The Sun.
London, England, 1857-12-09 00:00:00

TEE BANK CHARTER ACT.

(Front the Morning Post.)
It becomes very advisabletbat the public and the
Parliament should clearly understand and define
what lies before them to do in the matter of the
monetary affairs of the country;: for surely never
has there been such misrepresentation or misappre-
hension, and such an abuse of terms, as upon the
present occasion, as to what has been done; what
ought to have been done, and what may be done.
Let us take shortly a review of the main assertions
to which currency has been given. It has been said
that the bank-note circulation of the country has
been unduly tampered with and depreciated, and
that a most injurious effect has been unfairly pro-
d uced upon the value of both money and commodities
whereby those wealthy men whohavehoardedmoney
under the influence of a prophetic perception of the
dead-lock to be induced by the free action of the
Act of 1844 have been wickedly debarred from
making all the profit they had anticipated out of
commercial prostration and national distress. Ith as
been said by one of the foremost of those men who
have been accumulating large fortunes through the
vast fluctuations in credit and capital, caused by
the influences of the Act, that the progress to insol-
vency and ruin ought not to have been interfered
with, that the play ought to have been played out,
and destruction suffered to have unchecked sway ;
that Lord Palmerston aught to have _suffered the
whole commercial edifice to have been burnt to
ashes, for the sake of seeing whether it would not
spontaneously rise a phoenix, brilliant and purled.
It is said that it is possible by the aid of an Act of
Parliament to increase or decrease at pleasure the
currency of the country, and to control the ebb
and flow of bullion, and to regulate mercantile
speculation. This last property was once attributed
to the Act of 1844—indeed, itwas one of the original
and main objects aimed at in ifs creation. Sir
Robert Peel having; however, admitted iu 1847
that in this respect, at least, his device bad utterly
failed, we presume we may refrain from touching
on that point, and may turn our attention to the
other propositi( it to which we have referred.
It is a mis-statement of facts to say that 2,000,0001.
have been added to the circulation, and it is an
abuse or a misapprehension of terms to represent
that circulation as in any degree debased. There
has been an increase of bank-notes to the amount
of 2,000,0001., as between the Issue department
and the Banking Department of the Bauk of
England, no doubt. That sum has passed from the
former to the latter upon approved securities, but
that has been simply a transaction between the
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has never held the half of those notes, nor have
half of them ever been issued beyond the walls of
the Bank, and those that were issued have since
been returned to it. The Banking Department
has always had the advantage of the additional
strength conferred by the one_half of the excep-
tional issue, and- now it has the advantage of the
whole. Where is the depreciation In the infu-
sion of the nine hundred and odd thousand which
for about a fortnight has been in the hands of the
public ? Surely nobody will be induced to believe
such nonsense.
.Neither has money been made cheaper. The
Government susteutation of the rate at 10 per
cent. prevented that. Money has been made acces-
sible, and produce, property, and real securities
have been restored to a conditii.n of convertibility.
That is what has been done, and it has s ived the
nation from frightful results. But the infu-
sion of the notes actually taken into circulation
would not have filled up the gap made by
the hoarding induced by the alarm of the
frightened or the cunning of the greedy.
It was the confidence restored to the former by the
measures of the Government which balked the cal-
culations of the latter, and set free the springs of
commerce so fearfully cramped by the Act of 1844.
Hence this anger, and those frenzied denunciations
which are daily thundered in our ears by the organs
of that moneyed interest which makes wealth out
of distress. For the disappointments of that clips
we have no regrets. Our sympathy is for that
moneyed interest which is engaged in the commer-
cial and manufacturing industry of the country,
and upon which the depressed and struggling ope-
ratives of the kingdom are dependent for their
social position and their daily bread. En America
there is a large recognised party who systematically
work for a panic, who make a business of creating
sensations, who exult in distress, and look upon
commercial destruction in the same spirit that