The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-25 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 25, 1857.

Every day brings additional intelligence of the
suspension of large firms, whose credit had pre-
viously been perfectly unimpeachable. We need
not speak of the distress and misery thereby occa-
sioned to the working-classes. They aro thrown
out of employment, and their only capital—their
I.ibour, or producing power—is rendered practically
"inconvertible." The national revenue is thereby
materially injured, for they cannot purchase the
commodities on which duty is payable. If a
bankruptcy of the Exchequer is to be averted—
if the interest of the public debt is to be paid—
new and onerous taxes must ho imposed to make
up for the deficiencies under the heads of Customs,
Excise, and Income Tax—deficiencies which must
inevitably arise unless very decided measures
are introduced on the meeting of Parliament next
week.

The mere
suspension of the Dank Chartta Act
will not, as we have already pointed out, sutfic.-i
-tinder existing circumstances, Had the Govern-
ment letter been issued a few weeks sooner it
might have done so. But the evil was perrnittt3d
to go too far. It is notorious that the boasted prin-
cip'te of convertibility would have totally fiihd in
msequence of the very means adopted to insure
it. The Bank could not, although with six millions
and a half of gold in its cotEri, have paid inoro
than tenpence in the pound on its liabilities, Of
course, it had ample assets. But the securities
e°ll4l not have been realised under the pressure
°C a general panic, and enormous losses must have
teen sustained from the mere attempt to do so.
We are happy to observe that many of the
j)urnals which previously advocated bullionist
yrinciples have come round to the doctrines which
37e have so long—and, we may add, so consis-
tently, advocated. The "unmasking" of the

Times' battery—the undisguised avowal of the
objects which the Act was intended to promote—
have produced their natural effects. It is now
clearly a question between the " hard calculators,"
who desire to make 20 or 30 per cent. of their
money, and the industrial population of the coun-
try. It was credit and cheap money that placed
this country in the high position which it has so
long occupied ; and that credit would be virtually
annihilated, or rendered so costly that it would
not be worth obtaining, if the OVERSTONE theories
were fully carried out.

The pretext on which the Act of 1844 was
founded was that it would prevent fluctuations in
the value of money. Never have there been
such fluctuations since the establishment of the
Bank of England, or the first issuo of paper
money. For 130 years the rate of interest, or
discount, which had been nearly analogous, only
varied from 4 to 5 per cent., with the exception
of a few weeks in 1838-9. Now, interest in the
public funds is 3/. 6s. Bd. per cent., while dis-
count is from 10 to 20 per cent.—the mini-
mum rate at head-quarters being the former,
while a large commission is charged by the dis-
count houses that frequently brings it up to the
higher rate. Under this trade and commerce
cannot flourish. The whole profits are diverted
from their legitimate channels, and put into the
hands of those who have no kindly consideration
for their interests or sufferings. England is not
a nation of "hard calculators." They are, happily,
an insignificant minority amongst a high-minded
and conscientious race. The rights of property
will always be respected ; but its abuses will be
earnestly deprecated. It is now known that the
Government interference was only in favour of
the Bank and the moneyocracy, who must have
shared its fate ; and the general, the universal
feeling is that some consideration should have
been exhibited towards those who are the thews
and sinews of the country, the payers of taxation,
the sustainers of the enormous burdens placed on
their shoulders. Speedy and decisive legislation
is required, and, until the Bank Charter Act is
annulled, there can be no amnesty for its delibe-
rate violation, occasioned by the tardiness and
timidity of Government.

