The Sun.
London, England, 1858-08-20 00:00:00

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THE BANK ACTS COMMITTEE.

(Ft mu the _7_ler/eyehire Courier.)
Fnotn the tired-know !notably Circular of Messrs. Little-
dale and Co., wh:ch may he tehen to represent the epinions
of a considerable portion of the more intelligent of the cote-
mereiel body, we extract the felon-tee:remarks, on which
we purpose to offer a few oeseeeelje„
" The mountain in labour has brought fit tit a moose,' or
the poreatoes eenatnittee on the too t important question of
the day, the Back Act of 1844, after sitting through two
sessions of Parliament has brought its labours to a close, by
doing nothing ! It was pretty evident from the moment the
names constituting the committee were given, that no in-
novatioes dangerous either to the principles if that Act or
the pockets of the money-lenders would be introduced, but
after the reeeltion of tee disasters of 1847, in the autumn
of last year, it was scarcely thought ptosible that the com-
mittee could pronounce the Act scatheless, and confirm it as
the best that can be devised for the regulatioe of our mone-
tary system. It is the eld fable of the bundle of sticks ex-
emplified, that whilst the advocates of the measure are
united by the strongest of all ties, self-interest—those who
condemn it are divided into as many deities of opinion 39
there are names, scarcely two agreeing in the remedies to
be suggested. So long as this is the case,—that few men
can be found who will give the question the necessary atten-
tion to arrive at a sound conelusiote—and of those who have
done so, the greater part adopt some crotchet of their own,
which they will not give up or even modify to conform to
the opinion of others—so long, in fact, as no remedy can be
agreed upon as a rallying point by all, so long will the oppo-
nents of the Act fail is getting relief from its destructive
action, and must await the certain return of another panic
in clue time."
What is said as to the lame and impotent conclusion of
the Bank Acts Committer, is perfectly true—" after sitting
through twe sessions of Parliament it has brought its labours
to an end by doing nothing!" The principle of the Act of
1814 and the " pockets of the money-lenders" are un-
touched. There cannot, we believe, be found, in the his-
tory of Parliamentary Committees,
t,iscee ,
cf,iaitie:itnheirhiensstpanaccee fieirf
record of en Act which, having n
ten years been brought to a dead I.ck, has been left entirely
emelt-tended, and for tfe iniu-y and wroeg inflicted by which
Aet ro tea.et.ty weetever has been suggested. The iota! in-
competency of the House of Commons' Committee to deal
with the question is thus abundantly proved. The com-
mittee was packedeo support Bultionist principles; Sir C.
Wood, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Cardwell, Sir G. C. Lewis, Sir
J. Graham, with a number of their followers, the old do-
nothing party, were the staple of the committee. A few
waterers, such as Mr. Wil=on, Mr. Glyn, with the renegade
currency reformers, Mr. The and Mr. ball, were added for
decency. Mr. Spanner and Mr. Cayley alone represented
the cause of thorough reformation. The greater part of the
witnesses examined were hank directors, joint-stock hankers,
and others directly interested iu the preservation of the
existing system, theorists who were pledged to the Act of
1844. The whole thing wns a sham and a delusion, and the
report of the committee is of a piece with the whole pro-
ceedings.
There is also a portion of correctnem in the observations
of the circular as to the division of opinion among the ad-
vocates of currency reform. This disision, however, re-
solves itself principally into two sections. There is the
Tooke patty which, taking its stand on the bill of 1819,
objects to that of 1844, and there is the party of sound Cur-
rency Reformers who condemn the bills of 1819 and 1844
ale gether.
As to the Tooke party, we believe Lord Overstone to be
quite right in saying that their position is quite untenable.
The Bill of 1844 was a mere " complement" of that of
1819. It was a measure of detail intended to give working
effieiency to the monetary system which Peel introduced
into this country in 1819. We say introduced, for several
of the important alterations made by the Bill of 1819 were
entire novelties and experiments. It the principle of the
Bill of 1819 was correct, the Bill of 1844 is also correct.
Tire other party, the real Currency Reformer's, are quite
consis•ent. They oppose both bills, that of 1819 as intro-
ducing a vicious and unsound principle, and that of 1844 as
strengthening and confirming that principle. They are
more united at the preseneeitne than they have ever been.
The evidence given in thF Committee by Mr. Twelle, Mr.
Alexander, and Mr. Capps, and the reports preeented by Mr.
Caeley and Mr. Spooner, support the same great principle
of Currency Reform. Gold at its market price is the basis
of their system. In carrying this principle into effect, there
is no desire to insist upon any particular "crotchet." If it
be though' desirable not to interfere at present with the ex-
isting banking system, an issue of 20 millions of Exchequer
Not of £1 aid upwards, receivable for taxes, would be a
protection from panics. This is a plain, practical proposi-
tion, and ntight be effected without difficulty and without
delay.
We warn the Joint-stock. Banks and the Money power
generally, that if Currency Reform be delayed by their selfish
opposition,--a reform which will sweep away their monopoly
is inevitable.

