The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-13 00:00:00

(From the Times)

At a late hour yesterday afternoon the commer-
cial public received the news that the Bank Char-
ter Act had been suspended. The Bank is thus
allowed by Government to issue an excess of notes
not defined in value, and a promise is given that
a Bill of Indemnity will be introduced in the next
session of Parliament to free the Bank from the
consequences of its conduct, should it be necessary
to take advantage of the permission of Govern-
ment. On the merits of this step we will say but
little. It may be consistent with the maxims of
political economy to regulate the issue of notes
during ordinary timei, and thus to check rash
speculation and the embarkation in business of
men destitute of capital, while when an actual
dearth of money prevails, the chief banking insti-
tution of the country may be allowed to extend its
issue of notes under a public guarantee. But if
such is to be the principle of our monetary system,
the sooner it is embodied into a law the better. If
the Bank is to exceed its legal issue of notes as
often as its rate of discount is necessarily raised
above a cert ,in point, then an Act of Parliament
should establish thu practice on sound and intelligi-
ble principles. The commercial interests of the
country should net be subjected to a system by
which a law is obeyed as long as obedience is easy,
and temporarily swept away as often as pressure
or panic supervenes. The houses which in 1847
and in 1857 have stopped payment before the
relaxa'ion of the law may well complain that,Nhile
they have been crushed by the operation of the
Bank Charter Act, others not more solvent or of
higher standing than themselves have been saved
by the suspension of it. Whether the Bank avails
itself of the privilege accorded to it or not, the in-
vasion of the law is the same, and those who, trust-
ing to its inviolability, prudently suspended their
payments now find themselves placed at a dis-
advantage in respect to those whom boldness or
good fortune encouraged to hold on a day or two
longer.

We can well imagine that only the representa-
tion that great commercial calamities were about to
take place has determined the Government to act
so bold a part. How much they feel the import-
ance of the step is proved by what we have now to
announce—that it has been resolved to call Parlia-
ment together at once, in order to settle the tines-
tious raised by thepresent crisis, and to register for
Ministers and the Bank Directors that indemnity
for which they are obliged to appeal. A Council
will, we understand, be held next Monday, at which
probably Parliament will be summoned to meet at
the end of 14 days.
We may certainly prepare ourselves for a violent
attack on the English monetary system as estab-
lished by the Bank Act of 1844. All the theorists
of all the schools of currency will be ready to pounce
on what seems the carcass of a dead law. And, in-
deed, they will have much that is plausible and not
a little that is true on their side. The law is afair
weather law, a law for times of steady trading and
easy ccedit ; its provisions are like the pasteboard
defences of the Chinese—strong to look ati painte.l
with heavy masses of stones and guns of enormous
power, but in reality a weakness and a sham. Such
will be the reasoning of tie partisans of inconver-
tible paper orb system will,uneontrolled o n banks.the other f nhdaevr
es
The
hand,de
toot. ftahcee ethmeisfac tin;that the act has been twice suspended
that
oatuyv seem,
0c successive
condition
the law does not provide fo
h
n of things in expectation of
which it was framed ? At this moment, when
the pressure seems about to cease, when the Indian
mutiny ie broken and the American disaster draw'