The Sun.
London, England, 1858-09-08 00:00:00

CALCUTTA AND CHINA MAILS.

SOUTHAMPTON, TUESDAY NIGHT.
The Indus steamer, Captain. Evans, has arrived.
She left Alexandria on the 24th ult., Malta on
the 28th, and Gibraltar on the 2d instant. She
brings 92 passengers, £4,542 in specie, five cases of
shawls, 629 packages of gum, and 12,2 packages of
sundries. At Alexandria she left her Majesty's
gunboat Vigilant, and the Princess Royal at anchor
off the harbour; her Majesty's ships Hibernia,
Caradoc, and Spitfire were at Malta. The brigantine
Alert, of Liverpool, with salt from Cadiz for Rio
Grande, was discharging part of her cargo, at Gib-
raltar to repair a leak. The United States' frigate
Macedonian, Captain Levy, 37 days from Key
West, arrived at Gibraltar on the 28th ult., and
salutes were exchanged with the garrison. The
Sultan steamer, with the outward Bombay mails
from Southampton, arrived at Gibraltar on the Ist
inst. The French squadron, from Brest for Toulon,
passed the garrison at noon on the 26th.
The British merchant steamers Calpe, Danube,
and Scamander, from Liverpool, and the Gibraltar,
from London, had arrived at Gibraltar.
Exchanges at Gibraltar were quoted—London,
50k ; Paris, 528; Marseilles, 530 ; Genoa, 531;
Madrid, 1 dis. ; Cadiz, 1 dis. ; Malaga, 1 pm. ;
Seville, 1 dis,; Alicante, s dis.; Valencia and Bar-
celona, par.

BRITISH LOSSES BY BANK FAIL URES.

Messrs. Waterlow and Sons have issued a curious
statement of the " British Losses by Bank Failures
from 1820 to 1857." The "Inferential Results',
arrived at by the compilers are as follows

