The Sun.
London, England, 1861-06-07 00:00:00

.DESPATCH OF GOLD 70 AMERICA.

The despatch of £5,000,000 in gold to New York
during the early part of the year was followed with
only a short intermission, by a further sum of
£1,400,000, forwarded within the past three weeks.
Of this latter total, £320,000 had already arrived
out at the date of the last advices, yet the rate of
exchange showed no improvement, the quotation.
being still 1052. All the leading bankers in that:
city as well as the principal firms here are per-
plexed at this result. The apparently anomalous
remittances in January and February were in
some measure accounted for—after a variety of
futile explanations had been attempted—by the
rush of our people to purchase American securities
at what they believed to be greatly depreciated
prices, but since that time their operations are
believed on the average to have tended rather the
other way. With the cotton season closed and
little produce to come forward except grain, flour,
and salted provisions, the fact that under these cir-
cumstances we are still remitting bullion at the rate
of more than a million and a half a month may well
excite surprise. The value even of the enormous
quantities of breadstuffs we are receiving from Near
York cannot be estimated at more than about.
£1,300,000 per month, and, as the American impor-
tation of our goods, although greatly reduced, has
still continued during the present year at a monthly
rate of at least £1,000,000, the existence of a very
adverse balance seems now inexplicable. But, of
course, there must be a satisfactory reason for it,
and a little reflection will show where it lies. For
years past we have acted as bankers for America
in nearly all her transactions with the East,
and partially also in those with the Continent,
Australia, and elsewhere. When a merchant in
America sent orders to China or India he would
direct the bills for the amount to be drawn upon his
correspondents in London, and to provide for this
liability he would remit bills or specie to our
market. Hence there was a steady flow hither of
Californian gold, and the rate of exchange at New
York was nearly always in favour of England. But
it now appears that since January there has been
a remarkable suspension of American orders to the
East, as well as to the Continent of Europe, and
consequently that the claims on London falling
due from those quarters on American account
must for some time be unusually small. The
Americans not having to provide for such
claims have been enabled to instruct us to
remit to them in specie those amounts we should
otherwise have had to retain in preparation for
payments to other parties on their account. Thus,
while their rates of exchange have been rendered
most unfavourable to us, those between China and.
England and the Continent and England have been
advantageously influenced. With this solution we
can understand how it is that since the beginning
to n
of
AJameurairy ca,winesfeasvde poet rrteed eeiwviinthg £l.l.6,omoo,hoeorooof gold
a nertain
amount, as under normal circumstances we should
have done, and that the Bank bullion, nevertheless,
stands at this moment almost exactly as high as at
that period. We shall at the same time be relieved
of such disquiet as may have prevailed from the many
statements circulated as to the nature of the Ame-
rican drain and the predictions as to its conse-
quences. Sound observers could see from the first
that, practically, there could be no long-continued
injurious draught upon • our resources from that
quarter, but the form in which the matter would
right itself was not so readily apparent. Conse-
quently, when the power of America to take our
gold seemed, week after week, to increase against
all former experience, every logical calculation was
contradicted. There was a certainty, however,
that in the end the anomaly would be ex-
plained: The Whole phenomena have evidently
been but the result of one of those changes in the
channels of commerce which invariably take place
from great political disturbances. America has
taken an excess of our gold simply because she has
not required us to pay it away for her, as usual,h toe
other hands. That which we should otherwise have
had to send to China, Germany, Russia, France, or
OOur elsewhere, we have sent to New York.
pay-
ments for American cotton, grain, &e have been,
direct instead of indirect.tnr
oe fswoe rhreoa,
there has been no abnormal drain.
has If a
from happenedthfaetdtwi inbadtethefonouursr'fl to pay £lOO to a
has been accustomed, asagent,at
e
pa
avtei ex-
ceeded, neighbour is told to ceaseprincipal,t
his own position is the
dersseenawctelyh
Americaat
vh have
t s
uhwhich
:
same in either case, and
the amount to his
thist Practically,paym
rafigncoui requirements h
impaired, but these points are
month, all previous anticipations,
while month by
month,
while the demand
the other ban
whollyand
subordinate,do not affect the all-in-i-
-e nmthdae
tant conclusion that the intrinsic disturbance to
por
our commerce and money market from the crisis in.
America has been and must be confined within nar-
row limits, and that all the assumptions with which
the public have been frightened with regard to her
suddenly developed faculties for the absorption of
bullion have been
foundedonly on idle delusions.—
7imes City Article.