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

TEE BANK CHARTER ACT.

(From the g g
orsie Post.)
It becomes very theadvisabletbat 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 bleu such
n misrepresentation or misappre-
hension, and such 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 injuriou8 effect has been unfairly -
pro-
duced upon-the value
of both
both money and commodities
whereby those wealthy
men who have hoardednioney
under the influence of a
prophetic perception of the
dead-lock to be
Act of 1844 have induced by the free action of the
been wickedly debarred from
making all the profit
they had anticipated out of
commercial prostration and national distress. It has
the foremost of those men who
have been accumulating large fortunes through the
in
vast fluctuations credit and capital, caused by
the influences of the
and ruin Act, that the progress to insol-
vencyought not to have been interfered
with, that the playought to have been played out,
and desti notion suffered to have unchecked sway ;
that Lord Palmerston ought to have suffered the
whole commercial
edifice to have been burnt to
of
ashes for the sake seeing whe•her it would not
spontaneously rise
It is said that it is a phoenix, lce illiant and put fled.
Parliament to possible by the aid of an Act of
increase or decrease at pleasure the
eon
currency of the and to control the ebb
and flow of bullion,nt r y'd
to regulate mercanti!e
an
speculation. Thislast
to the Act of 1844 _indeed,
was onceattributed
itwas one of the original
aimed and main objects at in its creation. Sir
Robert Peel having,
however'
admitted iu 1847
respect,
at least, his device bad utterly
may refrain from touching
fade I, we presume We
on that point, and
may
turn our attention to the
other Propositi( n to
which we have referred.
It is a, mis-statementt)f facts to say that 2,000,000/.
have been added to the circulation, and it is an
abuse or a misapprehension of terms to represent
in
that circulation as any degree debased. There
has been an increase
of 2,000,0001., as
of bank-notes to the amount
and the Banking between the Issue department
Department of the Bank of
England, no doubt. That sum has passed from the
upon
former to the latter approved securities, but
that has been simply a
transaction between the
no two departments, the e being enabled by the
suspension of the Act to cometw to the aid of the
other. That is true of the departments of the
Bank, but it is not true of thee relations between
the Bank of England and the public.
has never held the half of those -The public
half of them ever been issue notes, nor have
beyond the walls of
the Bank, and those that were issued have since
Banking
been returned to it. The Department
has always had the advantage
the additional
strength conferred by the one-halfof
excep-
tional issue, and now it has the ad
vantage 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 7 Surely nobody Will be
induced to believe
such nonsense.
Neither has money been made
Government sustentationof
the cheaper. 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 conditionan of convertibility.
That is what has been done,
it has saved the
nation from frightful results, But the infu-
sion of the notes actually takle
wl' into circulatione
ou'd not have filled up t
gap made by
the hoarding induced by thei alarm of the
frightened or the cunning of
the greedy.
as, It w the confidence restoredt
the former by the
measures of the Government eyi°nch balked the cal-
culations of the latter, and set:
free the springs of
commerce so fearfully cramp rd by the Act of 1844.
Hence this anger, and those
infrenzied denunciations
which are daily thundered
our ears by the organs
which of that moneyed interest makes wealth out
of distress. For the disappointments of that class
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 partywho systematically
a
work for a panic, who make business of creating
sensations, who exult in distress,
and look upon
commercial destruction in the same spirit that