
—result in throwing the States fifty years
back, or bringing about an immediate and final
separation of the North and South. He is a
disciple of the expedient, and we must do our
best to insure the expedient being oa the side of
right. Giving him all reasonable credit for a
desire to serve his country in an enlightened
manner—it must not be forgotten that the South
is the victor in a life and death struggle, and that
it is mainly by annexation its political predominance
can be perpetuated. Te its promptings, eager and
insatiable, let us oppose the expression of a firm
resolution and a state of naval efficiency in p alp-
able accordance with it. By doing so we may
prevent war, save the South from the commission
of grave crimes, rescue the President from a
serious dilemma, and lend a moral support to the
North of which it will not be slow to avail itself.
At all events such preparation is an incumbent
duty ; and should the worst anticipations be rea-
lised, and the newly-elected President's career be
marked by piracy and aggression, we shall retire
from the conflict, hurt it may be, but neither
vanquished nor disabled.

CABINET COI3NOIL.—A Cabinet Council was held yes.
terday afternoon at the official residence of the First
Lord of the Treasury, in Downing-street. It was
attended by Viscount Palmerston, the Lord Chancellor,
Earl Granville, the Earl of Harrowby, Sir George Grey,
the Earl of Clarendon, Lord Panmure, Mr. Secretary
Labouchere, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Right
Eton. It. Vernon Smith, Lord Stanley of Alderley, and
the Right Ron. M. T. Baines.
His Excellency the Ambassador of France and the
Countess Persigny left town on Monday, on a visit to
the Earl and Countess of Derby, at Knowsley, Lance-

shire.
The Duke and Duchess of Richmond and party are
expected to. arrive at Goodwood, at the olose of this
week, from Gordon Castle, Fochabers, N.B.
The Duchess of Grafton left town yesterday, for
Wakefield Lodge, near Stoney Stratford. The Earl of
Euston remains in London.
The Countess of Jersey and Lady Clementina Villiers
are staying at the Bedford Hotel, Brighton. The noble
earl still remains at Middleton Park, Bicester.
The Court of Belgium has gone) into mourning for
four weeks, from the 16th, on account of the death of
' the Prince of Leiningen.
The Corriere Italian° announces that the Count de
Chambord will leave at the beginning of December for
Venice, where he will pass the winter.
) The Russian Legation at Rome has issued a notice,
reminding those whom it may concern of the articles of
the Imperial manifesto of Aug. 26 last, relating to pass-
ports and to the amnesty granted to those who have left
1 Russia without permission.
We learn that yesterday there were some fresh tran-
sactions at Lloyd's in insurance on the James Baines, at
) twelve guineas per cent. The impression in most quar-
ters seems to be that the delay in the arrival of this ves-
sel is accounted for by the recent easterly winds, which
have also kept out many other homeward-bound
vessels.
Mr. Pressly is now named as likely to succeed the late
Mr. Wood as Chairman of the Inland Revenue.
NJ r. Homan, according to letters received this morr-
ing, is fast recovering from the effects of his late acci-
dent.
We stated a few days ago that the body of an old man
named Stanley, " the Gipsy sing," had been found in
the river Dart. Circumstances have since transpired
which leave no doubt that the old man has been Enure
dered. Active exertions are being made by the poli&
to discover the ruffians.
g
The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland has been visiting his
Northumberland estates. His lordship dined a few days
ago at Morpeth. The meetin was private.
A further sum of 21. 10s. per share is to be payable to
1 ' the shareholders of the British Colonial Bank and Loan
je,Company on the 20th inst. '
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