The Sun.
London, England, 1832-09-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We have now to call the attention of our
readers to a combination of transactions without
a parallel in the history of social affairs—trans
actions unparalleled in magnitude, and for the
insidiousness of their working, as well as for the
consequences which they have inflicted on the
character and condition of the people of England
—consequences which no alteration in the cur-
rency, nor modifications in the principles and
practice of banking, will properly rectify. It will
be remembered that after the peace of Paris, in
1815, the leaders of the several foreign armies
who had entered that city, for the second time,
within 15 months, demanded of France an in-
demnity for the expense to which they had been
put in a second time subduing the aggressions of
Napoleon, and that a certain London capitalist
was invited to meet the Allied Sovereigns, ortheir
representatives, to devise means for raising the
funds to defray the indemnities demanded. On
referring to the report of the French Minister of
Finance for the year 1817 there will be found
the following annunciation t—" Mercantile
houses, justly celebrated in the commercial world
by the extent of their connexions and the pru-
dence of their conduct, have set the example of
confidence in your Majesty's Government. By
the first treaty of the 10th of February, 1817,
the Treasury engaged to deliver 9,090,909
francs , Five per Cent. Rentes (Annuities),
against which it received 95,454,546 francs,"
being at the rate of 52 francs 50 centimes for
every five trancs of annuity, or 91. 10s. 6d. per
cent. " By a second treaty of the 11th of
March, 1817, the Treasury" (French) " sold
8,620,689 francs Rentes, for which it received
95,689,656 francs," being at the rate of 55.50 ;
and " lastly, by the treaties of the 22d and 23d
July, 1817, the Treasury delivered 9,000,000
francs of Rentes; and received 110,700,000 hi
money," being at the rate of 61.50. These
three transactions were equal to a loan of
12,000,0001., at an average of 8/. 17s. per cent.
Now, while this operation was going on in
France, the British Government was raising
money on Exchequer Bills, with the proceeds of
which they purchased Three per cent. Stock, to
the value of 14,000,0001., at an average rate of
761. 165., or 31. 18s. per cent. In addition to
these transactions, there had been, during the
latter years of the war, about 15,000,0001. invested
in the English Funds, by foreigners, when Three
per Cents. ranged from 57 to 60, and gold
from 105 s. to Ms. per oz., making the 100/.
of Three per Cent. Stock equal to 10 to 101.-:,
oz. of gold ; while in 1817 the British Go-
vernment, as before stated, purchased a corres-
ponding amount of Stock at an average of 761.
165., with gold at 78s. to 80s. per oz., equal
to 19 or 19i- ounces of gold for every 1001. of
Three per Cent. Stock, for which only 10 to
104,- oz. had been received previous to 1816.
So much for the year 1817 ! In 1818 France
further granted 33,854,877 francs of Rentes for
which 462,909,400 francs were received, equal
to 18,000,0001., at an average of 71. 6s. 3d.'
per cent. ; and in the same year a loan of
5,000,000/. was raised in London for the ser-
vice of the Prussian Government, at 72/. for
every 1001. Bond, bearing an interest of five per
cent. per annum ; this transaction was, therefore,
equal to 3,600,0001., at 6/. 18s. 11d. per cent.
These transactions collectively are equal to
48,600,0001.; while the value of the exports
from Great Britain to Continental Europe in the
same two vears exceeded the imports from thence
by 35,419,0001. which excess was equalised by bills
drawn on account of the 48,600,000. The
French transactions were not confined exclusively
to operations direct between France and Eng-
land ; the practice on the part of the agents of
the French Government was to obtain bullion in
any part of Europe wherever it could be pro-
cured, and give payment for the same in bills on
London, so that, wherever British produce was
carried for sale, bills of exchange on London
presented themselves as plentifully as the bills of
the British Government had done during the war;
producing the same effects upon the rates of
exchange, and similar benefits to the sellers of
British products. The rate of exchange, which
in 1816 had been in Hamburg 14.25, and in
Paris 26 10, in 1818 had altered respectively to
12.59 and 23.50. The same effects, therefore,
were produced in the demand in England for
gold as prevailed during the latter years of the
war—and 7,137,9111., which had been coined
at the English Mint in 1816.17, prepa-
ratory to resuming cash payments, was wholly
withdrawn, as a consequence of those rates of
exchange, which had given a benefit to the ex-
porters of British products to the extent of 10
per cent. on 50,000,0001. value exported in those
two years. Independent also of the profusion
of bills which the great money transactions of
those two years threw into all the commercial
markets of Europe, it will be remembered that
the harvest of 1816 was the most unfavourable
ever remembered, and caused the price of all
grain to rule 50 or 60 per cent. on an average of
1817-18, above the prices of 1815-16, and led
to an unusually large importation in the years
1817-18, at the increased prices of those years.
This circumstance further stimulated the acti-
vity and extension of export, and beneficially
augmented the means of exchange ; and the con•
sequence of all this was a tendency to a return
to the same general range of high prices for all
commodities as had prevailed during the war;
but the exorbitant rate of interest at which the
first sums in France were raised having roused
the cupidity of the capitalists of all Europe, as
well as of England, great as were the demands of
the French Government, there became a competi-
tion to supply them, so that in 1819, 1820, and
1821, bills on England, notwithstanding a
large amount annually put into circulation by
permanent absentees and transient travellers, be-
came less plentiful to a degree to again alter
the rates of exchange to an approximation to the
rates of 1816, and occasion a large excess of
export, to be again equalised by declension in
price, and consequent insolvency. In 1822 a
fresh impulse was given to the raising of loans
for half the States of Europe as well as for
France, and a fresh impetus in consequence
given to the extension of export. In tracing
the progress of the combined operations of com-
merce, absentee expenditure, and foreign loans,
and the annual obligation or interest which has
been created for those loans, from 1822 down to
the present time, it will be seen that the con-
traction of the currency has resulted from an in-
creasing distrust in the solvency of all parties
engaged in the active pursuits of production and
trading, in consequence of the continued decline
in price of all manufactures, occasioned by the
diversion from a mutual exchange of commo-
dities to a trading in money.—Morn. Herald.
There is throughout the evidence of the Lon-
don, and some of the Country Bankers, examined
by the Bank Committee, a hostility to the intro-
duction of Joint Stock Banking Companies.
Some of the arguments made use of against them
are, no doubt, any thing but conclusive. The

