The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-16 00:00:00

THE PANIC IN SCOTLAND„

(From the Scotsman.)
GLASGOW.—There was not the least semblance
of a run upon any of the Glasgow banks yester day.
Though one or two further failures of commercial
houses were reported during the day, the brighten-
ing prospects in regard to the two suspended banks
have imparted such a feeling of cheerfulness to
commercial affairs, that one or two failures of pri-
vate firms do not affect the get oral equanimity.
The terms of the advertisement issued by the City
of Glasgow Bank imply that the reopening is con-
ditional on depositors agreeing to allow their de-
posits to remain with the bank for some time, at
four months' notice. But this condition is one
which a number of the large depositors have already
accepted, and which, there can be no doubt, the
others will also agree to, seeing that the directors
expect to be able to give depositors the usual facili-
t,es of a current account. With respect to the
Western Bank it transpired, in course of Thursday
evening, that nearly 600,0004 had been! placed
at the disposal of the directors for the purpose of
resuming business, and that a hopeful buoyant feel-
ing had been manifested at the meeting of directors

thiit afternoon. It was even current in Glas-
gow yesterday that the Western might be
expected to resume business so early as next
week. It is a consummation devoutly to be
wished. The serious consequences of the stop-
page are becoming daily more apparent.
One of the shareholders, whose honour and
integrity as a merchant are proverbial, and who is
prominent in every benevolent enterprise, was
stated yesterday, on good authority, to have suc-
cumbed to the pressure ; and others, not directly
involved by the stoppage of the Western, have b -en
brought into their present difficulties by their im-
minent connexion with those who are.

ABERDEEN.---The run upon the banks—particu-
larly on the Union, where it was s,tlrdoanwgees on Thurs-
day—has now ceased. All de:
gwaasil
notes,
demands
aroT The principal
ENT s Society
DURING
u RO of
NG THE
snaheotp,kannedpecroan
aflrodetankcein
tion declaring their Advocatesconfidence i passed a resolu-
anvtehe Scotch banks.
PihNIC IN GLASGOW.
On and
lar theci INCIDENTS
On Tuesday, during " run" on the City of Glas-
gow Bank, a clerk in the
the employ of Mr. Howard
Paul (who is giving
an entertainment at the Prince's
Theatre) emereeemergedf
from that establishment with
two hundred i
soreregns done up in a handkerchief,
for the purpose of obtaining Bank of England notes.
Being unable to
ocure the notes, the clerk was
returning thebullion to its owner, when, in West
Nile Street, near l
dane gave way, and a golden
stream rolled in every
di •
rection to the immense amusement of the bystand-
ers, especially the juveniles, who joined in the
capture of the c(
to witness. At ins with a zeal quite astonishing
the end of the search, the amount
was found to be five pounds lets than the original
sum, which at
in the mud of Weaptresent may be lying buried
Nile-street, or, still more pro-
bable, was surreptitiouslyef appropriated by
some of
the less scrupulous
the industrious urchins afore-
said. One gentleman, during the heat of the ex-
citement, went into thel Union Bank and presented
a cheque for 5001. T
wished gold ? " Gold heteller asked him if he
!" replied he ; " No, ; give
me notes, and let the
the gold." Another
fools who are frightened get
same bank, in a l r gentleman rushed into the
cheque for 1,4001. great_ state of excitement, with a
gold, he replied, wynOn being asked if he wished
s., ' " Well," said the
in teller,
m
" there is 1,000/.
one." The gentleman
that bag, and 4001. in this
ness with which _ n was so flurried by the readi- '
lifted up the bag with
a thd demand was granted, that he
the 4001. only and walked
off, leaving the 1,0001. ou the counter. The teller,
on discovering the bag, laid it aside for the time.
Later in the day,
gentleman returned to the
bank in great distress,stating he had lost the bag
and
with the 1,0001, could not tell whether he
bad dropped it in the crowd, or left it behind him
c
on leaving the bank. Oh' you left it on the
counter," said the teller • quietly, "and if you call
to-morrow you will
getyour thousand pounds."
The streets during the evening presented evidence
that the run on the banks had been followed by a
ran into the whisky shops. The thieves, who arc
ever on the watch, of course have not let the oppor-
tunity slip without turning it to account.
PAISLEY. —On Thursday~,the run on the banks
was
entirely ceased, and there
The state of
an entire absence of
the recent extraordinary excitement.
of commercial affairs here, however,
is anything
but satisfactory. Some failures among the manu-
facturers are reported, among others Messrs. Wm.
. R
Wilson and Son, and the Messrs onalds and Co.
The liabilities of the latter are stated
GREENOCK.--The Greenock Advertiserat 60,0001.
of yester-
day says :—" The severe pressure which bore upon
the banks here upon Tuesday, and more slightly on
Wednesday, was entirely removed
The excitement was confined to the holders Thursday. of a
few notes, and to the poorest class of depositors
in
the banks. The difference of the money deposited
with these establishments in town is not to-day, we
believe, above a very few thousand
pounds
it was upon Monday last, the great majority
less than
ajority of the
drawers from one bank passingimmediately to an- 1
other establishment, and so several that had to pay
away money to one set of customers had actually at t
the close of each day more money than the open-
ing, and that left by persons of exactly
the same
class as the drawers. On Wednesday, notice by
a number of the principal inhabitants, a
s, expt easing
perfect confidence in the different banks, was posted
over the town. On Thursday the panic
was almost
at an end. The managers of the branch
banks here
have, with the exception of the Clydesdale Bank,
read the order for receiving w•ctern and City
Bank notes less liberally than it is con-
strued at Glasgow. There they are received
in all transactions, deposits and otherwise ;
but here they were on Thursday only received in
tit,'
payments for bills,
__C. Among the h
undred anec-
dotes of the public are the following ,—A man ran
into the shop of a spirit merchant in Town
a Tues-
day in an agitated state, and proffered Si. Union
h S
Bank note for change. The shopkeeper ended hire
with
five 11. notes of the same bank, which the
panic-stricken individual walked off •
131 a state of
contentment and complete relief. A well-dressed
woman rushed into the Union Bank •
in a frantic
condition, and in her struggles to get to the counter,
lost a silk umbrella, which NMI trampled upon "d