And, come that reform ult2n it may, the effect will be to
establish free trade in banking-, as well as to overturn the
principle established by Peel's Bill of the ctlnvertibility of
the Bank Note at a fixed rate.

11'e say, lastly, that it is the supineness of the commercial
body, and not the divisions among Currency Reformers,
which prevents present and immediate reformation.

(From the Times.)
Although the Bank Committee shrink, as we have said,
from offering their opinion on the more important points
involved in the order of reference, they have no objection to
the hunting down of small and easily-dcected fallacies, and
such small deer have no mercy to expect. Thus, the Com-
mittee most successfully controvert the preposition that
Government fixes the price of gold, " alth9ugh the topic
has not much presented itself in their inquiry," and show
triumphantly that a sovereign is nothing more than a piece
of gold weighing nearly a quarter of an ounce, and verified
at the Mint by a stamp. Just es conclusively is it made out
that a £3-note is given by the Bank for five sovet eigns—
the bullion being pnrvitlztt by ihe public, the stamp and the
£5-note being found by the Mint and the Bank respectively.
Thn, having cleared -the way, the Committee proceed to
touch on the mair, question referral to them—the true
principles, namely, upon which the currency ought to be
iegulatcd. V‘, -itat we had a right to expect oas a dear and
irnpart;al statement of the -views of the different witnesses
exs'Aiw.d before the committee, and then a summing up of
the whole, slotting to each argument its due weight, and
pointing out on which side the balance of reason and
authority preponderates. The course taken is singularly
tortuous. For the views of the meat eminent writers en
the currency we arc referred, nut, as we might reasonably
have expec,ed, to their writings, hot to the evidence
taken before the Committee in 1837. We are told
that the evidence is very interesting, hit that a review
of the evidence involves subjects of cuntriversy, on which
no conclusion could be arrived at without much difference
of opinion, and that the Committee are therefore desirous
of excluding those subjects from their report. This is cer-
tainly a remarkable way of reasoning. The Committee
was appointed from persons professing every shade of opinion
with regard to the currency, and yet, because the result of
the investigation was not yet been, as nulyAly could expect it
could be, to make this Committee unaniipous, they declined
to report at all on the main suljeet intruked to them. This
was, we think, a bad resolution, but if come to, it would
be as well to adhere to it. The abstinence was by no means
s) total as promised. It is stated immediately after the de-
termination of excluding the currency fimn the Currency
Report, that the pubic welfare in times of disaster requires
the maintenance of an adequate supply of bullion in the
Bank,—a proposition plahtly tautologous, for an adequate
supply must always he required. It is then argued that
since the Act of 1814 the supply of bu lion has been
£8,313,000 in 131;; and in 1837, £6,080,000; against
£1,`261,000 in 1825 and £3,831,0011 in 1837. This is surely
an argument in fat our of the Act of 1844 and of

