The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-09 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—It is to be feared that a Bank rate of
discount at eight per cent. has lost its terrors. Ten
years ago the payment of such a price for the loan
of ready money meant a panic in the Discount-
market ; merchants on 'Change would shake their
heads over the catastrophe, the wildest rumours of
old-established houses toppling to a fall would be
put in circulation, and everybody would be afraid of
his neighbour. To-day it almost seems as if the
rise in the Bank rate was a matter of no conse-
quence whatever. Business has become so profit-
able that any sum may be paid for the ready money
required in carrying it on without seriously affect-
ing the gain of the merchant. Orders continue to
be executed on credit as though the supply of dis-
posable capital in the hands of money-lenders was
unlimited, and no one cares to think of what would
happen were the stream once interrupted. Our ex-
port trade increases, our imports are at a standstill;
and though a prudent man of business here and
there asks what is to come next, the unthinking
majority are as ready to deride his caution to-day
as they will be to-morrow to denounce the Bank
Charter Act, or some other harmless enactment, for
evils which are the direct consequence of their own
imprudence. There has been, no doubt, much in
the last six months to tempt exporters to push trade
to the utmost, especially those exporters who carry
on business with the United States. The close of
the war left the markets of the Federation empty,
and partly on account of this scarcity of commodi-
ties, partly through the influence of an inflated cur-
rency, prices were enormously high. Every one be-
lieved, with reason, that there was a magnificent
prospect before the American nation, now happily
reunited, and every onewas confident,without, how-
ever, the same warrant, that the restored prosperity
would continue to increase without a break. It is
true, as Mr. M' C ulloch, the Secretary of the Treasury,
has since confessed, that the trade of the United
States has been and is in an exceedingly feverish
and unhealthy condition ; it is true, that our ex-
porters got little money in return for their goods,
and that there was a very slender import of commo-
dities by way of exchange; the few merchants who
attached any importance to these facts hoped they
would be able to realise their gains before any in-
terruption of the apparent prosperity happened, and
the rest were content to ignore the existence of cir-
cumstances which ought to have inspired them with
caution. Accordingly, our trade with the Union
has increased enormously since the peace. Prices
have remained so high within the States that, in
spite of the disadvantages our manufacturers suffer
in consequence of their goods being loaded with
heavy Protectionist duties, large profits have been
made by exporters. In the month-of October, 1864,
the whole value of British produce exported to the
United States was less than £496,500 ; in the same
month of 1865 it amounted to £2,510,750. The
increase in the total value of our exports in Novem-
ber, 1865, oyer the same month of 1864 was more
than £3,500,000, and of this increase the greaterpart
is due to the increased trade with the Union. The
value of cotton piece goods, for example, exported
to the States, the trade in which is perhaps more
than any other affected by the prohibitory legisla-
tion of Congress, shot up from £33,834 in Novem-
ber, 1864, to £641,712 in the same month of 1865 ;
the value of haberdashery and millinery rose in the
same way from £11,233 to £114,045 ; of linen manu-
factures, from £136,199 to £535,162 •, of woollen
goods from £34,500 to £560,000 ; and the rise in
the value! of metals exported in the same month was
more than £265,000. It is believed that a compari-
son of the trade of December, 1865, with that of
December, 1864, the returns of which are not yet
issued, would show a similar increase in the value of
the goods exported to America. An abstract of the
trade between Liverpool and the principal ports of
the United States confirms the belief, since it
states the number of packages of British textile
manufactures exported in the last six months of
1865 to have been 131,804, against 34,138 in the
same half of 1864 ; while the number in the month
of December alone was 26,698, against 5,414. The
increase in foreign silks and fancy goods exported
from Liverpool in the latter half of 1865 has been
still more remarkable ; the number of packages in
the six months rose from 12,906 to 62,335, and
in the month of December from 1,967 to 12,103.
These last figures exceed the corresponding num-
bers in the year before the Civil War in the States,
but there is little or no reason to suppose that the
extent of our trade with the Union is greater now
than we may fairly hope it will permanently be
when the nation is completely restored to its former
condition. The magnitude of the trade is dangerous
just at present, because it is a trade carried on al-
most wholly on credit. The computed real value
of the wheat imported from the Federation in the
first ten months of 1865 was only £450,107 against
£3,547,858 in the same months of 1864, and the
value of wheat-meal and flour was only £139,000,
against 1.1,014,115. The falling off is due to no
redundant harvest at home, for our importations
from Russia, France, and our other corn-markets
in the same period have actually increased in value ;
the difference is owing simply to the diminution of
the surplus produce in America itself. The impor-
tation of bullion and specie from the Union has
declined in the same way. In the eleven months of
1865 it amounted to £4,138,000, against £6,530,000
in the corresponding period of 1864 ; and in the
single month of November the importation fell
from £871,800 to £337,221. It is evident that the
balance between the Union and ourselves must
remain as a debt, unless it has been indirectly paid
by some third country, against which there has
been a balance of exchange with America. There
is every reason to disbelieve this, and the truth is
that the balance has been in part provided for by
the purchase of Federal obligations on this side—in
other words, by a permanent loan—and in part by
large extensions of credit on our exporters' books.
