The Sun.
London, England, 1858-10-15 00:00:00

fforts in the good cause may be often yet annually
renewed, and that their highest aspirations may be
fully and rapidly realised.

The Directors of the Bank of England separated
yesterday without any alteration in the minimum
the of discount, which still remains at 3 per cent.

per annum; no very extravagant price, after all,
and which commercial men engaged in legitimate
operations would at any time willingly pay. The
Times is, however, furious. Although once pretend-
ing to be influenced by prudential considerations,
and condemning the Bank for making money too
cheap, it has, by a bold act of tergiversation, re-
versed all its former opinions, and is desirous of
" sowing the storm in the hope of reaping the
whirlwind."
It speaks of the " injustice to debtors," in keep-
ing up the price of money at 3 per cent., or one-
sixth beyond the ordinary market rate. It is
almost the first time that the leading journal has
affected any regard for this class, and well may they
echo the exclamation of LAOCOON—
" Timeo Danaos et dona ferentas."

The love is that of the spider for the fly. If dis-
counts be reduced to 1 or 2 per cent. there is
every probability that they will increase to 10 or
even 20 !

For a century and a quarter they never rose
beyond 5 per cent., and never fell beyond 4. There
were no violent extremes, none of those fluctuations
which, as Mr. COBDEN declared, occasioned
" greater evils, social and moral, than the failure of
all the Banks of Issue that ever suspended pay-
ment." We have repeated this statement of the
once popular Free Trader usque ad nauseam.
It is familiar to the ears of our readers ;
but we give it again because it clearly and
distinctly expresses a great fact, having an impor-
tant bearing on the welfare, happiness, and pro-
sperity of the nation, and such as the quondam
Member for the West Riding knew how to turn to
the best use. That he has changed his mind on
such a point is deeply to be regretted ; but we may
appeal from the committee-man who gave a cast-..
ing vote in favour of the Act of 1844, to the agita-
tor who earnestly, enthusiactically, and efficiently
demanded a repeal of the obnoxious law.
Every sentence that has recently appeared in the
Times against the Bank of England, or its once
favourite correspondent, "The Country Banker," is
fatal to the Peel-Overstone enactments. It has
but just ascertained that fact, and it is conse-
quently proportionately indignant, and it deals out
its censure with indiscriminate vehemence. " The
hard calculators," its esteemed pets, cannot enter
into a speculation so nicely balanced that the dif-
ference in the Bank rate of I per cent., or
between 21 and 3 per cent., will affect the
result. They will be subject to competition, and
therefore the speculation will be less promising
than would have been the case if the Bank of Eng-
land constituted the City Editor of the Times a
managing director, with full power to act as he
thought proper on all matters that might be
brought under discussion, and to arrange the rate
of discount at his mere will and pleasure.
The wrath of the Times has induced it to enun-
ciate some wholesome truths—every portion
whereof would be applicable to periods of dear
and scarce money. It says—" The warning tone,
moreover, is always adopted when the whole com-
munity are labouring under an excess of caution,
and vice versa. If in times of unreasonable
fear the discount market were allowed at
once to find its level, a revival of com-
merce and manufactures would take place
so much the sooner, and with this revival
a healthy recovery in the rate of discount might
occur before the adventurers who play upon public
credulity would have a chance of commencing opera-
tions. Cheapness of money, like every other con-
dition that happens naturally, is a great blessing ;
but according to the pedantries of the solemn gen-
tlemen who get great repute for discretion, but who
are always the first to lose their senses whenever
any real exigency occurs, it is an affliction against
which every conceivable preventive or remedy should
be put in force. Such persons would deny us light
and warmth because there are incautious people who
will occasionally burn their houses down. To pro-
tect the simpletons who periodically suffer them-
selves to be betrayed into inflation, and to keep