idea broached by Mr. Tooke, that the greater
credit enjoyed by Joint Stock Companies, while
it secures perfect solvency, is mischievous, by
creating greater fluctuations of credit than would
otherwise take place, will not bear a close exami-
nation. We have just received a volume, pub-
lished in Edinburgh by a Scotch banker, " On
circulating Credit, with Hints for improving the
Banking System of Britain," which, among other
subjects, treats of the injury sustained by the
country from the restrictions on banking :—" In
improving our banking system (he says), the Le-
gislature would, perhaps, adopt the safest course
if it were to permit the people to establish their
own systems of credit ; and there is no fear but that
the ruling principle of self. interest will soon
direct their choice to that system which is best.
If such permission were to be given, there seems
to be very little doubt that the Scottish system
would soon be adopted as the best model for
the constitution of Banks.

" After the great panic of 1826, Parliament did cer-
tainly grant a partial boon of this nature to England, which
has been attended with very beneficial consequences to
those districts where Joint Stock Banks have been estab
lished. But, unfortunately, the operation of this salutary
principle was excluded from that very place, where, of ad
others, it should have been first introduced.
" Let it not he supposed that the evil here complained
of is the exclusive privilege which the link of England
has by its Charter of supplying London with Paper Cur-
rency. We by no means object to this privilege : on the
contrary, there is strong ground for believing that it is
better to have only one Metropolitan B trik of circu-
lation, because London is the great central place of
settlement, where the whole pecuniary differences of the
country are every day balanced and adjusted—and it
certainly facilitates and simplifies these operations
very much, to have the Paper Currency of only one
great establishment used as the medium of adjustment,
in place of that of money. Let the Bank of England,
therefore, continue to enjoy this privilege ; the great
interests of the country are not affected by this part of its
monopoly ; but the absurd and pernicious restriction which
limits the number of partners in any Banking concern in
London to six individuals, is a monstrous defect in the
system ; and there cannot he a doubt that the abolition of
this dangerous and impolitic principle, as far as regards
Banks of Agency and Banks of Deposit, would not only
he felt as a blessing- to the whole country, but would also
be favourable to the interest of the Bank of England.
" To be convinced of the danger and impropriety of
continuing this pernicious restriction, it is only necessary
to consider how the Balking system is affected by it, or
rather how the great interests of the country are affected
by it. London, as already observed, is the centre of ad-
justment. It is the great reservoir into which and out of
which the fl sating capital of the country is continually
flowing. Every Country B Joker throughout the United
Kingdom is, consequently, obliged to keep large balances
in the hands of an agent in London (generally one of the
London Bankers), to meet the current demands of his busi-
ness. Now, what does the existing law declare to the
country but in substance this? You may send as much
capital to London as you please; but remember, you shall
not in any case be allowed to take the security of more
than six individuals for your money, though your own cre-
dit and the prosperity of the district to which you belong
may be staked upo❑ such a hazard.'
" Certainly, without any disparagement to the character
of those highly-respectable and wealthy houses in Lombard-
street, upon whose shoulders the law has placed such a
momentous responsihility, it may be said that this is a state
of things which should not b. permitted to remain as it is."

The writer then proceeds to observe, that the
principal improvement still wanted to make the
operation of the Scotch system complete is the
permission to establish subscription banks of
