The Sun.
London, England, 1857-04-17 00:00:00

the welfare and prosperity of the nation, and the

comfort and happiness of the working classes,
altogether depend ?
This is a simple question, that should receive a
plain and straightforward answer. If the rime
apathy be much longer displayed, the Bank
Charter Act of 1844 will be renewed within the
rapidly-approaching session without change or
modification of any kind ! If, however, on the
other hand, there should be any striking demon-
strations of public feeling on this interesting
topic—if a searching and impartial inquiry
should be insisted on, the United Kingdom
may be extricated from the impending diffi-
culty, and its permanent prosperity secured on
a substantial basis, so that every man able
and willing to work may be certain of obtaining
that great desideratum, "a fair day's wages for a
fair day's labour."
There is now no question as to the soundness
of our eonimerce. The Times confesses that " the
trade of the country has for the last 27 months
been of unprecedented magnitude, and healthy in
nearly every department," and that "notwith-
standing the profits thus made there has been an
unusual abstinence from speculative commitments
either at home or abroad, and that the agricul-
tural returns of the kingdom have for the last
two years, to say the least, been perfectly
satisfactory." The grievance, then, cannot
possibly be ascribed either to " overtrading"
or to " undue speculation I" The cause must be
sought for in some different direction. The
weaker commercial firms are not doomed to ruin,
or the wealthier to serious loss through any fault
of their own, or of others engaged in similar
operations. The acknowledged evil may, how-
ever, as the Select Committee of the House of
Lords declared of the commercial crisis of 1847,
"be traced directly to the Act of 1844, in the
Legislative restriction imposed on the means of
accommodation whilst • a large amount of bullion
was held in the coffers of the Bank, and during a
time of favourable exchanges." This is the real
source of all the evils that have arisen !

" Melius est peters fontes, quam seetari rivulos."

It is far better, then, to strike directly at the root
from whence the danger springs, than to ride off
on collateral issues—or to endeavour to remedy
trivial matters that may, for a time, disturb ex-
isting arrangements. Under sound and whole-
some laws an exorbitant state of discount would
be the rare exception. As it is, it has become
the rule—and the law must be not merely modi-
fied, but completely changed, if we hope to ob-
tain a remedy adequate to the disease, the magni-
tude and fatal character whereof is gradually
but unequivocally being developed.
The Times candidly expresses its astonishment.
It says, " With a profitable export business, an
economical expenditure, and a good yield of home
produce, the circumstance that the balance of
cash payments between ourselves and the rest of
the world is uninterruptedly against us, seems an
extraordinary anomaly !" So it may be to the
Times, entertaining and strongly advocating
the views respecting currency put forward
by Mercator alias Lord OYERSTONE, and
his disciples. We can, however, clearly
discern the teterriala causa of all these
evils. Under the baleful operation of the Bank
Charter Act we are compelled not only to supply
gold to all comers at a fixed price, but to apply
an enormous quantity of the precious metals
for carrying on the transactions of every-day
life. A judicious and well- regulated issue
of really national noted, of small and convenient
denominations, say for 11., 21., and 31., or, better
still, for the fractional parts between 11. and 21.,
viz., for 11. 55., 11. 10s., and 11. 155., as in Ire-
land, would liberate at least thirty or forty
millions of gold, and render it available
for foreign trade. Notes that would satisfy
the demands of the tax-gatherers—that would be
receivable in payment of duties of every descrip-
tion could not be considered as "worthless rags."
They would al ways be willingly accepted

by the butcher and baker, and no deposit

of gold against them, or indeed no converti-
bility would be required. They would always
purchase gold at the market price, and that it
must be sold at, if we wish to retain it for our
own use, or to prevent our being made the
victims of continental cupidity, being bound to
supply them with what they require at far less
than cost price.

There is a proverbial description of life when
some plaguey superior, some creditor, or ill-tem-
pered neighbour, allows a man no rest, in which
the sufferer is represented as a certain animal,
no favourite with any one, somewhat slow of
motion, and unable, therefore, by an agile bound to
make its escape, but knocked about, now by this
tooth now by that, for yards together, of the
rustic's harrow. Such a life appears to be that
of respectable Neapolitans at the present time.
There is no rest for them. The harrow of an un-
der-paid police, who must live out of somebody, is
driven mercilessly over them, to clear the ground
of what despots consider to be weeds, and the po-
lice know to make their market out of their em-
ployment. The Government wants to gather to-
gether in prisons all who are guilty of thinking
FERDINAND an odious tyrant, and Italians better
able to govern themselves than a BOURBON to
govern for them. This is the great duty of the
police. • To arrest and. punish men guilty
of crimes against society is a very secon-
dary business. Society, King BOMBA. firmly
believes, will suffer much less from a
tolerable seasoning of cut-throats, burglars, and
thieves, than from any diminution of his perfectly
absolute power, that being the salt which alone
preserves it from corruption. An army of police,
backed by mercenary Swiss bayonets, are therefore
kept in pay to keep under surveillance every decent
native of the country. Apparently, however, un-
like some other tyrants, King BOMBA. is as
mean as he is despotic and cowardly. The conse-
quence is that for the dirtiest of work his troops
get the dirtiest of pay. The Swiss hirelings who
disgrace themselves and the country of TELL by
living on the price of liberty, or we might say of
blood, are probably well paid and cared for ; but
the patriot-drivers (to borrow a word from the
a
great Slave Republic) appear to be paid but
meanly. The consequence is they pay themselves.
It seems they have two ways cf doing this.
One is that of letting off the disaffected, the other
that of mulcting the quiet. When we use the
word disaffected, we mean of course those whom
the police know or suspect to have done some
act which might get them imprisonment, perhaps
conviction, and a severe sentence. The disaffected
in the sense of disapproving persons, must include
all respectable subjects not having some personal
interest in the existing despotism. It appears that
the police and other informers frequently think it
more profitable to seek a reward at the hands of the
implicated than from the Government. They
arrest, as we too well know, ample numbers to
keep straight with those above them ; but the
pay for that service not being sufficient for their
wants or their pleasures, they get some pretty
pickings out of those against whom they might
prefer some charge of uttering liberal sentiments,
or of reading a liberal foreign paper, or of being