The exporters have been forced to have recourse to
discount houses in their turn, and as long as they
did not, in competition with foreign Governments
and the projectors of Limited Liability Companies,
create a demand in excess of the supply, their profits
were large, but the sharp advance of the rate of dis-
count ought to remind them of the risks they run.
In the present state of the American currency mer-
chants trading with the Union have to contend with
more than the ordinary chances of commerce. The
capital of their customers is estimated on a medium
which is liable to unlooked-for fluctuations of its
own, and the trade of the country is abnormal and
irregular to a degree which we find it difficult to
realise. The effect of the inflated issues of paper
money on the mercantile spirit within the Union is,
perhaps, a still graver source of danger, since a love
of reckless speculation has been generated which the
easy credit afforded by European exporters can only
serve to encourage. The present condition of the
money market is but one more illustration of the
truth often insisted upon, but too rarely recognised,
that our national savings are insufficient to meet all
the possible demands of the world. We do, indeed,
accumulate a considerable mass of capital every
year, although of late we have probably been in-
duced by the introduction of new financial agencies
to over-estimate the amount of our gains ; but the
recurrence of 7 and 8 per cent. at short intervals is
a conclusive proof that the demand exceeds the sup-,
ply. In the case of the money market the only way
to cure the evil is to lessen the demand, and this is
the fait which merchants and shippers ought to
learn. There is no necessity for raising a cry of
alarm, but there is clearly a call for prudence in
making arrangements for the coming year. Mr.
M'Culloch has warned us of the dangers which
threaten the mercantile world in America, and the
intimate connexion between the two countries will
allow no calamity to befall the States without affect-
ing us. The Secretary of the Treasury hopes to
remove one source of danger by reducing the exag-
gerated currency of the Union, and we ought to
second his attempts by curtailing credits which in-
volve the same evil in another form. _

POST.—One of the most important distinctions
between extreme politicians and moderate politicians
consists in the circumstance that -what the latter re-
gard as a means to an end the former regard as an
end in itself. The moderate man is generally a prac-
tical man, and if he seeks to bring about a political
change, it is not merely for its own sake qua
change, but for the sake of accomplishing some
substantial good, some useful object, distinct from
the means employed. The extreme man is gene-
rally not a practical man, but an enthusiast, with
one idea, who scorns anything so material as mere
utility, and thinks that to reduce his favourite
theory to practice is in itself, and irrespective of
results, the highest of all ends, and, indeed, the
realisation of the sovereign good. This is as if a
man should take medicine not as the means of at-
taining health, but for the mere sake of taking it.
Extreme reformers, for instance, appear to look
upon political change not so much as the means for
attaining a specific object—unless, indeed, it be a
still further change of the like kind—but as the very
end and aim of human existence. In a Legislature
containing such men as the late Mr. Cobden, Mr.
Bright, and those who follow his lead—such men as
Mr. T. Hughes, Mr. Foster, and Mr. Stansfeld--we
only mention a few—it cannot be said that the
opinions and interests of the working classes are
unrepresented. Unless the working men are to be
represented by working men—which would neces-
sitate a law for giving effect to that point of the
Chartist's creed which provides for payment of
members—it would be difficult for them to return
to Parliament more able and zealous members than
those who are now, and, indeed, any time this cen-
tury have been, ready to plead their cause. If this
be not so, how came the Reform Act to be framed
and passed ? And if, as Mr. Bright will have it,
the Reform Act deprives the working classes of

representation, how. comes it that free trade, the
laws in favour of factory workers, the post-office
savings banks, and Government annuities and
assurances, the abolition of taxes on the necessaries
of life, the great and increasing reduction of taxes
on the comforts and luxuries of the poor, the
repeal of the laws against strikes, and a number of
other measures having for their express object the
welfare and elevation of the working classes--have
been carried through Parliament by large majori-
ties ? It is impossible to read a debate in which
the interest, the well-being, the opinions, and feel-
ings of the working classes are discussed, either
directly or indirectly, without seeing that those
classes are very powerfully represented by some of
the ablest men in Parliament. It can hardly then
be accurately said that the object of the political
changes which extreme reformers desire are requisite
for the purpose of giving to the working classes that
representation in Parliament of which they are des-
titute at present. As little can it be logically urged,
in the face of the numerous measures which have
become law within the past thirty or forty years—
all of which have had for their object to promote
the well-being of the working classes—that political
changes are needed to give those classes the means
of getting justice done them, and securing that their
interests shall be duly consulted and cared for.