deposit and agency for the management of coun-
try business. A run upon any bank, he ob-
serves, seldom happens in Scotland, as the cir-
culating credit of that country is, in fact, the
circulating credit of the people. The writer no-
tices a peculiarity of the Scotch system, which
we have not seen mentioned before.
" There is another peculiarity in the Scottish system
deserving of notice ; we mean the economical use that in
Scotland is made of the smallest sum, and which prevents
the circulation of any quantity of paper currency more
than what is barely necessary. The quantity of paper,
therefore, in circulation, which represents coin, never ca❑
he in excess; for any excess is immediately returned to
some one of the banks in the shape of capital, bearing a
certain rate of interest.

Now, in England, there is no such economy in the
use of money. The English bankers ate always ready to
receive as much money as the people choose to deposit in
their hands; but, i❑ general, the banks give no interest
'or it; consequently, these is almost always more paper
currency afloat than what truly represents coin; because,
when there is no inducement for people to lodge their
money in banks, they may just as well keep it, or its paper
representative, in their own repositories ; and, in point of
fact, they do so. It, therefore, follows, that when a pres-
sure for money overtakes the country, large sums of paper
are sent in to the bankers for payment, which some of
them are not well prepared fur, and panic ensues. This
greatly aggravates the evil, and in its career of alarm in-
cites all those who have paper hoards of money to convert
their stores into gold."
From the evidence given by the bankers, it
appears that they are nearly all averse to give
any security for the notes they issue. This
Scotch Banker has successfully shown, that there
are a number of causes peculiar to their country
constantly in operation, whereby the derange-
ments of our monetary system are greater than
they can be elsewhere. Now, as all demands
upor. capital must fall heavily on the productive
classes, producing distress and embarrassment
among them, by way of lightening the pressure,
and yet preserving credit in a sound state during
the continuance of the distress, he proposes :

" That permission shall he given, by a special statute,
to all licensed Banks and Bankers, to issue Bills of Ex-
change, payable in London at fixed periods, say any period
not exceeding forty, sixty, or ninety days, on the security
of Government Stock or Exchequer Bills. The author
~f these pages is not ignorant that various plans have been
I.ruj-cted by theorists for compelling the Banks to issue a
paper currency on the security of such a pledge ; but it may
'R. laid down as a general rule, if not an axiom, that
compulsive laws, of this nature, which would take the
management of his own capital permanently out of the
hands of the Banker, would so cramp his operations, as to
he detrimental, if not destructive to the very system they
might be framed to support ; and, besides being injurious
o credit, such compulsory laws would be giving an undue
security to one class of creditor in preference to an,,ther.
Bat very different would be the effect of a permissive law
enabling the Banker to pledge such securities for a specific
purpose, and for a &finite period. The consciousness of
having such a resource at immediate command, for any
period of difficulty, would of itself tend much to preserve
the elasticity of credit. * a a * a a a
In the year 1826 the price of Consols fell to '76, and the
rll was chiefly caused by the rush of the Bankers, all
pressing forward to sell stock, for the purpose of raising
money to fortify themselves : but if such a law had then
been in existence, Banker's hills or promissory Dotes,
drawn on the security of Stock or Exchequer Bills at
20, 40, or 60 days, could easily have been sold for cash,
and would have circulated freely throughout the country.
The rage for hoarding coin would at once have been an-
nihilated, or converted into a desire fur purchasing secured
Bills." _ _

