The Sun.
London, England, 1857-10-09 00:00:00

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.

THIS DAY--Morn., 24 min. aft.7s —Even., 49 min. aft. 5
To-Moßßow —Morn., 16 min. aft. 6—Even., 48 min aft. 6

THE WEATHER —Sux OFFICE, OCTOBER 9,
THERMOMETER, IN THE SELLDE.
62—highest since noon yesterday.
51—lowest this morning and during the night
53 —this day at noon.

BAROMETER, 29.32.
WIND, North• Westerly ; fresh, with dull rainy weather.

T 1)

-:. ATYI,,

LONDON, FRIDAY, OCT. 9, 1857.

The minimum rate of discount at the Bank of
England was yesterday advanced to Six per cent.
This may appear trifling to those who have ample
funds at command, and who are seldom obliged to
ask for pecuniary accommodation from their
bankers. It is, however, a matter a serious im-
poi Lance to the middle classes, whose small margin
of profit will be materially diminished by the
change. There are many perfectly solvent firms
who receive the bills of well-known customers in
payment, and who are compelled to discount
these bills in order to carry on their ope-
rations. It is accommodation of a per-
fectly legitimate character, representing money
due to the drawer for work actually performed,
and the acceptor has received bona fide value in
commodities, which he hopes to dispose of before
his acceptance is presented for payment, and thus
to obtain the means of meeting his liability. It
is a complicated system—a series of wheels within
wheels—without which the business of the coun-
try would be brought to a stand still. The mer-
chant who imports the raw material, general;y
speaking, pays the first cost, and all collateral
expenses, such as freight, insurance, &c., by his
acceptance, and on his credit, and tars facility
for converting his promise to pay at a future
time into money, depends the supply, and,
to a certain extent, the price of the arti-
cle. He disposes of it to wholesale dealers who
also pay by billi, which he must discount in
order to provide for his own paper. They in
turn sell to th© manufacturer who pays in a simi-
lar manner. His bill must be cashed, and it is
last by his discounting the mceptanca of the
'wholesale warehouseman, who in turn supplies
his customers, and so on until it comes t) the
scinsinner.

Thus, every article imported and manufactured
17A this country occasions many pecuniary trans-
actions, in all of which accommodation is required.
The stoppage of any wheel will derange the entire
machine, and lead to confusion and difficulty.
Let any person who may doubt our ;state-
Writ trace the progress of a bale of c 0..-
ton or of woo', from the time of its
ment till it is worn as an article of dress, and tire
manner of payment in all its various stages, and
he will admit that we have faithfully represente I
UK; entire proceeding, and that our trade and
manufactures are virtually dependent on fair and
legitimate credit.

Now, every one of theso parties seeks a profit,
not merely on the cost price, but on the expense
and difficulty of converting his customer's bill into
'ready money. The merchant demands more from
the wholesale dealer, who in turn puts an extra
per tentage on the manufacturer, and thus the
ball moves on, increasing as it progresses, until a

trifling addition to the rate of discount, makes a
very serious increase of price to the consumer.
It is not, however, merely the additional rate
charged by the Bank, swelled as it is to seven or
eight times its original amount in the course of
transactions, that shows the full extent of the evil.

It is intended to produce stringency and inconve-
nience, to check the demand for pecuniary assist-
ance—otherwise it would not accomplish the object
aimed at by the Directors. It is only men of high
standing that are permitted to open discount ac-
counts at the Bank of Fngland. Others
of equal solvency, but of less prestige,
must be contented to pay, not merely
the rate of interest, but a commission which
enhances the discount to 10, 12, or possibly 15
per cent., all of which, increased as we have
already pointed out, must be defrayed by the con-
sumer. The lower class of paper, although per-
fectly safe, is very frequently rejected altogether.
A stoppage then takes place ; the small fry are
ruined, others sustain serious losses—all but the
money lender, who gloats over exorbitant profits,
heedless of the misery and suffering entailed on
the industrious classes by his operations. Well
might Mr. CoBDEN say that "greater evils, pecu-
niary, social, and moral, had been occasioned to
the trade and manufactures of the country, by
fluctuations in the currency, than by the direct
failures of all the banks of issue since they were
first established in the country."
Since the passing of the Act of 1844, which
professed to give us a stable currency, with
a uniformity of value to the Bank note, and a
circulating medium, in which the business of the
nation could be at all times conducted with
perfect safety, we have witnessed the most extra-
ordinary fluctuations is prices, in the rate of dis-
count, and the value of every description of pro-
perty and security, public or private. Never has
there been so many derangements of trade, so many
wild speculations and disastrous depressions. For a
century and a quar+er the rate vibrated between 4
and 5 per cent., with we believe a single exception,
when it was advanced to 6 per cent. Since that

