The Sun.
London, England, 1857-10-21 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, OCT. 21, 1857.

When the Bank of England was unrestricted in
the issue of paper, or legal tender money, the rate
of interest was almost uniform. For 134 years,
from 1704 until 1838, it was never lower than 4
per cent., and never more than 6 per cent. It
was not until the rash experiment of 1844, that
the extraordinary fluctuations in the value of
money, from 2 to 8 per cent., were heard of, and
yet Mr. COBDEN, who described these very fluc-
tuations as occasioning greater evils, pecuniary,
social, and moral, to the trade and manufactures
of the country, than the direct failure of all the
banks of issue, since their first establishment, was
the man wbo gave his casting vote in favour of the
objectionable system, that produced all the mis-
chief.

It is not capital, but currency, that is now
required. As a nation, England p)ssesses ample
means—not only for her own purpose, but to re-
lieve the exigencies of all legitimate claimants.
But, by the ridiculous enactments sanctioned in
1844, we have hampered and fettered ourselves,
so that we are now perfectly helpless. The panic
is produced that occasions the distress. Notes
can never be in excess. Unless there is a healthy
and beneficial demand, they will remain uncalled
for in the strong boxes of the Eitablishment. A
tnan'who knows that ho can always convert un-
exceptionable securities into the circulating me-
dium will not rush wildly to do so, or pay large
sums for retaining idle money in his possession.
1 t is the apprehension of deficiency that is the
canse of the panic. The moment that is removed,
the terror ceases, and money is again restored to

its proper function.
The demand of the banking and trading com-
munity, in 1847, was fur a circulating medium at
any price. Comparatively, they did not care for
the rate of discount, but they severely felt the
Via'fit Of an adequate measure and representative of
As Mr. HAMER STANSFELD, the eminent
raoltetaty reformer, explaine.3, " legal tender was
Vie one thing needful." It was not capital in it.;
general sense, but currency, that was required.
The Bank of England was quite willing ti lend
Consols, bat it could not give notes. But even
Consols or Exchequer B:115 were not at all conver-
tible into money. Another week would have oc-
c•lsioned a national bankruptcy, in October,
1347. The efficacy of the remedy showed the
roll nature of the malady. Fair and reasonable
" credit" was all that was desired. Tae moment
the act was suspended, the panic ceased. The
bullion stored in the vaults of Threadneedle-
atreet was practically as useless, as if it had been
grit into the sea. Properly used, it would have
prevented the grievous catastrophe that ship-
wrecked the hopes, and destroyed the happiness,
of many respectable families.
" Gold is not required for the internal com-
merce of the conntry"—so said the bullionist organ
some two years since, and the matter is se' easily

proved, ',that the admission is scarcely required for
the purpose of argument, anything that possesses
" the purchasing power " that the receiver knows
he can apply, in discharge of his own liabilities,
will answer the object. It is required to correct
the exchanges—to provide for any surplus that
may be against us, or the balance of trade. But
surely it ought to be used solely in that way. As
a circulating medium it is, perhaps, the worst
that could be indicated. The fifty millions of
sovereigns required for the transactions of every-
day life, cost, at the present rate of discount, four
millions of pounds sterling per annum ; and "the
wear arid tear," on actual destruction of property,
about three per cent., or 1,500,0001. a-year.
This is the result of the absurd prohibition of
1/, notes, which saved the country in 1825, and
would do so again in 1857 if allowed by law.
We shall, however, soon understand the ex-
tent of the grievance. It is impossible
that mattters can remain in their present
condition. There must be a change, and the
sooner that change is effected the better ? It
would be well if Parliament were convened to
decide the matter. But still, the Government
may.interfere, and they ought to do so. Lord
PALMERSTON should not suffer his name to be de-
preciated in comparison with that of Lord JoEN
RUSSELL, the Premier of 1847.
As we have already explained, an extended
issue of notes is indispensable, and they should be
of small denominations, for 11. and the fractional
divisions of pounds, 55., 103., and 158., as
in the North of Ireland. The pounds would eco-
nomise gold, the shillings silver, and almost every
transaction could be arranged by means thereof.
A correspondent, whose communication appeared
in our yesterday's impression, suggested that every
banker depositing 1051. of Three per Cent. Con-
sols should be entitled to issue 1001. of legal-
tender notes. The proposition is worthy of
consideration. Why should parties offering
ample security be refused every fair and rea-
sonable facility It was "credit" that elevated
England to the high commercial position she now
occupies, and that " credit" should not be reck-
lessly sacrificed. It is not merely the converti-
bility of the bank note that is required.
The certainty that it is based on satis-
factory security and could be redeemed at
any moment, wouldjbe sufficient. Let us get free
trade in currency, and that will maintain Great
Britain in the proud position she has so long oc-
cupied. Without it, she must sink, and terrible
indeed will be the fall, and none will feel it more
than those who have produced the calamity.

