The Sun.
London, England, 1859-02-23 00:00:00

or another, sufficient to equal in amount the aver-
age of the old rate, then the QUEEN, by Order in
Council, may declare that Church-rates are to cease
in that parish! Church-rates are to be abolished,
therefore, only by owners of property and others
subscribing enough in various modes to equal the
present rates !
The only relief, so far as we can see, therefore, is
to the " conscientious" objectors. How large that
class will become, no mortal now can guess. On
the one hand, in the country village, the rate-payers
will generally be afraid to offend by pleading " con-
science ;" on the other hand, thousands and tens of
thousands, who did not know they had a conscience
before, will suddenly discover that they possess
that useful defence. " Conscience " will become a
kind of pet little house-dog to bark at the tax-
collector, with the advantage of costing nothing to
keep it, and of not only escaping assessed taxes,
but of frightening away the tax for mother
Church. Lucky the men under Mr. WALPOLE'S
bill who keep a conscience.
But surely Mr. WALPOLE made a very perverse
use of the facts deducible from his own return—of
these the one on which he justly laid the greatest
stress was, that the contributions from voluntary
sources for Church-rate objects amounted to
£262,000, the sum raised by Church-rates to one
thousand pounds less. Mr. WALPOLE inferred that
landowners would readily charge their property in
perpetuity with the latter amount ; he should
have inferred that they would willingly charge
themselves, if need were, with two sovereigns
instead of one as an annual donation, that tens of
thousands of other Churchmen, who have now no
inducement to contribute, would readily do so, and
that without all the paraphernalia of rent charges,
orders in Council, and the rest of it—without still
leaving an open sore in every parish, he might
have cast the Church of England upon that libe-
rality of her worshippers which Dissenters have
found amply sufficient from worshippers equal, in-
deed,in numbers, but unquestionably not equal in
wealth. The sameinference is surely deducible from
the great fact to which he adverted, that in the first
half of this century, notless than £900,000,000 had
been voluntarily contributed for church purposes,
while the State had contributed but one million
and a half ! He might have added that nearly all
this was contributed after it was found that the
State would give no more !
The conclusion, we must re-assert, is that which
the latest facts have compelled every fair-minded
churchman to adopt, that the Church is better with-
out Church-rates than with them. She would have
more money, money heartily contributed and well
applied ; she would escape parish broils, and the
charge of being the cause of them; she would cease
to present a repulsive aspect to Dissenters, and we
verily believe would receive, as free gifts, more
money from them than she now wrests from them
under the aspect of a heartless extortioner. It is vain
to dispute whether Church-rates be a charge on
property or not—an odd kind of charge to be sure,
one which a majority of those who hold it can any day
refuse; practically, Church-rates are an imposition
and a nuisance, and they must be got rid of by
abolition.

to £14,538,898, or, in other— words, nearly
£21,060,000, a large proportion whereof might
be safely used by the Bank, exclusive of its
own funds applicable to such purposes. And
yet all that is out on private securities is £16,442,466
—an amount that is still gradually decreasing,
notwithstanding the rate of discount being
almost at the minimum point. The amount
of notes in circulation is gradually reducing, now
amounting to £20,489,345, and therefore but little
exceeding the stock of bullion, which has reached
the large sum of £19,747,154 quite suffi-
cient to sustain a convertible paper currency of
£60,000,000, while the notes unemployed, or Bank
reserve, is no less than £13,049,985, being an in-
crease within a single week of £424,900. Why,
under such circumstances, there should be any
want of money for commercial operations might
puzzle the most experienced in monetary affairs.
The NAPOLEON bogie may account for the flatness
of the public funds, and the complete stagnation of
all operations, but it is the dread of hising our gold
that prevents capitalists from rendering the required
pecuniary accommodation to merchants, traders,
and manufacturers. They are biding their time
until money becomes more valuable, and mean-
while the industrial community and the best inte-
rests of the country are suffering for what is held
in abundance, if the undue caution of the possessors
would suffer it to be distributed.

Mr. WALPOLE was surely guilty of a practical,
as well as a logical inconsistency in one of his main
arguments for his plan. He endeavoured to show
that the proportion of Churchmen holding pro-

perty was very great, and that they showed grew
willingness to contribute to the rate; thal

hence it was a hardship to deprive them
of the pleasure of paying a rate—of the
pleasure of being forced to pay ! Mr. WAL-
POLE would, surely, have earned XERXES' prize for
the inventor of a new pleasure. If the gist of MA,
IVALPOLE's plan is to transfer the liability to
Church-rates from the occupiers to the proprietors,

and these proprietors be such willing Churchmen

why then let them club voluntarily and raise the
money they need. We must finish our remarks

for the present ; several points demand notice when
we have sew the bill, when we must not forget Lord

JOHN RUSSELL for out-Torying the Tories in his

zeal for the Church.

The business of the Stock Exchange is nearly
brought to a stand-still. Bulls and bears are alike
unwilling to enter into any new operations, ♦nd
appear only desirous of closing their accounts with
all convenient speed. There is, in fact, a total
stagnation. The Government broker invests some
£20,000 per diem on account of savings banks, and
there are some few small bona fide purchases, but
that is all ; speculative dealings have been alto-
gether abandoned. There has been a temporary
armistice between the Taurine and Ursine forces,
and each party seems to be unwilling to strike the
first blow or re-open the contest.

For once both parties are completely puzzled.
The professions of peace ought to be satisfactory,
but unfortunately the active preparations for war
lead to very opposite conclusions. The purchases
of horses, stores, and war materiel seem to be
totally incompatible with the sense of security so
highly prized in Capel-court. " Deeds, not words,"
are the guides sought for, and if the EMPEROR
would only discontinue his extravagant expenditure
and extraordinary exactions for the purpose of in.
creasing his armaments, he would no longer be
considered as " the standing menace to Europe,"
compelling every nation to maintain its
naval and military expenditure at the very
highest point, and either to incur further debt, or
to retain its taxation at almost a war rate.
This exhausting process is rendered essential by
the position taken up by the Emperor NAPOLEON.

He it is who checks the prosperity that would

naturally attend a period of general peace and
tranquillity—who depreciates the quotations of the
public Stocks and Funds of every European nation—
prevents the men able and willing to work from
obtaining " a fair day's wages for a fair day's
labour," and prevents that fair credit so indispen-

sable to commercial transactions ! A little
more candour and openness of conduct
on the part of the French EMPEROR would smooth
away every difficulty, and enable other Sovereigns
to apply a considerable portion of their national
revenue to the development of their national re-
sources, and to relieve their overweighted tax-paying
communities of some portion of the burthens under
which they have been labouring. He will not,
however, dispel the mystery, and all his neighbours

and allies must be the sufferers for his reserve.

It is quite clear that the stagnation in the money
market, the undue caution, amounting almost to

panic, is attributable solely to the French EMPEROR.
Seldom, if ever, have the Bank returns been of a

more favourable character. Money is literally a
drug in the market. Unexceptionable bills will be
discounted at almost nominal rates, but woe to the
small dealers ; for notwithstanding the abundance
of cash they must either do without or resort to
quarters -where they must pay more than would be
required by regular bankers even during the
periods of the greatest scarcity and' panic
They are the chief sufferers, although of course
the consumers must also contribute to some extent
to the amount of their losses.

By the last account, which appeared in the
Gazette of Friday, it appears that the public de-
posits amounted to £7,620,255, and the private

THE - SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 23, 1859.