The above suggestion seems entitled to atten-
tion. We cannot tape our leave of this inge-
nious and sensible writer without copying his
concluding observations, which cannot be too
much impressed on public men—
" The circulating credit of a commercial country is a
vital part of its social system; and the application of rash
schemes for the purpose of improving it, is something
like making experiments upon the lungs. If the patient be
not killed by the experiment, the danger of aggravating
the disease is at least as great as the chance of amending
his constitution. The establishment of a sound system of
Banking, like a system of free trade, may in a great
measure be left to the experience and discretion of the
public themselves. It is the province of the Legislature to
be the protectors rather than the framers of social con-
tracts ; to provide for the prevention and punishment of
frauds, and for the faithful performance of contracts,
rather than to restrain the people in the free exercise of
their right to make them."—Morning Chronicle.

A letter of the 14th instant. from Hamburg,
which we received yesterday,. communicates a
piece of information with which we have been

highly gratified—namely, that the Government
of that free and independent republic had re-
solved so ar to resist the influence of the Aus-
trian Ambassador as to decline the suppression
of the Humburg Reporter, an English news-
paper published in that city. We mentioned
formerly, as intelligence received from a corres-
pondent, that a decision against the journal in
question had been adopted, at the instigation of
the Court of Austria. This report was correct
in fact, as his Austrian Excellency was the im-
mediate organ of the application, though we have
since learned that the Austrian Envoy, on this
occasion, was only the puppet or the mouth-
piece of the diplomatic agent of the Russian
Court. The Magistrates, however, with common
courage, ought not to have attended to the hints
or remonstrances of either, and ought to have
declared against submission to both. The Ham-
burg Reporter had not yet been placed in the
Index Expurgatorius of the German Diet,
and till then no positive danger could be
incurred by continuing its publication. The
suggestions or commands of a particular
Court went for nothing in such a case.
For the suppression of the two or three
liberal journals in the south-western states the
mandate came from Frankfort, and obedience
became necessary where armed resistance was
impracticable. In the case of the Hamburg
Reporter no such positive order was given, and
therefore no particular submission was demanded.
Even the smallest atom of sovereignty in Ger-
many, whether prince or republic, should be able
to defy an intrigue, though obliged to yield to a
confederated army. We lately described the
commercial thraldom into which Prussia endea-
vours to throw the smaller states of Germany,
and showed that it was the most galling and
ruinous part of that political bondage, of which
the suppression of journals is an instance. This
view of facts is confirmed by every account
which we receive from Germany ; and our well-
timed remarks, translated into the foreign jour-
nals, have not been without their use in open.
ing the eyes of the German people to the pro-
posed sacrifice of their true interests. Some
of the smaller states, supported by the ex-
ample and encouraged by the aid of Ha-
nover, have at last ventured to make a stand
against the Prussian commercial domination,
and have dared to trouble the stagnating calm
of the Diet by questions which may agitate its
whole surface. One of the articles in the Con-
federative Act of the German States, as we have
formerly mentioned, purports that a chief duty
of the Diet will be, to devise a general system of
trade for the whole Confederation, by which the
free circulation of commodities may be per-
mitted, and the inconvenience of Customhouse
restraints mitigated or removed. This article,
like that which guarantees general constitutional
liberty, has been overlooked, or at least has re-
mained inoperative for 15 years. Meanwhile
Prussia has intrigued so well on her own ac-
count, as to have formed a kind of commercial
confederacy within the political, embracing a
considerable number of the smaller principali-
ties. The Hanoverian Government, which has
kept aloof from this league, and has found
willing clients for another combination, has lately
called upon the Diet to fulfil its engagements,
and in the preliminary debates which ensued on
the Hanoverian proposition, Prussia is said to
have been left in a considerable minority.—
Whatever may he the result of this pro-
ceeding, it has excited a great sensation in Ger-
many, where the final resolution of the Diet is
expected with impatience. As connected with
the lead which the Government of Hanover
takes in pushing an arrangement of the
trading relations of the German States, the at-
tention of the Prussian Government has been
turned to the apparently very trifling affair of the
recent commercial treaty between England and
the free city of Frankfort. At any other time, or
in any other circumstances than the present, when
Prussia is endeavouring to shackle the trade of
all the smaller German States, this convention
would have attracted no more regard than a
league between England and the small Italian Re-
public of San Marino—but at this crisis it is
far from being unimportant. While the naviga-
tion of the Rhine is free, it may enable us to
establish such depots of goods at Frankfort,
through the channel of the Rhine and the
Maine, as may in part counteract the commer-
cial monopoly aimed at by the Court of Berlin.
Hence we find a violent tirade against the Go-
vernment of the free city of Frankfort, at the
instance of the German monopolists, accusing it
of betraying the national cause, and submitting to
become a pander to the cupidity of the arch foe
of German industry. This abuse looks like an
indicatio❑ of fear, and we hail it as a sure prog-
nostic of that approaching discussion which must
necessarily terminate in giving the Germans
more correct views of their own interests, and
inducing them to shake off' the restraints im-
posed by Prussia on their foreign commercial
intercourse.— Times.