broken, and got her silk gown loin in several places.
When she reached the goal for which she had striven
so expensively, she tendered for gold a bundle of
Western bank notes, which were of course refused."
AYR.—The panic extended to the branches in
Ayr towards the close of last week. In the blind
demand for gold, the security of the proprietary list
of each of the banks seemed to be entirely overlooked
by the less intelligent holders of notes and pap-r—
-. whether the latter applied to deposits of ordinary
banks, or the smaller investments in saving's banks.
The stoppoge of the Western Bank increased the
excitement, and the run was transferred on Monday
evening, Tuesday, and Wednesday to the Union
Bank ; Tuesday evening and Wednesday to the
City of Glasgow Bank, which then eloQed : and
Wednesday partially to the Clydesdale Bank,
but chiefly if not altogetbe on its Savings' Bank
deposits. These banks were all able to me et their
demands even for gold. The undue alarm seemed
so be passing off on Wednesday, and an endeavour
was made to restore the confidence of depo iitors by
a public meeting in the Assembly Rooms, at which
a resolution was adopted expressive of confidence
in the banking establishments.

GALASHIELS. —The Border Advertiser says :
"We have had our share of the blast. Ou Wed-
nesday forenoon an uneasy feeling was prevalent
regarding the security of the City of Glasgow, caused
entirely by the pressure at the head offices in Glas-
gow and Edinburgh the preceding day. This soon
developed into an ac-,ual panic, and the bank was
all forenoon besieged by anxious depositors eager
to transfer their atiounts to places of more fancied
security. A great majority of thos:t who made ap-
plication were depositors in the Saviugs' Bank de-
partment, holding sums of only comparatively small
amount. In this case, as also in that of the West-
ern, the run was principally caused by small trades-
men, shopkeepers, artisans, and couutiy people ;
none of our leading merchants, manufacturers, or
men of business-evincing the least distrust- in any
of the banks. On Thursday a run was now made
on the National, and to some extent al o on the
Edinburgh and Glasgow, which last had hitherto
escaped with little pressure. The demand at the
National was most promptly met. The run con-
tinued till the evening, when the arrival of the
favourable news from Edinburgh getting abroad
seemed to have an effect in restoring confidence,
and for half-an-hour before closing the bank the
pressure had ceased, and there was almost no
money withdrawn. A number of the shopkeepers
in town, and some of them of no mean sanding,
had the imprudence, not to say the audacity,
during the panic, to refuse the notes of the
solvent banks. This conduct is most unbusiness-
like and reprehensible, as well as unfeeling, and
derogatory to the judgment of any party moving
in a respectable mercantile sphere. That instances
of this kind did occur is beyond doubt. There is
n• lae to prevent this extraordinary proceeding,
but the laws of honour and commercial confidence
ought to be suffic.ent protection against it."

THE MONETARY CRISIS.

(From the Daily News.)

The advocates of the Bank Ckarter Act are in
grievous perplexity and alarm—and no wonder,
after the sample which we have just had of the
effects of its much lauded mode of action. Even the
Times, despite the most uncharacteristic comis

tency which: it has hitherto shown upon this great
currency question, now hesitates how to shape its
course. In one column it declares that the Bank
Charter Act is "abrogated"—that it " must be
looked upon as destroyed ;" whilst in another it
says, "As to the retention of the present law we
have not the slightest doubt." And our contempo-
rary then labours hard to show that the law, despite
its repeated suspension, may really still work very
well, if the nation will but be content, and go about
its business quietly. In the name of comm on sense,
we ask, wherein is the advantage of retaining a law
which upon each occasion of trial has been found
signally wanting f At each period of real pressure
yet encountered the restriction whichforms the vital
principle of the Act has been found to operate as an
immense provocative to panic ; while, to prevent a
completefinancialconvulsion, government havebaen
compelled to step forward themselves in the sight of
the world as violators of the law. Why, even con-
siderations of public morality forbid the prolonga-
tion of the present mast anomalous system. It has
always been a favourite assertion of its partisans
that in the panic of 1847 the turning point had
been reached, and that the process of recovery bad
commenced, before the Act was suspended. The
assertion is totally unfounded, as every unbiassed
person whose experience and observation date ten
years back well knows. In 1857, however, the Act