We begin to think that the sooner Mr.
HAMMOND, of the Foreign-office, is hanged the
better. Not contented with flashing disastrous
news from the East, he seems resolved to set the
West at loggerheads by his foreign innovations.
What would he be at Is he a friend of QUEEN
AMELIA, or in the (paper !) pay of King OTHO
of Greece—or is he trailing a red herring over the
foggy field of Jockeyship, to draw off public atten-
tion from the immediate meeting of Parliament T

What would he be at ? What will be his next
move ? We should dearly like to know—but
this " tarnation " telegram of his seems to puzz'e
everybody, and satisfy nobody. The last confer-
ence at Paris was bad enough, if we may judge by
the results,—but if they meet again and settle the
whereabouts of Mr. HAMMOND' S adopted found-
ling, whether it was picked up at Bath or Bath-
sheba, we shall readily forgive them all the errors
of their maps and boundaries for all time to come.
It is usual at this time of the year to be pes-
tered with long rigmaroles on the state of
the weather and the probabilities of what
will become of us when Parliament
is pleased to meet ; but in all our
editorial recollection (and that is not a mere holi-
day one), we have never been so attacked by
scholars and novices, who deem themselves the
more learned of the two, as by the mutineers
against Mr. HAMMOND'a Telegrams ! Why don't
he doff his Foreign assumptions, and become a
homely cove like one of us ! We might
then perhaps understand him better, and even
condescend to take a lesson in Greek from him--
but not in bonds or modern promises to restore
Greece to her ancient glory. If Mr. HAM MOND
will, in printer's phrase, "dele" telegram in his
next despatch by the fall of Delhi we shall for-
give hiin all the sins of his foreign relations I

At length an EAST INDIA DIRECTOR has spoken ;
of course we know something now about why the
mutiny began, and what its results will be. We
could not withhold such an important speech from
our readers, and we doubt not many of them read
every line of it carefully, looking, as we do in a
QUEEN'S speech, for some sentence to tell us some-
thing we did not know before. Mr. WILLOUGHBY
was installed in the Directorate under the Act of
1853, by the Crown, or rather by the All Talents
Ministry, as possessing, presumably, " all the
talents" for a Director—for one of the six to be
ultimately nominated by the Crown. He ought,
of all persons in this country, to be able to tea us
something of India. For more than thirty years
he was in the Company's civil service there, serv-
ing it, too, in varied capacities—Assisting Resi-
dent and Acting Resident at Baroda for ten years,
Secretary and Chief Secretary, and then Member
of the Government at Bombay, till 1851, when
he considered his Indian education to be complete,
and also that he had completed certain other qua-
lifications for a seat in the British Parliament.
He therefore tried for a seat in the House of
Commons for Leominster, in 1852, and failed ;
but, after four or five years' discipline in the poli-
tics of his native land, he may have found that
DOD'S account of that borough is correct, which
runneth thus : " INFLUENCE -- chiefly pos-
sessed by Mr. JOHN ARK-WRIGHT, of Hamp-
stead ; but the electors are said to appreciate most
highly a candidate with good pecuniary resources."
Anyhow, J. P. WILLOUGHBY, Rig., is M.P. for
Leominster, and we are glad that he is. We shall
want all he does know of India next session, and
we shall yet have a little of it.