the view of the currency on which that Act is founded,
though not a very strong one, because there are other ways
by which an adequate supply of bullion might be preserved
in times of distress besides the machinery of the Act of I@4l.
Then the opinion of the Bank Directors is quoted. The
Directors would not have ventured to dive tire aseistance
they did in the recent crisis if their stock of bullion had been
much low, r. 'Lair stock of bullion was maintained high by
the Act of 1841, and therefore the Act of 1814 was to them
not a fetter, but a support. The Committee must have
been curiously constituted if it was able to agree on state-
ments like these, but could not come to any cos:elusion as
to the grounds of abstract reasoning on which alone the
prepositions that the welfare of the community requires
a large amount of bullion in the Bank in critical
times, and that the Act of 1845 provides such an
amount in such times, can be supported. For our part, we
regret to say that we cannot give our assent to either of
these propositions,—in the sense, at least, in which they
would be ordinarily understood. It is not the business of
the Legislature to exercise any control over the amount of
bullion in the Bank, nor is it desirable that that amount of
bullion•should be at any time greater or less than is deter-
mined, without the intervention • of laws or banks, by the
continually fluctuating value of the precious metals in
different couutriCS at afferent times. The true praise of the
Act of 1841 is not that it has given ne a large reserve at any
particular time, but that it lti always given us exactly the
same reserve as we should Lave bad it' the currency had
been purely
metallic, and has therefore enabled us to dis-
pmse with the use in our circulation of L 14,000,000 of geld.
This is an abject within the reach of It gislation which can
be, and we believe has been, obtainee. The other,—that of
keeping more gold in the Mink than would otherwise be
there,—is an object quire out of the reach of legislation, and,
were it attainable, would be highly undesirable, as involv-
ing an interference with the free circulation of the metals.
Facts involve theories, and the attempt to reason on facts
without reference to theory is very apt to involve, as in the
present instance, the tacit assumption of untenable prin-
ciples.
After having declined to review the evidence taken before
them
most the
natural
a tCommitteeand
eporro,
scieset
ed
n,
tas s itfe
ptheiyn were
the t
wa
thein
investigate and give an account of the evidence taken
before them in favour of the Act of 1844. Tide
account is very brief. The theory is, that bank-
notes are money ; that their circulation cannot fell
below a certain point ; that fourteen millions are
below that point, and, therefore, that fourteen millions of
notes may be issued without requiring a corresponding
amount of bullion; and that the increase of the currency is
the act of private Individuals, and not of the Bank or the
State. Having thus broken down their own rule, we
certainly expected, and, we think, not unreasonably, that
the committee would have done even-handed justice, and, as
they have stated the arguments in favour of the present law,
that they would have given the views of Mr. Newinarch,
Mr. John Mill, and Mr. Weguelin in the contrary direction.
Tbis,however, is not done, and we profess ourselves utterly
unable to understand for what purpose this partial view of
the evidence is introduced. Nor can we see shy the com-
mittee should labour to prove that the advocates of the
theory of the Act of 1844 are far from contending that their
theory is completely carried into effect by its provisions.
The proposition is not supported by the ra'her inflated ex-
tract from Lord Overstone's evidence which is hung upon
it ; but, even if it were, it riguities little foruhat toe top-
p •t;c; ut ;in: theory cuntend, butrather whether the theory
supports the Act, and whether the principles of politicallat
economy support the theory. Nor can we conceive w
matters whether or no Sir Robert Peel regarded his Act as
theoretically perfect. Without reference to authority any
man of common sense can see where the theory of he Act
is adhered to and where it is deviated from. The theoryf is
carried out by the payment of gold forapeapsesruaend
parer
departmentor
gold. It is deviated from by inakieg i
existing banks of isene. These
in favour of the notes cf
a part of the Bank of England, and by the reservation
poor subterfuge from
the it appears to us a. very
are very slight deviations from abstract theory, and we
the performacce of an imperative duty to say, because the
Act ef 1844 does not in every detail fellow the theory on
which it is founded, that therefore the appointed Committee
If the
to inquire into the policy of that Act are dispensed from the
necessity of looking into the theory
theory is right the Act is right; if the theory is wrong.the
Act is wrong. That is a strange logic which treats the
theory as irrelevant and immaterial.

Mu. ALFRED WIGAN.—We learn from the West
Sussex Gazate that Mr. Alfred Wigan has taken a house
at Brighton, which he purposes to make his future residence.
Since he has been at this favourite watering-place hie health
is so neatly restored that it is hoped be may be again able
to resume his prolessiouAl avocations ere long.