Whether England had or had not pledged her-
self definitively and in perpetuity to the Austrian
Government in the matter of the Electric Tele-
graph—eastwards via Ragusa and Alexandria—
the whole complex question of our Postal and
Electric-telegraphic communication with the
Colonies must "perforce" be brought, at an early
date, under the deliberate consideration of Parlia-
ment. There is no uncertainty whatever aboat
this. It must be ! For, more plainly than any
other difficulty of the time, this one, peculiarly and
undeniably, requires both an instant revision and
a radical reorganisation. Observe ! we don't
speak now of India exclusively. We refer to our
intercourse generally with the whole of our vast
and scattered colonial possessions—England's
Forty Colonies—north, south, east, and west—
European and Asiatic, American, African, and
Australasian. And we refer, moreover, as will
have been remarked not merely to one
but to all species of intercommunication. To
postal as well as to telegraphic ! To the trans-
mission of intelligence to and fro through our
mail-packet service by means of the steam-engine
and tke set ew-propeller—and through the metallic
fibres thrilling with lightning, carrying thought
with the speed of thought, to and fro, over the
earth and under the sea, with the magical agency
of the copper wire and the galvanic battery
Marvellous as have been the strides already
taken in this direction as compared with the
past, we are beginning already to feel per-
fectly well satisfied that as compared with the
probabilitie3 of the future, our progress as yet can
only be aptly illustrated by the first uncertain
and hesitating steps of infancy. In speaking thus,
we are not by any means talking idly or at ran-
dom. And, in truth, we are only applying to
the present epoch the same thought which
MICHAEL ANGELO modestly applied to himself in
his Old Age, when he drew the Sketch of the
Greybeard in the Go-Cart with the words under-
neath': Aurora impara, " Still learning !" As if
in vivid illustration of the comparative insig-
nificance of the advances yet made by Science
even in this wondrous Era of Railroads and Elec-
tric Telegraphs—have we this new contrivance of
which our columns only a week or two since con-
tained a detailed exposition, the ingenious and, to
all appearance, eminently successful contrivance
by which one of the more daring Mechanics and
Electricians of our Age proposes to unite, in one
marvellous whole—let us designate it at once the
EUREKA !—to unite in one marvellous whole the
Steam Engine and the Electric Telegraph !
It has been recently observed, with very great
truth, by one of the critics in the current

number of the Quarterly Review, that the

problem of the present Age is, indubitably,
How to Save Time I The veritable reality of
this, we take it, is indisputable. And yet with

the fact before us universally recognised—lettered
all over the globe in iron lines that all who run
may read—proclaimed in the scream of every
railway whistle, and in the revolution of every
screw and paddle wheel—the British Government
selects this very period in the history of the world,
in which to bind over England from this time
forth and for ever to communicate with India
solely through one little bit of Austrian wire !
At auy rate, if they have not absolutely and defi-
nitively consummated this arrangement, her MA-
JESTY'S Ministers had contemplated doing so—
have all but done so. And knowing the fact that
they have done so, we have protested against the
flagrant monstrosity of any such undertaking from
the outsot with horror and indignation. The
atrocity, or at any rate the proposed atrocity, is

altogether so heinous of its kiud that it de-
mands the speedy and searching scrutiny of
the Lagi,lature. That scrutiny, please GOD,

it will now have very speedily, and the errors,

if any have already been committed, will be
effectually rectified. Meanwhile we must

strenuously protest ag tinst the mere notion of
any such preposterous and outrageous absurdity
as that of binding ourselves over i:s, perpchto to
transmit "all" our communications between Lou-

don and Calcutta via the Austrian wire between
Ragusa and Alexandria.

An intelligent correspondent of ours, signing
himself "An Australian," took occasion the other

day to reprehend in terns of eminently d:.:served

severity the shortcomings of the present contrac-
tors fur the conveyance of nulls be:4v2eri this

country and its possessions at the antipode.
There cannot be a moment's doubt that this
matter also requires the immediate acrd earnest

consideration of Parliament. As our cerrespon•
(lent very jus%ly observes, the ac,!ident to the
Emeu was of course a casualty for which the
DirectJrs themselves could hardly is reason be
held in any way accountable. Not so, however,
the break down at an earlier date of the Oneida—
that having been clearly foreseen and distinctly
predicteJ. Other equally avoidable impediments
moreover, in the way of the required conveyance
of the Australian Mails—the tantalising absence

at one moment of a rest-ship at Sue; and

the incidental gap of a fortnight between the
arrival in this country of half a million of gold
and the advent of the mail bags and the bills of
lading essential as a preliminary to its distribu-
tion—all these obstacles transpiring under a con-
tract of 44,000/. a year in excess of the amount
demanded by another competing association I
Surely here, too, we want a clear sweep of Reform
—even though it be effected by the bosom of de-
struction !