time we have had at least 50 changes, varying at
the Bank itself from 2 to 8 per cent., and in
other quarters from 'Tito 15 or 16 per cent.
This is the result of the legislation so strenuously
advocated by Lord OVERSTONE and his disciples,
and still maintained, despite the bitter experience
of a number of years.
We pointed out yesterday the nature of the
change required. We now ask whether the in-
terposition is to take place at the first stage of
ruin or the last ? Whether the misery and pri-
vations
are to be averted, which will otherwise
wring many an English hearth with anguish, and
expose many respectable families to distress and
penury? This is a point which Lord PALMER-
STON should closely consider, and he should do so
without permitting himself to be influenced by
the narrow-minded precepts of Sir G. C. Lzwrs.
He may be assured that it is infinitely the most
important question now before the country, and
on the course adopted, his future fame and cha-
racter will greatly depend. He is a man of
ability and decision. Let there be no procrasti-
nation, or the matter will be forced on his notice,
and that in the most unplesant manner.

Our heavy friend the British Quarterly, avowedly
edited by a distinguished Dissenter, Dr. VAUGHAN,
has just put forth its notions on Representative
Reform. What the writer aims at we can hardly
understand, unless it be to discredit every kind of
Reform to which the really Liberal party attach
any importance. He denies the right of suffrage
to citizens as such, and asserts or assumes that
class representation is the basis of the English
constitution ; he thinks freehold land societies a
great evil, notwithstanding that even a Tory
judge pretty distinctly commended them ; he is
warmly opposed to Mr. LOCKE KING'S proposal to
give votes to ten pound householders in counties,
and shrinks with horror from any plan which
threatens to swamp the tenants at will; even a
lower qualification for the suffrage in Boroughs he
opposes, as "but the demand of a party, and
that, too, not a very numerous party." Lord
BROUGHAM'S proposal to adopt the rule, " once a
voter, always a voter," and to do away with the
annual scrutiny of each voter's qualification he
rejects as almost a manifest absurdity. It is, in-
deed, a thoroughly Conservative article. Free-
hold Land Societies are to be suppressed, or their
objects treated as penal. The freehold qualifica-
tion to be raised from two to five pounds, and
the tenants at will qualification to be reduced to
twenty-five pounds. The article might well have
been written by some Lord or Squire's land agent,
and certainly expresses the views of but the
smallest section of Dissenters ; the section which
forms a kind of aristocracy of its own, or affects
to hang on the skirts of the old one.
But what of the Ballot Oh ! that is put out
of the question by the vote of the New House of
Commons in the late Anti-Reform session ; it
therefore need not be discussed.' Indeed ! and
the writer complacently remarks, too, that the
coming Reform Bill is so to perfect the Act of
1832, and that no more tinkering will be needed
for a century or so ! Where the writer can have
lived, not to know what is going on in our own
colonies, or not to understand its reflex influence
on the mother country, or how he can suppose
that, when the ascertained friends of the Ballot
number 232 in the House of Commons, and con-
stitute a majority of one hundred and four of the
Liberal party, that fundamental question can be
long suppressed, we cannot possibly imagine. The
struggle for the Ballot is the great political
struggle of the day ; it is the struggle for the in-
dependence of the voters, be they who they may
—the struggle against the domination of those
who may beggar or starve a voter if he does not
vote as their serf. It is the struggle, indeed, fur
compelling our rulers to govern according to the
sense of the country—of the constituencies at least
—and not according to the selfish interests of the
monied and titular aristocracy.

Whatever the Reviewer may think, the Ballot
cannot be burked in this way. It will be fought
for, and fought for strenuously, next session. It
may be refused, and will be, until retention of
office by the Minister for the day depends upon it;
be, when it has by the last division secured the
largest number of votes it ever obtained, and
when it must soon come to this, that the majority
of the Liberals will demand to have their views
carried out, or join in expelling an obstinate Pre-
mier, we cannot think that the Poll-book system
of voting has a perennial life. The battle for the
Ballot will be renewed each session, practical evi-
dence of its admirable working in our constitu-
tional colonies will accumulate and be diffus d
amongst the electors, subordinate matters will be
adjusted, and it will become the line of demare,.-
tion between those whom constituencies will regard
as Stand-still Men and Men of Progress. Indeed,
its obvious honesty of principle, and its simplicity
as a remedy for bribery, and, above all, for inti-
midation, may compel its acceptance sooner
than Conservative reviewers could bring them-
selves to believe. It will not be easy to resist
the demand for an extended suffrage, and if elec-
toral dependence, so generally destroyed even
now, is to have the slightest chance of existence in