The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-07 00:00:00

and country bankers had a larger amount of notes
sent down to them." While Mr. NORMAN, a
strenuous supporter of the Act of 1844, declared
that " the panic occasioned much hoarding," and
that " the spirit of hoarding diminished the effi-
ciency of the circulation." Mr. HORSLEY
PALER asserted that there were nearly
3,000,0001. issued merely for the mainten.
ance of credit, and not required for circa
lation."

While Mr. SAMUEL GURNEY,
,an
unimpeachable witness, went much further
saying, " I have not the slightest doubt that at
that period at least from 4,000,0001. to
5,000,0001. of the notes issued were locked up
and inoperative, in consequence of the alarm and
fear of not being able to get bank-notes at
all." The present circumstances are very similar.
Every man is preparing himself for a possible,
aye, a very probabl, danger, and that is known
to the Times, for yesterday it declared that " The
Bank can provide for wants, not fears," a piece
of bombast, as we subsequently explained.
The same point was established by the imme-
diate relief afforded by the issue of the Govern-
ment letter of the 25th October, 1847. "All
harm appeared to have ceased on the issue of the
letter," said the Governor. " We did not so much
want the money, but we wanted a certainty, that
if we did want it, we could get it." In fact, the
scarcity of money was artificial, not real, and the
panic was a moral one, produced by the mis-
chievous and whimsical provisions of the
Bank Act of 1844, and not by want
of confidence in the securities themselves.
Even Mr. JONES LOYD recognised that, for he
said—" The remedial character of the measure
was not the discounting at 8 per cent., but the
declaration to the public that at 8 per cent, dis-
count there was an unlimited supply of bank-notes
at their command." This is what is now required;
and the issue of 1/. notes, by relieving a large
quantity of gold, now required for the transac-
tions of every-day life, would render the relief
immediate, and enable the Bank to steer through
the dangers with credit to itself and advantage to
the community.

There is another feature in the returns worthy
of special notice. The additions to the " rest "
for the ten days, or, in other words, the profits
realised by the bank during that period,
amounted to 66,0801. "It is an ill wind that
blows nobody good." No wonder that the
Directors approve of regulations that enable
them to realise such extravagant profits at
the expense of the trading and manufacturing
interests. Lord OVERSTON; too, may probably
add another million to his already overgrown
fortune. But what's fun to them is death or
ruin to the victims. Surely Parliament should
look to the interests of the community at large,
and legislate for the good of the nation aril not

merely for the moneyoeracy, that they may be
enabled to prey on the vitals of the industrious

classes.

The responsibilities devolving upon a nation
that increases at the rate of actually from 300,000
to 400,000 souls a-year, must be regarded as ob-
vious enough in themselves. It would be difficult
to say, however, which among them all ought to
be eonsidered the most imminent and imperative.
Whether the moral or the physical, the sanitary
or educational. A thousand lives, it is estimated,
are added every day upon the average to the mass
of our population. - A considerable proportion of
what may be called this surplusage of vitality is
of course annually drafted from our shores by
emigration. Nevertheless, making all allowance
for this compensative drain--the steady and rapid
increase of the great bulk of the population is, to
say the least of _it, very remarkable. And, ac-
cording to a very comprehensible ratio, with the
increase of our numbers increase also appreciably
our individual and national responsibilities.
It is the instinctive sense of this which has
given rise in comparatively recent times to two
very notable and important movements—move-
ments, however different in their respective cha-
racter, so far at least (in their common origin)
Ilharmonious. To wit—the Sanitary movement
and the Educational movement. In each, as yet,
we have done little more than make the merest
possible comments. Of this thestatistics periodically
accumulated, on one hand by the Chief Inspector
of our Convict Prisons, and on the other by the
Registrar-General, afford rather startling, and cer-
tainly very conclusive testimony. Thanks to the
comprehensive industry of those two important
public officers, we are enabled securely from time
to time—so to speak--to guage the moral and
physical health of the community. Armed simply
with their weighty opinions, we are able to plomb
alternately the crime and the disease of the general
multitude.

A wider average, of course, gives us larger and
therefore surer results. It is sufficient for us,
however, in this country, to restrict our attention
for the most part t,) the calculations affecting the
condition of our own insular population. Look-
ing to our own interestg, to our own ambition, to
our own hopes of amelioration and advancement
—it becomes a theme of secondary consideration
that one death occurs every second of time, sixty
deaths every minute, 3,600 every hour, 86,400
every day, 31,536,000 every year, out of the
huge total of 938,711,473, or in round numbers
1,000,000,000, making up the aggregate of th's
earth's inhabitants. An estimate such as this is
simply appalling. What we have to take int) accoun t
is—an aggregate something over 3f,500,000
not one very nearly reaching the enormous and
hardly concaivable sum of 1,000,000,000. We
have to consider matters affecting 27,744,400--
constituting, according to the last census, the
mass of our own pbpulation. Not the "tottle"
of the whole, making up the population of the en-
tire globe_ "tottle" necessarily,
a tottle" necessarily, in the faiutest
possible degree, me
re
deduced from s opf othx an analysi ei after
hAnaytt hi
si nt go
say, from anything affectin the theory of proba-
Pen
bilities in relation to the stu d
ous mass of
988;711,473 individuali--powarsegi for us little

nearly a million in excess of the total in use in
June, 1856, when the rate of interest was but
4i per cent., and from that it deduces that there
can be no necessity "for any enlargement of the
circulation by means of an issue of 1/. notes, or
any similar device, on the plea that the existing
amount is not sufficient for the commercial wants
of the country." Never was there a greater
Macy uttered. The Times must well know that
"the efficiency of the circulation is not by any
means identical with its money account." That
point was established beyond the possibility of
doubt, before the Lords' Committee in 1848. Mr.
JONES Lorn, now Lord OVBRSTONE, was the only
witness that put forward so palpable an absurdity
as that now advanced by the Times. He denied
that there could be any pressure because
the notes in the hands of the public
were to an amount almost unprecedented, and
that the private securities were upwards of
20,000,000/. But every other witness exposed
the fallacy. The Governor of the Bank (Mr.
Moaais) said—" It was not that there was an
insufficient amount of accommodation given to
the public, but that the public were hoarding
nGtes, bankers would not part with their money,