The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-09 00:00:00

[LONDON, MONDAY, NOV. 9, 1857.

The crisis is proceeding. The merchant princes
are beginning to succumb beneath the overwhelm-
ing pressure, and the impossibility of obtaining
discounts at any price. The latest suspension is
that of Messrs. DZNNISTOUN and Co., of Glasgow,
Liverpool, London, New York, and New Orleans.
Their liabilities are estimated at the enormous
sum of two millions sterling, but it is said that
their assets are ample. The Times says, " The
private property of the partners in real estate,
and other possessions, is known to be of great
magnitude, and it seems scarcely possible that,
even under the worst circumstances, their em-
barrassment can be more than temporary." This
suspension, following so closely on that of Messrs.
NAYLOR, VICKERS, and Co., of Sheffield, also of
unimpeachable honour and unquestionable sol-
vency if adequate pecuniary accommodation
could be obtained—has created equal discourage-
ment and regret. When such houses have been
unable to weather the storm, in whom can implicit
confidence be reposed? That question is uni-
versally asked, but unfortunately no satisfactory
answer oan be returned. The panic is therefore
spreading ; and unless a summary and suitable
remedy be forthwith applied, we may anticipate
a period of distress and dismay more terrible
tven than " the week of terror" which preceded
the issue of the Government letter of the 25th
October, 1847.

The Times is still true to its vocation, striving
to sustain the obnoxious by the most specious
fallacies. Grave misgivings are, however, ap-
Par!rat in all its arguments, although it still ob-
stinately excludes the real cause of all these evils.
It asks what has caused Messrs. Naylor, Viekere,
and Co., and Messrs. Dennistoun to stop ? add-
ing, "not any difficulty in the rata of discount,
but the simple fact that each succeeding mail
frona America airives without bringing them
remittances of bills to enable them to apply for
clisoount. Their capitals are ample ; and if they
bad had the bills, the question of 9, or even 20,
Per cent• would not have troubled them. As-
suming this to be correct, it proves, beyond
the possibility
of doubt, the fact that it
is the monetary code
of 1844, which has
occasioned all the mischief. Why, wo ask, in
turn, should firms, whose capitals are ample, and
*hose " honourable Standing has never been
called in question," who are admitted to have car-
ried on their extensive business prudently and
discreetly, bo reduced to such a humililting and
ruinous alternative as the suspension of payment,
and possibly the fearful losses incidental to a
compulsory winding up ? In ordinary times there
could have been no difficulty in obtaining the re-
quisite funds on the abundant securities which
these firms had in their power to offer. The
mere delay of remittances would be of far less im-
portance than a heavy rate of interest. But credit
is annihilated. There is a famine of currency,
and every man looks to his own interests, and
holds with tenacious grasp the notes that may be
essential to his own preservation ! We may re-
peat what Mr. MORRIS, the Governor of the Bank