INSOLVENT DEBTORS' COURT, SEPT. 19.

John Warr, late of Great Wolstone, in Bucking-
hamshire, farmer, was opposed on the part of a cre-
ditor named Hanton, for a debt contracted for board
and lodging, while the insolvent was courting his
daughter.
The insolvent had been several times before the
Court. On his first hearing he pleaded that ac-
counts which had been proved were utterly false;
added to which, he stated most positively that he
had assigned to his brother Robert his interest in a
reversionary legacy of 200/., and had received from
him 1201. for the assignment. He was pressed
closely as to the money, and he solemnly asseverated
that he had received it in a field, but no third per-
son was present. He was sent back, and cautioned
as to his conduct. He made another attempt to
come up on the same story, but he was again sent
bark. After remaining some time he filed fresh ac-
counts, which contradicted his former ones; and on
his examination he admitted that he had perjured
himself about the assignment ; that he gave his bro-
ther a piece of paper to say he had assigned it, but
he declared that he had not received one penny
from him. The brother was ordered to attend, who
said he had destroyed the paper ; he had purchased
his brother's stock for 1311., and he had expended
the money on himself.

The CHIEF COMMISSIONER, in giving judgment,
observed that, among the many thousands of cases
that had come before the Court, not one of them
equalled this in fraud and atrocity. The insolvent
had committed the most deliberate perjury, and the
Court could not believe him on his oath, unless
supported by other evidence. It was not to be
said, because a man relented at the eleventh hour,
that he was not to be punished. He had attempted
a concealment of his property, and had, besides,
made away with his property to his brother, and
squandered the money in indulgenceQ. The Learned
cenogrntihni otssliotnhee
Commissioner, some warmth, descanted at
l
grossness of the insolvent's conduct,
and sentenced him to ten calendar months' impri-
sonment.

--------
The Court have finished their session. They
have adjourned till the 30th of October.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.

GUILD HALL.

