The Sun.
London, England, 1866-05-21 00:00:00

The Price of Gold.

The quotation of gold at Paris is about per mine pm., and
the short exchange on London is 25.15 per £1 sterling. On
comparing these rates with the English Mint price of £.3
s. 100. per ounce for standard gold, it appears that gold is
about2-10ths per cent. dearer in Paris than in London.
The course of exchange at New York on London for bills at
60 days' sight is 106 i to 107 per cent. At these rates there
is no profit on the importation of goad from the United
States._

V 13y
aavices from Hamburg the price of gold is ta per mark
and the short exchange on London is 13.51 per £1
Standard gold at the English Mint price is, there:ore, at
abeut2-10ths per cent, dearer in Hamburg than in London.

THE LATE PANIC.—The panic of 1866 was a
credit panic, not a capital nor bullion panic. The evil was
not an over-expenditure of capital such as at other times,
as in 1847, has caused a panic; nor a drain of bullion, which
except for admirable management, in 1864, would have
caused one, but a failure of credit from intrinsic defeat. Sus-
picion got abroad, not because our whole reserve of bullion
was too low to support the credit of the country; not be-
cause our annual expenditure had much surpassed our annual
saving; but because the lenders of money were suspected of
misusing it ; because a celebrated old house evidently had
misused it; because no one knew who else might not be to
mb
aa
nmde ;
feltbecause
they alln personsust
stre underngt
he
themselves obligationsof
tiobt
because
nayubosotienitihttdih. de-
mand
floating peril might come their way,
bankers' deposits
Bank of England. It had a
tmhieg
actht perish.bank was,
e believeoiis
itdheartiiij
gu stthbee fnoarteuilhtrahlehte
resfyyru.e7dasi
eernvsei on
wereeoyf
—in so much danger as the
and count
reserve of only £3,000,00 and from
The London
hour.
pouring in every
all parts of the
'n general to amountjerstood to between three
are um
than
ana
wt hee
believe L ondo
some
mr e 0-
and on FridaycountrYvlrind
larger
uemt
and fourna last must have amounted
in aggregate
I be a nto
e ras
of them plainly used such language allow the Bank of
England to go on while they failed. Nothing is so imita-
tive as panic, and if one or two large bankers had drawn
their balances, all the rest would have followed like
sheep, and the banking department of the Bank of Eng-
land must have been left bare. We believe and hope that
from this time the improvement will be gradual; but still
it must be interrupted by painful events, and cannot be
healthy if it is too rapid. 'Finance" paper too often
means bad investments, and while so much of it is held
about the market credit must be tender, uncertain, and
liable to vicissitudes and shocks. Of course this applies
rather to money-lending credit than to mercantile credit.
A merchant is a borrower, not a lender; he will not have
taken finance paper; if his business is good, and except
in particular branches of speculative trade (as cotton, or
fostered by
pig iron, or the ship-dealing and owning
Barneds') English commerce was hardly ever `sounder,
The Economist.
C lannd
t

LONDON AND NORTH WESTERN LNI AY. _The
directors of the London and North Western Railway
Company have :resolved to allot to their proprietors,
rateably, at par, additional ordinary stock, equal in amount
to about 5 per cent. on the ordinary capital. The allot-
ments will be made to the proprietors registered on the
19th May, 186 G, and will be in the form of ordinary stock
to be fully paid up on the 30th June,
1866, and will carry
ordinary eliYidella fr9th that date.