r

me,
in 1847-8, declared in his evidence before the
Lords' Committee." we do not so much want the
money, but we want a certainty that ,
if we should want it, we should get it 1" This
is the key to the entire grievance—notes or bul-
lion to a vast amount are hoarded, in order to
provide for possible contingencies, or to enable
the possessors to acquire property at little more
[than half its actual value. For these purposes,
men will disregard all the platitudes of the Tia Les,
or the propriety of providing only for their wants,
and not for their fears. Indeed, where scum qui
pert becomes the ruling motive, ordinary prudence
requires that every commercial man should make
timely provision for any probable or even possible
demands, while the greed of gain, the auri sacra
fames, equally stimulates the speculator to husband
his resources, and " keep ready money in his
purse," in order to be prepared to take advantage
of the extraordinary bargains that may be antici-
pated. " Self-preservation" and " acquisition"
are powerful influences, which cannot be ex-
cluded, but will always prevail whenever a suit-
able opportunity arises.
We earnestly invite attention to a letter,
headed, " Who is to blame this time ?" and
signed " Civis Britannicus," which will be found
in another part of our impression. Our respected
correspondent truly states that we are the only
metropolitan journal which has boldly and con-
sistently argued the probability of the occurrence
of the present crisis, and as boldly and consis-
tently suggested and demanded a remedy." We
have interpolated the word " metropolitan," in-
asmuch as an esteemed provincial contemporary,
the Derbyshire Courier, has been a faithful and
efficient co-operator through good rep,:ut and
through evil report, not only when public atten-
tion was directed to the all-important topic, but
also when the unflinching assertion of our princi-
ples exposed us to the sneers and ridicule of shallow-
pated fools, or interested disciples of the Mercator
school. It was so in reference to the Free-trade
when we stood almost alone, before Mr. COBDEN'
had emerged from obscurity, or Mr. BRIGHT
bad achieved a political character. We fearlessly
urged the great truths of economical science, and
insisted on the science of free and unrestricted
competition. When the victory was all but
achieved, others came round and endeavoured to
bear off the spoils to the exclusion of those who
bore the brunt of the encounter, and who never
for a moment hesitated or relaxed in their exer-
tions. But unus seminat alter metat is an old
occurrence, and we cannot wonder that persons
are always to be found ready to seize the prize
that others have earned.

Our correspondent pertinently inquires, " who
is to blame ?" Not the industrial parties, who
on this occasion have certainly not been overtrad•
ing or dealing in accommodation paper. They
have not entered into wild speculation, have not
dabbled in time bargains, hold no shares in
banks or railways, or other speculative companies.
They have stuck to their legitimate business, and
what is their reward They may get a compli-
ment from the Commissioner in bankruptcy, and
a high class certificate, but these will be but poor
consolations for blighted prospects, and the neces-
sity of de novo, when their energies are impaired,
and they are falling into the sere and yellow leaf,
when they ought to be thinking of enjoying the
fruits of their indefatigable and honest exertions.

We have pointed out, like our correspondent,
the inconsistency of "free-trade, and a fettered
currency." They are totally incompatible ; if any
kind of " protection " could be tolerated, it cer-
tainly is not protection to usurers and money
lenders, to those who take advantage of the wants
of the community to realise unholy profits at the
expense of the industrial classes, and who would
have the majority of the people enduring the most
bitter privations, provided they could revel in
unwonted luxuries or accumulate heaps of useless
gold which they had not the hearts to spend or to '
enjoy. It is not for them that we would con-
vert the creators and producers of national wealth
into unprofitable consumers, or close up factories
or mills, or cause them to work half-time. Nor
should we join in the impious cry of " over pro-
duction " so long as the hungry required food or
the naked clothing. Separate our internal commerce
from our foreign trade. Let gold be treated as a com-
modity for which a premium must be paid when
the demand exceeds the supply. Our merchants
can easily calculate the effect of a possible pre-
mium, which will not affect them by any means
so severely as an exorbitant rate of interest. It
may for a time check the importation of foreign
goods, but it will allow domestic matters to con-
tinue tranquil. It will also unquestionably pre
vent the possibility of parties exporting gold in
order to realise large profits for themselves, care-
less of the effects on the welfare, happiness, and
prosperity of their fellow-subjects.