Many despatches received at the India House
since the J sth of October have been published in
the Gazette of last night. They will be perused
with intense interest by every true-hearted
Englishman. Many of the gallant men by whom
they were penned have fallen in the discharge of
their arduous duties. NICHOLSON is no
more—but happily he lived to recog-
nise the attainment of the great object
for which he was struggling. Delhi had fallen
before his lamented death. His brother in arms—
one whose name will also become a household
word—the illustrious NEILL, fell in the hour of
victory. But he knew that Lucknow was saved,
and that the helpless fugitives—the English
women and children—whose fates were de-
pending in the balance, were preserved from
brutal atrocities, similar to those that had occurred
in Cawnpore. It was a glorious cause, and nobly
did these departed heroes perform their arduous
duty.

The country has now a much easier duty to
discharge. Every possible honour must be con-
ferred on the mighty dead, and on their
surviving relatives. Their names should
be recorded in the national archives, and
in a manner respecting which there could be
no mistake. HAVELOCK is still living, and he
may yet obtain the rank which the nation de-
sires to see conferred on him. We have not too
many heroes, and we should not be chary of th©
rewards offered for really invaluable services.

THE BANK OF ENGLAND AND JOINT-STOOK

BANKS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Silt,—lt appears to be the general rule with the gree ly
and grasping uld woman of Threadneedle-street, when
any of the joint-stock banks in temporary difficulties
request her assistance to enable them to weather the com-
mercial panic (.which her unmerciful use of the bank screw
to 10 per cent has inflicted upon the trading community),
to dictate to them, and insist upon their winding up their
business, as the only condition on which she will grant
them the assistance required ; though, as a matter of
course, every bank requesting her assistance offers the
most undoubted and satisfactory security, as in the case
of the Wolverhampton and Staffordshire Banking Com-
pany on Wednesday last, when the directors tendered
the deeds of their private estates, though the bank
is perfectly solvent, and with 150,0001. surplus, and the
security offered for covering the amount asked for, and
for which so high a rate of interest would be paid ;
but the result was a refusal of assistance unless they
would wind up the bank ; as it was also to the Western
Bank of Scotland, and assistance, on suei terms, very
properly rejected in both cases. We do not hear of any
such coeditiou being required of the large Ausericsn
house, which obtained her assistasce on Thursday ; but
this dictatorial spirit seems reserved for sister banking
establishments, and it will remain for the public to con-
sider when a renewal of the Bank Charter is applied for,
whether this settled policy of the Baek of England is not
the remit of a greedy and grasping desire to suppress as
many of the other banks, and banks of issue, in the
country, as possible, that she may extend her own
branches, and issues of notes, to fill up the vacancies she
is trying to create ; and it will remain for their further
consideration, if the misery and rain, at present
inflicted upon the country by the 10 per cent.
minimum rate, was not intended, in part, to
ruin and suppress that very useful class of the bank-
iog community, the discount houses of London, whom
they now compel to have to pay 8 and 9 per cent. fJr
money on call, against bills now running they will
have discounted two or three months ago, at five
and-a
-half and six per cent. One highly honourable
and greatly respected house, Messrs. Sanderson, Sac-
dernan, and Co., they have already brought down, and
have so perplexed and disgusted the others with the
usurious rates they have established, that they, knowing
the trade of the country can never stand such rates,
now almost refuse to do any business, and hence arise
the numerous failures of perfectly solvent houses, to the
disgrace of the monetary laws of this commercial country.
Tae ngher the Bank of England can raise the rate cf
interest to, even if to 20 or 30 per cent. (which their
supposed paid organ the Times is so disappointed the
breaking down of the 1844 Act, and 0 ierstone theory
having frustratA), the greater are their profits; but any
approach to such rates would have swept away their
rivals in easy times—the Lombard-street discount houses
—and would have played nearly all the mill properly,
and many a the finest:estates in the country, at one
quarter of their real value int ) the coveting hands of
Overstone and Co. These grasping and greedy men re-
lying upon the bullying "thunder of the Times and the
shrill squeaks of the penny whistles," screening them from
the consequences of thus plundering the commercial
community, and robbing the working man of half or
three-quarters of his weekly wages, by the rapidly-
increasing short-time working, or entire closing
of nearly all the mills in the country ; and clos-
ing their eyes to the fact that a continuance of
10 per cent.—not to mention the 20 or 30 per cent. they
aim at—by aggravating the above evils, can only lead to
insurrection and revolution at home, necessitating the
recal of our troops from, and the abandonment of India,
and with one evil following another in rapid succession.
It will than remain to be seen what will become of the
National Debt, and the 14,000,000/. of Think of England
notes based upon it, and not upon real property or
estates, as the issues of joint-stock banks throughout the
country are. OBSERVER.
Rochdale, Nov. 21.