In the parish of St. Bartholomew the Great there
are now, in consequence of a recent decision of the
Court of Bench, two vestries, one a self-
elected select, for the management of all that apper-
tains to the church, and another chosen by the
inhabitants for matters relating to the poor. An
attempt is now making to wrest from the former
the superintendence of the watching, lighting,
cleansing, and paving of the parish, and the question
was brought before Sr CHAPMAN MARSHALL, upon
a summons against Mr. Brain, a printer, for the sum
of 1/. 12s. Sd., as one quarter's rate for the above
purposes.
. . _

i•lr. Gale, solicitor to the Select Vustry, said the
parish was under a local aet, passed in the 9th of
George 111., by which the trustees were empowered
to levy 2s. 2d. in the pound for paving, &c., and
Taylor's Metropolitan Paving Act enabled them to
levy double that sum. The rate he claimed was
made according to these statutes, which had hitherto
been acted upon Nvithout dispute.
Mr. Prendergast, the barrister, who attended on
behalf of Mr. Brain, addressed the Alderman at
great length upon the question, maintaining that the
City Sewer Act, which places the paving, lighting,
&c. of the city and liberties under the care of the
Commissioners of Sewers, being passed two years
after the local act, virtually repealed it, because there
was no clause exempting this particular spot from
its operation.

Mr. Gale, in reply, contended that the parish,
though within it, was no part of the city. The in-
habitants were exempt from serving on juries, did
not vote for the representatives in Common Council
of the ward, and the inhabitants carried on their re-
spective trades without being free of the city.
Mr. Prendergast said, he knew that in the land-
lax assessments and in the collections of the trophy
tax (a rate to procure substitutes for the militia, in
lieu of balloting the inhabitants) the parish of Sr.
Bartholomew was deemed a part of the city. The
Sewer Act was to have effect throughout the city
and liberies thereof. The sense in which " liberty"
was here used was " jurisdiction," arid the parish
having, in respect to criminal offences, always been
within the cognizance of the Magistrates of the
city, was a liberty thereof; that is, though it might
not be a part, it was within the jurisdiction of the
city. Non-freemen were permitted to carry on trade
in S,. James's, Duke's-place, and yet the inhabitants
paid their races to the city. The inhabitants of St.
Bartholomew's wished to be taken under the pro-
tection of the city also.

Sir C. MARsuALL, after consulting with the city
solicitor, deferred giving his decision on the matter
for a week.

BOTV-STREET.

Yesterday, Joseph Webb and Robert Hurst were
charged before Sir F. ROE, the former with having
secreted and embezzled a certain letter which came
into his possession while employed as a clerk in the
General Post-office, containing two bank-notes for
1001. each, one for 10/., and two bills of exchange,
the property of Messrs. Holdsworth ; and the laiter,
Hurst, was charged with receiving them, knowing
them to have been feloniously stolen.

The prisoners underwent a private examination,
and were ordered to be remanded until Friday next,
when additional evidence will be produced against
them.

Five miserable-looking men were brought before
Mr. HALLS, in the course of the morning, charged,
under the Vagrant Act, with having been found
sleeping in the vaults under the Adelphi, wh;ch
have long been a refuge for unfortunate persons hav-
ing no home to go to, and no money to procure a
bed.

Mr. HALLS questioned the defendants as to the
cause which had reduced them to their present situa-
tion. Having described their respective parishes,
all of wh ch were in the neighbourhood of the me-
tropolis, three of the defendants said that they had
just been discharged from the House of Correction,
where they had been committed for selling the
Poor Man's Guardian. They complained of
having been inveigled by some persons interested
in their conviction, who induced them to sell the
work, and then procured their apprehension. They
were anxious, they said, to obtain an honest living,
and thought there was no harm in selling the Poor
Man's Guardian.

Mr. HALLS observed, that the sale of such pub-
lications in the streets was contrary to law, and
would be sure to bring them into greater ditficullies
than they might otherwise encounter. One of the
effects of works of this class was to make criminals
and paupers of poor broken-down men, who, not
being aware of the danger they risked, were anxious
to catch at any chance of earning a few pence. The
Magistrate then told the defendants that he should
he loth to send them again to prison, as poverty ap-
peared to be their only crime. Directions were then
given to furnish them with a letter to their respec-
tive overseers, recommending them as fit objects for
parochial relief, and the gaoler was told to supply
them with some bread and cheese, and half a pint
of porter each, as they declared they were ready to
faint with hunger, having been turned out of prison
without a farthing to procure a morsel of bread.