But how much have we of it in this speech ?
We must own that we began it expecting, when
we had finished it, to understand some puiuts
better than hitherto ; but, like too many of our
readers, we had to exclaim, " Well, and now
we're as wise as we were before." Nut a single
idea, statement, or fact could we find with which
we were not quite familiar ; not a single opinion
on the opinions of others, which we had not read
before. Most of the retuned Anglo-Indians, iu
their letters ti the journals, have given us some
fresh phase of the matter to consider, even when
we were compelled to differ from their views. Mr.
iWi,LrLoitiyonev, however, his given us nothing,
it ai
nothing, diverse—not to say nothing new.
With all his actual experience of India, and with
all the resources of official information pigeon-
holed in the East India House, it must be owned
that any sensible
Englishman who had never
crossed the Channel, much less the line,
but had only read the papers for C..
last six months, could have done quite as we'l.
We cannot doubt that there is knowledge appro-
priate to the occasion in Mr. WILLOUGHBY, know-
ledge which qualifies him to represent one-sixth

of the Crown's interests at Leadenhall-street.

If there tie, however, we should like to have had
a foretaste of it prior to the meeting of Parlia-
ment. If there be not, then assuredly Mr. WIL•
LOUGHBY is a notable instance of the length of
time during which the Civil Service in India may
teach a man merely European routine there. We
confess to some fear that Mr. W. sees Indian ques-
tions only through Civil Service spectacles.

Mr. WILLOUGHBY, like most other persons,
does not think the revolt a national one, and ad-
duces, as we all have done, the conduct of the
peasantry generally, and of the vast majority of
the native princes. He does not think irritation
with the missionaries was the cause of if, and
alleges, as others before him, the absence of all
complaint of their proceedings, and of any special
attacks upon their persons. He does not think
the annexation policy was the source of the dis-
affection, since those most affected by it have not
joined the rebels ; and, with one slight exception,
it would not affect the revolted body. That
exception, however, if Oude be alluded to,
is hardly a slight one ; and it must be owned
we fear that the King of OUDE'S clever and able
minister, ALLY NUCKY KHAN, has been a prima
mover and instigator in the getting up and work-
ing of the mutiny. Mussulman zeal ; the ignoring,
and worse than that, of Christianity, by the Go-
vernment ; centralization, and depriving officers
of the high pawers they used to exercise ; these
and other things were merely mentioned to in-
form us that they all might have something to do
with it, but what that something is, this deponent
sayeth not.

Perhaps, however, the whole of Mr. Wu,
LOUGHBVS real speech, like the contents of a
Lady's note, is to be found in the postscript.
Mr. W. was not " prepared to defend the system
by which India is at present governed ; " that is
something—for an Honourable Director to be
unable to defend the Directorate system. "Sias
of omission and of commission the company may
have committed "—that is humble—still he must
not be too humble—" for, taken as a whole, their
rule has been beneficent, and has done great good to
India." Well, we will not deny the company

that consolation ; although, except the good inci
dental to trading profits or dividends for them.
selves, it is not easy to perceive. The direc
fruits of any such principle as governing India for
the good of its inhabitants, rather than for the
benefit of the Company or the Civil Service, we
know not where to look for. Perhaps the Pun-
jaub may be a respectable exception.
The last sentence of all, however, is that
for which probably the speech was delivered,
" Whether," said he, "any other system of
government may be devised which would be more
beneficial I cannot say ; but it certainly would
not answer to place the whole of that empire
under a Secretary of State, assistad by resident
officers." Of course it would not answer to
abolish the Court of Directors, and to send Mr.
WILLOUGHBY and his coadjutors, with their
sinecure salaries of 1,000/. a-year, and 500/. a-
year each, and all the patronage too, to the right
about—it would not do for Mr. MANGLES and
Mr. WILLOUGHBY, most certainly. Whether it
will eventually do for this country to throw on a
Secretary of State, with half a dozen of assistants
here (Mr. W. one of them if he likes) and a suit-
able authority in India, the responsibility of
governing India as this nation ought to govern it,
remains to be seen. We incline to the opinion
that great and clear responsibility will necessitate
first-rate appointments, awl that first-rate men
will do justice to themselves, to India, and to
England. We are glad to see that Mr. LAYAItD
has set out on a self-constituted commission of in-
quiry, intending to work hard for six months, to
bring us back the result of his inquiry, and with
the hope that some widowed constituency will,
before May, select him to act for them and for
India next Session.