has at least had a fair trial, for the nation bore with
it patiently until the rate of discount was raised 2
per cent. above the highest point reached in 1847.
All through the recent crisis, the Times—like a sur-
geon encouraging his patient under a painful ope-
ration, has kept patting the country on the back,
assurine it that it could really bear the trial very
well and that its fortitude was the admiration of
all Europe, and pointing to the certainty of re-
lief if it would odly let the Currency Law operate to
its legitimate results. Down with a crash came the
Borough of Liverpool, the great houses of Dennis-
toun and Co., Naylor, Vickers, and. Co., and a
score of other firms' most of which would have
been assisted through their difficulties—at least to
a liquidation—bad not all holders of money been
afraid that the operation of the law would ere long
almost entirely cut off the prospect of further sup-
plies. "Never mind," cried the Times, "all this is
very well and proper ; our currency system works
bravely, and we are a pattern to the world." Even
as the monitor of Printing-house-square was speak-
ing the Western Bank of Scotland stopped ; the
City of Glasgow Bank followed suit ; a run com-
menced on the other Scotch banks, leading to the
withdrawal from the Bank of England of about a
million and a quarter in gold in two days ; Messre.
Sanderson, Sandeman, and Co. suspended, with
some three millions of liabilities ; and through the
length and breadth of the land commerce discovered
tbat money was literally not to be had. It was not
a question of rates at all : on the morniur, of the
day on which the Bank Act was suspended money
was really not to be obtained anywhere except at
the Bank of England itself, whose entire resources
available for discount business are understood to
have been reduced to considerably less than a mil-
lion. Yet up to that very morning, so strong was
our contemporary's abiding faith in the efficacy of
its nostrum, that he continued to descant monoto-
nously upon its virtue, and to warn the country
solemnly that it would be degraded in the sight of
the world if it dared to demand one five single five
pound notes beyond the sum of fourteen millions
and odd arbitrarily fixed by the Act of 1844.
And so well was the great journal kept in coun-
tenance by the other organs of the Jones-Loyd
party that an evening print—which, by-the-bye,
is reputed to receive occasionally ministe-
rial inspiration—was inadvertently betrayed into
the ludicrous error of publishing on the Thursday
evening in ono column an eloquent denunciation of
the evils to be expected from an increased issue of
paper, and in a parallel column the Government
letter authorising the Bank to extend its issues ad
libitum. Now, we have really no idea of regarding
so grave a question from a narrow or partisan
point of view ; but it is requisite that these facts
should be brought prominently forward, for the
Times has already half ventured upon an insinua-
tion that at the moment when the Act is suspended,
the pressure "seems about to cease." Is cea-es ;
but why ? Simply because the public now know
that restriction which forms the gist of the Act is
abolished, and' that the supply of money obtain-
able from the Bank on "approved securities" is no
longer confined to half a million or a million, but
is, if requisite. unlimited. And most assuredly
the turning point in the present crisis was not
reached until the Act was abrogated." We have
no hesitation in declaring that its maintenance for
a single week longer would have led to the suspen-
sion of nearly every monied establishment and de-
posit-receiving bank in the kingdom. Chaos would
have come again in the financial world.
It is really too absurd in the Times to hold the
country up to the scorn of the world for so simple a
matter as suspending the provisions of a law, the
utility of which has long been more than ques•
tioned by a large, and by not the least intelligent,
section of the community. From the language
used in this matter foreigners might almost imagine
that the Bank had suspended each payments, or
that the nation had entered upon some course of
still more flagrant dishonesty. The suspension of
the Bank Act involves simply a return to a natural
state of things, and the abrogation of an artificial
restriction. rhy was the maximum note circula-
tion, unrepresented by bullion, arbitrarily fixed at
fourteen millions ? We know not that the suppor-
ters of the Act have a better answer than this—that
it was so fixed because that amount of circulation
was indispensible. There was, consequently, no
principle, but merely a consideration of expediency
or prudence, involved inthe arbitrary selection of that
sum. Surely, when we find it not merely expedit it
and prudent, but absolutely necessary, to remove th