This being so, there is no other alternative left than
that political change must be desired for its own
sake—as the be-all and the end-all of political and
social life, and not as the means of attaining some
other object—always excepting, of course, the
particular one of further and more sweeping
changes. Still political change and nothing else
appears to be the sole end and object in view.
There are not wanting political philosophers who
maintain that change is good, irrespective of any
specific result—not, indeed, for its own sake, how-
ever,
but because old habits, and customs, and in-
stitutions, if they remain too long the same, are
apt to produce a general torpor and stagnation. It
is not that they get worn out—according to this
theory—if they did there would be an end of them,
and all would be well, as new and better ones
would take their place. But, instead of this, they
get crystallised and hardened ; they grow into the
mind of a nation, and warp and distort it, till at
last they are looked upon as the laws of the Medes
and Persians were by those ancient peoples, or as
the Chinese look upon their antiquated customs.
Institutions and laws are no longer regarded as
made for the nation, but the nation for the express
purpose of giving effect to and reverencing its laws
and institutions. These things, which, it is urged,
originated in early ages of ignorance and barbarism,
are not like the clothes of childhood which will
wear out and be outgrown ; they are like a suit of
armour put on in youth before the stature has
attained the proportions of manhood, and kept on
for ever afterwards, thus dwarfing and stunting the
body to its own narrow dimensions. But the ex-
treme reformer has no such far-fetched and trans-
cendental theory as this to adduce in support of his
favourite political changes. He does not propose
to traverse the Alps for the sake of some object be-
yond, but for the mere sake of traversing them.
Pope's traveller thought and hoped that the first
clouds and mountains were the last ; and when he
saw hills peeping over hills, and Alps on Alps arise,
he began to tremble at the difficulties of the journey.
But the extreme reformer has no such misgivings,
for it is the journey, the whole journey, and nothing
but the journey, that has any attractions for him.
The members of the Alpine Club appear to climb
their favourite mountains in quest of new sensations
or discoveries, or wonderful prospects and landscapes
not to be found elsewhere. But it is hardly so with
the extreme reformer. The only one thing he really
seems to have in common with the Alpine climber
is the love of peril and danger. His proximate
Alps appear just now in the form of a £lO county
franchise, and a franchise of half that amount for
the towns ; but beyond these arise in succession
household suffrage, manhood suffrage, universal
suffrage—including, of course, a female franchise.
Before the franchise is done with, however, the
question whether 21 is not too advanced an age for
people to wait before they begin to exercise their
inalienable and unprescriptible birthright, as free
citizens, will have to be debated and settled. All
these, how ever, are no more than the first ridge of
Alps. There are free and secret voting to be se-
cured by the ballot-box; the equalisation of consti-
tuencies, involving a redistribution of seats ; as
every man and perhaps every woman—at least un-
marritd women, maintaining themselves by their
property or business, and paying taxes—will vote
at elections, it would be inconsistent not to let
every one be also voted for and returned to Parlia-
ment ; and as poor people cannot live upon
nothing, members will of course have to be paid.
Then again, seven sears, or even three of the mono-
poly of power and pay, would of course be too great
an abuse to be tolerated, so that there is nothing
for it but to introduce annual Parliaments. 'These
other five points of the Charter are so many more
ridges of Alps, and by the time they were all sur-
mounted and passed, the occupation of the extreme
reformer would be gone—and, it is feared, a great
many other things, which most people consider of
value, with it. But, to be logical and consistent
with himself, he will not, and indeed cannot, stop
with the transit of the first ridge, or any other in
the series, until he has left the very last Alp behind
him. As to what he will find beyond he is appa-
rently quite indifferent ; he wants to make a cer-
tain progress through a given series of changes, not
to arrive at any specific result, but for the sake of
the transit. We see something very :like this
in one of the extreme parties in America. Free
dom is the means of happiness; but they are for
freeing the negro irrespective of his real happiness
and good—irrespective of all consequences what-
ever. He may be free to starve, free to degenerate
into something worse than his original barbarism ;
no matter, so that he be only free. As to a period
of tutelage or apprenticeship and transition, that is
not to be thought of ; loose him and let him go
whithersoever he listeth (even though he should
choose the worst of all possible roads). Absolute,
unconditional, immediate emancipation is to be
loved and carried out for its own sake, no matter
whether it involve the negro and his late master in
one common ruin or not. Perhaps it is good that
there should be this surplus and super-adequacy of
impulse and motive power ; but it would be bad if
there were not a strong vis inertia to prevent the
world from sharing the fate of a train attached to a
runaway engine.