What would the share-taking public say to a
railway prospectus which off*red a handsome
profit on their investment the very first year
after the first sod was cut, and the first barrow.
load wheeled by my Lord OUT-01-THE-WORLD,
anxious to bring his acres within reach of profit.
able civilisation ? They would naturally enough
pass it by as Railway Quackery, and think it quite
enough if railway projectors endeavoured to at-
tract old maids and footmen from the Three per
Cents. by offering to return four or five per cent.
per annual, to keep the investor in ready money
till the line was completed. The works of a
public company covering expenses of formation as
they were in progress, repaying handsomely the
public who used the works, the shareholders who
constructed them, and affording a handsome revenue
to the Government too, would be certainly treated
as a very pretty dream ; but the shares would
hardly be marketable on the Stock Exchange.
Yet the public has long had before it the
demonstration that such a thing is possible; it
has had the demonstration which capitalists prefer
beyond all others, that it has been done, and that
the scope is ample, for millions on millions to be
embarked in such works. Col. ARTHUR COTTON'S
facts and reasonings have been three or four years
before the world ; they have never been de-
nied, indeed the gentleman whom Lord Darr-
HOUSIE appointed to investigate and report upon
the Co'onel's statements reported that, though on
some minor points and calculations he might
differ from him, yet that the Colonel "argues
from sound principles and that his plans for the
improvement of communications at small cost in
some localities by means of canals and rivers, and
in others by an inferior class of railway are emi-
nently deserving of attention." Probably the
public generally have forgotten Colonel ARTuun
and his "Public Works in India," if so, it is
high time that attention should be called to his
The commercial
book, and his carefully sustained reasonings.
paradox to which we have just
alluded has been abundantly
-verified in irrigation
works in India, and
within the last few years too.
They have paid for their construction as they pro
ceed ed.
In the great irrigation wor ks
undertaken, after
Jong delay, on the Godavery„ in the very year of
their commencement, the Government at once re•
ceived an increased revenue, the increase exceeding
the son expended em the wa,rks ! and the increase

.4 LT N L ti.l" DO T A 17., LNI I'lk ,4
,

has continued, during their progress, to reimburse
the capital and to leave additional revenue to the
Government 1 In many other works the imme-
diate returns have been of the same character,
and in all that time have paid a splendid percentage
for whatever sum the Government saw fit to in-
vest. In Rajpootana, at Marwarree, the expen-
diture of 24,0001. in tanks increased the revenue
by 11,0001., or 47 per cent., and as the people
are computed to have gained two-thirds more, the
total profit on the works was one hundred and
forty-one per cent. In Ajmere the expenditure
of 38,0001. increased the revenue by 10,0001.
in the fourth year of their execution. In the
Madras Presidency the profit to the Government
has averaged not less than seventy per cent., and
a list is now before us of thirteen of the best
works, in which the profit varies from seventy-
eight to two hundred and sixty per cent., giving an
average of one hundred and thirty-one per cent.
We believe that a case of failure is hardly known.
In every instance which we have noticed, the
profits have been so large, that but for the un-
deniable evidence of receipts into the Government
Exchequer, and of the enrichment of the natives,
we confess we could not have given credit to the
statements.

The mystery begins, however, to vanish, as
soon as we look at the facts of the case. At
first blush there are two great mysteries. How
such profits can be made anywhere in the world by
steady industry and legitimate use of capital ; and
how, if they can be made, there has not been a
gambling rush at them, like the railway mania,
or the emigration to the goldfields. The first
question is soon answered by remembering all we
have heard of tropical cultivation. It is the re-
verse of our own. Water, which we drain from
our fields at a vast expense, is there the very life
of vegetation. The sun is never wanting, and
drought is the danger,moisture the blessing. Egypt,
as we all know, " casts her bread upon the waters,"
and depends for her support upon an irrigation for
the more part natural. From the earliest records
of the East, our own Sacred Oracles, we find water
the great object of desire to the Oriental agricul-
turist ; and it is to this day the real Golconda, or
the " diggings "of India. Follow travellers
where we will, even through the Zahara itself,
the intertropical regions are redundant with vege-
tation almost fabulously luxuriant, wherever it is
blessed with the presence of water.