CO W ES, ISLE OF WIGHT.—Nov. 24.

(FROM OUR► OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

ROYAL YACHT SQUADRON INTELLIGENCE.
The members of the Inyal Yacht Squadron removed
on Saturday last from their old Clubhouse, on the
Parade, at West Cowes, to West Cowes Castle, which
they have taken from the Government on a 42 yeare'
lease from Michaelmas, 1855. A number of workme❑
have been employed on it for nearly two years in enlarg.
ing and embellishing it, and it is now considered the
finest yacht club-house in the kingdom. The Squadrcn
had held the old club-house thirty years.

The schooner yacht Titania, 181 tons (R. Stephenson,
, M.P.), is at present the only one in our roadstead

There are very few yachts building at this time, but
we hear several gentlemen intend building after Christ-
mas. Inman has a yacht of 160 tons in a very lorward
state for L:ad Yarborough, one of 110 for Lord Londes-
borough, and another, same size, for Sir G. East, Bart.

A Cabinet Council was held yesterday at the official
residence of the First Lord of the Treasury in Downing.
street. The Ministers present were—Vise mnt Palmer-
ston, the I.lrd Chance'kr, the Marquis of Laiadowne,
the Earl of liarrowby, Sir G. Grey, the Earl of C'aren-
don, Mr. Secretary Labouchere, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Sir C. Wood, the Right lion. R. Vernon
Smith, Lori Stanley of Alderley, the Duke of Argyll,
and the Right Hon. M. T. Baines. _ _

Tile Marquis Conynghatu has hit the St. George's
Hotel on a tour of visits.

The Earl of Annesley has arrived at the SL George's
Hotel.

Lord and Lady Landesborongh leave London this day,
to pass the winter months at their castle at Cannes, in
the South of Franc,. Tiley have been receiving a suc-
cession of vi,itors in 'Yorkshire during the autumn.
Sir William and Lady Middleton have been entertain-
ing a succession of visitors, at Scrubland Park, during
the pasi week. Tile guests have included the Countess
of Jersey and Lady Clementina Villiers, the Earl and
C nintess of Gosford and the Ladies Acheson, Lady
Howard de Walden and the Hon. Misses Eilis, E ird
Walter Scott, Lady Caroline Cust, Sir Henry Cotterell,
and Mr. W. Peel.
General Raynsford and Mrs. Raynsford have taken
their:departure bona Elwards'Hotel for Henlow Grange,
near Baldock. Mrs. Parker has left the same establiaL-
went for Chelmsford.

Mr. and Mrs. Sheppard have left Farrance's Hotel,
Belgravia, for their seat, High-house, Wondbridge.
THE ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF CORNET ECHALAZ, OF
THE 7TH DRAGOON GUARDS.—An inquest was held yes-
terday, in Cauterbury, upon the body of the late Cornet
Richard Charles Echalsz, who was killed on Saturday
list by a fall from Lis horse, as described in the Sun of
yaAerday. Mr. Thomas Delasaux, the coroner, opened
the proctedin;?, and. after the examination of several
vritneases, the jury returned a verdict of accidental
dear h

PRICE OF GOLD —The quotation of god at Paris is
about 0 per millo premium, and the exchange or
London is 25.40 per 1/. sterling. Oa comparing these
rates wi.b the E7glish Mint price of 3/. 17s. 100. per
ounce or standard gold it appears that 801 l is about
the same price in Paris end London. By advises from
-Hamburg the price of gold is 424 per mark, and the
short exchange on Lon,,lon is 13 71 per 1/. aerlinE.
Standard geld at the English Mint price is thereLre
about 1 3-10ths per cent dearer in London than in
Hamburg.. 'rue course of exchange at New York or;
London for bills at 60 days' sight is about 103 per cent,
for first-class paper, and from that price to 100 per cent.
for other description. At the present rate of discount
leers there is, consequently, no profit on the trannins-
eion of gold from this country to the United States.