restric`ion, we may do so without laying our elves
open to the reproach of breach of principle, or to the
imputation of national insolvency or recklessness.
There can be no possible idea of the Bank suspend-
ing cash payments—the whole nation are agreed
upon that point. It is very remarkable, however,
that nothing would be so likely to occasion this na-
tional disaster as the rigid maintenance of the very
Act which was designed to place such a COD tiugen,T
beyond the bounds of possibility. Suppose that the
Bank Act had not been relaxed, and that the run
upon the Scotch banks for gold and upon the Eng-
lish banks for deposits had brought most of them
together, with the whole trade of the country, to a
suspension, would it have been unnatural to look
for a run of gold upon the Bank of England ? Evade
it as they may, the advocates of the Act cannot but
secretly confess that, considering the pass to which
affairs had come, the suspension, and not the main-
tenance, of the Act was the means of presErving the
convertibility of the bank note. The suspension
being, then, wise, necessary, and natural, where is
the
who
except
would hare sacrificed
in thecamp
the
e nv oflw i
oo "oa partymere
theory—who would have strained their vision
in search of the return of a comparatively small
quantity or gold fLoai abroad, whilst the commene
of the country was coming to a full stop, and ruin
was stalking through the land ? It is a significant
circumstance that the event, the mere prospPct of
which led the Times to talk of humiliation and
national degradation, was hailed with cheers and
mutual congratulations in every place of cotnu.er-
eial reszrt throughout the United Kingdom.