In considering the evidence afforded by the preceding
tables, detailed analysis is, for broad practical purposes, un-
necessary. The salient points of conclusion are distinct and
appalling, and may be conveniently taken in the following
order of consecutive enumeration. Nis snbmitted,:-
1. That notwithstanding the honour and undoubted suf-
ficiency of the majority of bankers, the number of bank
failures in the United Kingdom, including branches, having
been 972 in the course of the last 37 years, or at the ave-
rage rate of 26 per annum, the public may expect, under
the present systems of banking, to be exposed, at shortly
recurring periods, in some place or other, to the sorrows of
bank stoppage.
2. That along with anticipations oflailure may be asso-
ciated fears that it will be of serious amount, and conse-
quently of difficult settlement ; for the liabilities of the
banks which stopped payment during the 37 years having
amounted to £153,057,868, it follows that the stoppages
were at the average rate of £1,200,000 per annum, or
£162,000 per fortnight for each insolvent establishment.
3. That on the occurrence of failure, the dividend paid
durinr, the 37 years having been £114,843,061 in five years,
against a liability of £153,057,868, creditors cannot, on the
average, hope for a larger dividend than 15s. in the pound,
or for a quicker rate of payment than 3s. per annum.
4. That the stoppages of the 37 years having been of the
aggregate annual value of £4,200,00d, and the dividends
not having discharged more than three. fourths of the lia-
bilities, and at the rate only of 3s. per annum, the public
may expect, under present circumstances, to be always 18
millions sterling out of pocket, and to be always losing one
million sterling per annum by bank failures at home.
5. That the principles of joint-stock banking, in their
practical application, have afforded no exception, either .in
England or Scotland, to the organic tendency to loss which
constitutes so terrible a feature in the history of private
banking ; for it appears—First. That on 21 years, occurring
in the course of 32 years, from 1825 to 1857, no less than
77 joint-stock banks failed ; and that as they had 463
branches, the calamities of bank stoppage fell on as many
as 540 places, at the average rate of 26 places per annum.
Second. That the amount for which the 77 banks failed
was about £54,000,000, and that, consequently, the liabili-
ties on each failure were about £700,000, or £lOO,OOO for
each of the 540 places. Third. That in addition to the
losses of the public, the shareholders in the 77 insolvent
banks suffered a loss of more than £18,000,000.
6. That upon a fair induction of the 37 years' experience,
the causes of failure in the case of private banks may be
chiefly attributed—to unwarrantable uses of bank moneys in
chance speculations ; to unreasonable, disproportionate, and
unsecured advances ; to unjustifiable absorptions of bank
funds by bankers themselves, in furtherance of their own
private trades and manufactures ; and in the case of joint-
stock banks—to the want of honest, intelligent, responsible
management ; and to the temptation of making undue
profits for shareholders, whereby the Capital of a bank has
oftentimes proved the means of its destruction. But com-
bined with these active sources of dissolution, and common
to both descriptions of banking, were others no less
destructive. First, a propensity for public adventure,
under the influence of which, on every season of general
speculation, the banks, instead of standing prudently aloof,
came forward and identified themselves with the popular
mania, whatever it might be. Next :—A dread and a jealous
avoidance of that publicity which is the true guardian of a
bank, and in the absence of whiehthe confidence of the bank
customers becomes more a matter of hope than of settled
trust. The trust of the public, in respect of a bank, ought
not, at the most, to exceed the trust required in ordinary
commercial transactions ; but under the system of secresy
pursued by the banks, made terrible by frequently recur-
ring disaster, the trust observed appears to have been more
like thatlwhich the man displays who plants his vineyard
on the side of a smoking volcano, and hopes that no cony ul-
sion will happen in his time. Now,. no feeling can be more
fatal to the existence of a bank than mistrust of its sufficiency,
or to the extension of banking, than doubts of its just adminis-
tration. Yet these perilous apprehensions were generally
entertained and widely promulgated. It happened, there-
fore, that in the absence of knowledge which prevailed
respecting the true position of banks, while many suffered
serious loss of business,
i others sank under the accumu-
lated suspicions which t was thought the observance
of a " dignified reserve" might have silenced. Finally:
—A want of frequent and exact audits, without which
a bank is as little to be trusted as a ship at sea deprived of
sun or stars, destitute of chart or compass. Few of
the departed banks seem to have ventured on such tests
for themselves, and fewer still to have submitted them to
public scrutiny. Had such investigations been habitually
made, or their results partially revealed, the public must
certainly have been spared the misery of bearing such an
astounding. load of debt as eighteen millions sterling con-
stantly owing by insolvent banks.
7. That in addition to the losses by home and colonial
banks there have been others by American and continental
establishments, which, in the course of 37 years, have swollen
the aggregate loss of money to nearly ninety millions, or little
short of two millions five hundred pounds per annum. But
even this amount stops utterly short of the final truth. For
when the loss of interest, the loss of credit, the ruin of retail
trade, the charges of law, the disorganisation in all money
transactions, and the numerous bankruptcies caused by tho
cruel abuses of trust involved in bank stoppages, are taken
into consideration, the loss is incalculable.
8. That bank failure—from the misery it has inflictad,
the mistrust it has engendered, and the obstructions it has
opposed to the growth of good morals, the n cultivatio tof
frugal habits, and the advancement of sound trade--is obe
regarded as the opprobrium of the Victoria era.
9. That the causes in which bank failures originate being
within remedial limits, the constitution of a safe bank ought
not to be regarded as of difficult attainment. The path to it
is apparently discernible under a new form of association,
and in that direction the compiler of these tables may shortltyo
venture, in the absence of any adequate measure of relief,
ask the public to aid him in its development. The name of
the Bank of England, like those of many of our private and
public banks, has come to be synonymous with " slifedety,"
and, should a system of ordinary security be provid, it
will rest with the public to secure for every new under-
taking a corresponding degree of reputation, and to obtain
from all the most amplecuritY exchans for continued
confitlence.