India is not only no exception to the general
rule, but probably its most splendid illustration.
Give water to the hind, scorched otherwise by a
vertical sun, and it literally teems with life.
There is hardly anything which it will not grow.
The vegetable products which we most want here,
flourish as they do hardly anywhere else. Rice,
sugar, indigo, and COTTON itself, may be grown
in almost any conceivable quanties—of many
products two crops may be obtained in one
season, and of those which ca❑ be
grown, no spot on earth can produce
them so cheaply. Wheat itself could be furnished
in quantities and at a price which would make
both the Yankees and the English landlords pro-
test that Indian irrigation would be their ruin.
The irrigation too can be accomplished at such a
marvellously small cost. Water for irrigation by
the works constructed already in Madras, has been
obtained at one-fiftiethpart of its value ! Such at
least has been the result of the Godavery irriga-
tion, where the works have been on a large scale,
but very heavy and expensive, though as we have
already observed, remunerative from their com-
mencement. Labour, measured not by wages, but
by work done, is so extraordinarily cheap, and the
facilities so great from the nature and number
of the streams, and the sites for tanks, that
hydraulic works can be executed on very low
terms indeed. Another cause of cheapness is
that canal and river navigation are at little
additional cost obtained in connexion with the
irrigation ; but we must defer the question, Ca-
nals versus Railways, till another occasion.

But how then have these sources of wealth been
hidden so long from the British public ? The
answer is not far to seek, Leadenhall-street
can answer it. It has locked or veiled
India to all but the civil service, as far
as lay in its power. Secrecy has been the
protection of its miserable traditional Indian
policy ; a policy inherited from the times of the
close and rigid monopoly of the commercial com-
pany, whioh undertook to govern, for gain, the
millions of India. Englishmen have been kept as
much as possible out of India ; above all, as far
as practicable, they have been hindered from ac-
quiring property in land, or fixed property of any
kind. The policy of the Company has been the
narrowest and meanest conceivable. Its one ob•
ject has been to screw revenue from the miserable
peasants. The one great merit of Civil Service
gentlemen has been to give the Revenue screw one
turn more. Not one thought was ever bestowed on
enabling the Ryots to pay the revenue. Hence, in-
stead of inviting English capital, of devising every
kind of security for an investment of it in
the improvement of the country, and
of thus raising up a population able to
bear any reasonable amount of taxation,
the one object has been to keep India as a close
borough for the Civil Service, and to squeeze
out of the bodies and souls of the wretched pea-
santry enough to pay handsome salaries to offi-
cials, and large dividends to the company. Even
since 1853 this systera has been adhered to as far
as practicable.
Light must now break in. The mutiny has
blown away the official fog. The Leadenhall
blind will be torn away. The DORINS and
GRANTS, and all the harpies, who have lived
on India without living for it, will be con-
signed to well-merited oblivion, the man
who can do something for India must
and will be brought forward ; and Eng-
land will see with surprise that there are water-
mines of wealth in India, which will throw into
the shade the gold mines of California and Austra-
lia. In a very few years' time Indian revenue and
expenditure will be equalled ; not by dangerous
retrenchments, nor by torturing the starving
Ryots, but by enriching the now wretched tax-
payers, through irrigation and canals covering the
country, and constructed by English commercial
Companies. To this end the Company must be
annihilated, and a Queen's Government confer the
best protection they can on British capitalists,
engineers, and merchants. We noticed a very
promising beginning in this line the other day,
and shall keep it under notice. They bas e
secured Colonel CorroN's co-operation—itself a
guarantee of success.

His Royal Highness the Dnke of Cambridge leaves
town to-day on a visit to her Majesty, at Windsor Cas le,
and will remain there until Wpdnes, ay.
Their Royal Highnesses the D !chess cf Cambridge " d
the Princess Mary will, early in the ennui: g month,
honour the Duke of Newcastle by their company, at
Clumber Park, Notts. .

His ExcePency the Ambassador of France and the
Countess de Persigny are expected to arrive at the Em-
bassy to-morrow morcing, after an absence of some du
ration in Pad,.
His Excellency the Netherlands Minister is expected
in town to-day from Yorkshire, where his Excellency
has been on a visit for some days.
The Countess Chreptowich is daily expected at Ches•
ham House, from Paris.
The Duke aid Duchess of Grafton arrived in town
a few days since, from Wakefield lodge, Stony Strat-
ford.