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

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restriction, we may do so without laying ourselves
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 desigoed to place such a contingency
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 net 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 humiliation, except in the camp of the party
who would hare sacrificed the nation to a mere
theory—who would have strained their
.vision
in search of the return of a comparatively small
quantity of gold from abroad, whilst the commerce
to a full stop, and ruin
of the country was coming
was stalking through the land ? It is a significant
circumstance that the event, the mere prospect of
winch led the Times to talk of humiliation and
national degradation, was hailed with cheers and
mutual congratulations in every place of commer-
cial resort throughout the United Kingdom.

ENGLISH MONEY FOR ENGLAND.

(From the Derbyshire Courier of November 7.)
That ingeniously contrived instrument of torture
—Peel's Bill—is now getting into energetic opera-
tion.
In his evidence before the Bank Charter Commit-
tee, on the 7th of July last, Lord Overstone an-
nounced that " the great principle of the Act of
1844 is to make the amount of paper money in the
country conform in its variations to what would be
the variations in the amount of a metallic cur-
rency."
That is to say, having established a system by
which the Bank of England is allowed to issue
14,475,0001., against securities and above the bul-
lion held in its coppers, and by which the other
banks in Great Britain and Ireland can issue
17,384,4241. independent of bullion, the Act of
1844—a worse Act than the monstrous Act of 1819
—attempts to mike this paper currency fluctuate
as a purely metallic currency would do.
The immense monetary affairs of this country
could not for a day be carried on, nor the taxes
raised with a metallic currency. Peel and Over-
stone knew this as well as any ono else But
meuely to Larry out a puerile currency crotchet
the idle theory ( f ignorance and conceit, they have
plunged the industrious chases of this country, et
periodically recurring times, into the greatest poi-
sible distress, privation, suffering, and ruin.
Sir Robert Peel was himself the creature of paper
mosiey—hie father obtained his fortune, and was
e iabled to place his son in the prominent p ditical
position which unhappily for his fellow countrymen
he filled, entirely through the as-istance efforded
to his enterprising spirit by paper money. The
first Sir R. Peel began life as a poor working man
without capital. Paper Money stood his friend,
and he became a rich one. He always acknow-
ledged his obligations to Pitt's system of Paper
Money, and to the last opposed Peel's Bill. The
fortune which the first Sir Rob .rt, Peel made was
greatly increased in value by the bill which his son
passed.
Lord Overstone, whose father, still alive, was a
Unitarian preacher in Manchester before he became
a banker, has accsiamlat,d ths largest fortune ever
made in this country, in a lifetime, partly by the
very paper mousy system which he now reprob des,
and very considerably since the passing of Peei's
Bills of 1819 and 1844 by the facilities which
these pecuniary measures give to capitalists to
enrich themselves in Lime of couituersial pressure,
by obtaining exhorbitant interest for their capital,
and by purchasing securities which the money
law which be, -Lord Overstone, assisted to make,
have depreciated below their intr.nsic value. The
bill which has ruined so many families, has
worked extremely well fer ies supporter—Lord
Over stone. Now Lord Overstone, in the evidence
before referred to, explains the working of the Act
of 1844. "The operation of the Act is this, that
the bank notes, in other words the money, of the
country must decrease as the drain of bullion goes
on. That decrease in the money of the country
must augment its value ; that augmentation of its
value must produce two effects : one is, that it
causes a temporary rise in the rate of interest to
wall the bank must conform ; the other is, ti
it induces the bullion merchants of this country to
write to their correspondents abroad to say, 'Money,
in relation to all other things, has become na, re
valuable in this country than it was ; therefore, in
your transactions with us, remit money in prefer-
ence to other things,' and in that way the ex-
changes are soon rectified." (Question 3,651.)
Very well, money goes up to eight or nine per
cent. : merchants and manufacturers feel the enor-
mous rise in interest. But that is a trifle to what
ensues. Money "augments in value," that is,
commodities of all kinds decline in price. A man
closes his hand in bills of lading, which to dayre-
present 100,0001. ; he opens it, and finds that to-
morrow they are worth 75,0001. or 50,0001. The
merchant prince of to-day is the needy suppliantof
the Bank Parlour to-morrow, and a ruined manthe
day after. But what, Lord Overseoue, becomes of
the working man ? The man, whom you, Lord
Overstone, are above all others bound to consider
in the laws which you make, orwhich you suppurt?
Let, what is at this moment occurring, according to
the Bullionist organ, the .Times newspaper of Mon-
day fait, give an answer.
"Manchester. —Th e depression of trade is making
itself very severely felt upon the working classes,
not excepting the most highly-paid servants of our
ci y mercantile establishments. It would be difficult
to form an estimate of the still greater extent of
the Ruff, ring among the mill operatives, resulting
from the unexpected commercial crisis. Not only
in Mauchester have great numbers of working peo-
ple been partially or entirelythrown out of employ-
ment by the stoppage of mills or the resort to short
time, but the surrounding towns are some of them
feeling the depression of trade more acutely. The
silk trade of Macclesfield is, perhaps, in a still worso
state ; but in Ashton, Stelybridge, Stockport,
Bury, Bolton, Daman, Blackburn, Preston, Roch-
dale, Oldham, and other large towns in the cotton
districts, distress has manifested itself widely al-
ready., and led to an increase of pauperism. At
Preston the whole of the operatives in more than a
dozen cotton mills have been thrown out of employ
by an entire stoppage, while about 30 mills there
are running only three or four days a week. At all
the places above enumerated mills have entirely
gapped or have reduced their productions very
considerably, and with it the employment of the
working classes. Prices continue to give way in
most descriptions of yarns and cloth."
We observe in passing, that Lord Stanley, as-
'iming that we have 160,000 horse power of steam
engines employed in cotton mills, estimates the
stoppage at them for two days as costing the mill
owners 640,0001,, or in a working season of about
20 weeks, 13,000,0001. sterling.
At Norwich, we find that " the number of un-
employed weavers is considerable."
At Leeds " a good deal of short-time y.orking.",,
At Halifax "short-time working has increased."
At Bradford " business in all departments of the
worsted trade remains paralysed. Short-time work-
ing has become general.
How much privations and distress, agony of mind
and suffering of body are involved in these business
details I Well may acorrespondent, who writes to
thank us in our exertions in what he designates as
" the cause of every poor man and of ev.ery good
mall the kingdom," exclaim,
."The terrible scenes
which no eye but that of God witnessing. just
now in Manchester and other hives of industry,
and which are directly traceable to our present he
Bank Act, would rouse the
blood of the people, and they would will the extinc-
tion of that Act, did they but understand its opes
ration."
Yes, the time will come when it will be under-
stood, and for the sake of our suffering fellow
countrymen we pray that it may come quickly.
"In that way," says Lord Overstone,—in the
way, that is, of deprecating all commodities, stop-
ping mills, and starving operatives by the thousand,
—" in that way the exchanges are soon rectified"
and so we get back a few millions of gold, the noble
lord count up his gains, the ruined merchant re-
tires into obscurity, the wives and children of the
worki g classes issue from the workhouse, to be per-
witted to labour, if they can get work, till the next
Panic.
But is bullion so certain to return to us in 1857
as it did in 1847 and 18251
We diminish our money and beat down price_s.
But just now other nations are doing the same.