The Sun.
London, England, 1857-12-02 00:00:00

THE BALLOT IN AUSTRALIA.

The Ballot Society held a meeting yesterday, in
their rooms, Guildhall-chambers, General Thomp-
son, M.P., occupied the chair ; and among those
present wore, Sir John Hare, Mr. Whitehurst
(vice-chairman), Mr. Elt, Mr. Richardson, dre.
A favourable financial report having been made,
Mr. STAVELEY, a gentleman from Geelong, made
a statement. He said he was a resident in Gee-
long, the second town in the colony of Victoria,
returning members to both houses' of the legisla-
ture. Both those houses were elective, andelected
by the ballot. Last October he took part in elec-
tions for both ; and acted as scrutineer for Judge
Polman in regard to the Upper House. The voter,
on entering the polling booth, received from the
returning officer a printed paper, containing the
names of the candidates. He then entered a pri-
vate box, resembling a pawnbroker's box, where he
scratched out the names of the candidates he did
not mean to vote for, and then folded the paper and
dropped it into a box. The chairman, while he
sat to give out the papers, and afterwards, while
summing up the votes, was attended by poll-clerks
and scrutineers. He believed that the elections by
ballot elicited the real sentiments of the constitu-
ents of all classes. The people were more indepen-
dent than in England ; but even in the colony
many voters would have been coerced under the
old system of voting. There was a social influence
heyond that of the landlord and the lodger, which
the ballot put an end to. If an elector wished to
vote a plumper, he erased all the names except one.
If he left on the paper more candidates than there
were members to be elected, his paper was disre-
garded ; his vote was lost.
A. MEMBER asked—Could not a voter use two
papers, folding one inside the other before he
dropped them into the box ?
Mr. STAVELEY replied that such could not take
place, as the voter received only one paper fromthe
returning officer. The expences of elections under
the ballot are very small. I have known them as
low as 231., but I believe they are under 100 i. on
an average. The money is spent in advertising
and rooms for meetings. Nothing is known of the
result of the poll during its progress. I remember
that the popular candidate, who had been a member
before, was in a great deal of excitement lost he
should lose his election ; and yet he was found to
be returned 300 or 400 at the head of the poll. Two
of the members were returned against general an-
ticipation. Before the adoption of the ballot there
was much difference of opinion on the subject.
Now the opinion is very general in its favour.
After some conversation, thanks were unani-
mously voted to Mr. Staveley for his communi-
cation. •

THE BANK CHARTER ACT•

(Prom the Morning Post.)
To perish in the arms of a theory is better than
to live divorced from it. This is the sort of wisdom
which we are condemned to hear now-a-days from
the devoted people who rush fanatically to the
rescue of the Bank Act. Lord Eglinton and the
gentlemen of Scotland, too, are used by way of
illus.ration of the sin of acting independently of
the doctrines of political economy, and they have
been gibbeted in the columns of a contemporary as
connivers at the commercial profligacy of the age
and as offenders who seek to skin over the diseased
places in the national system. Now, it seems to
us, with all submission, that the restoration of
confidence to the peasantry and artisans of Scot-
' land, and the rescue of their small havings from
the grasp of a bankruptcy court and its attendant
lawyers, was a greater object than was the expo-
! sure of a badly conducted joint-stock bank ; and
that the prevention of national insolvency was
' more worth compassing than the vindication of
a monetary theory. An outcry of empirical
means ! Routine must be adhered to at all
risks. Why, we remember when these very
same . people could not find breath enough to '
swell the cry against routine. Routine and ad-
hesion to systematic processes were the bane
of the country. Our answer to all this is—firstly,
that in such a fearful emergency. as that which
the country has just come out of, empirical
means must be resorted to ; safety by an instru-
ment, and at any price, is the first object. Secondly,
the empiricism has been perfectly successful, and
has effected its object without damage to any-
body.
Is it not so ? Confidence is restored, money is
brought b ck into active circulation, the exchanges
have turned, gold is flowing steadily into the Bank
of England, the special issue of notes has practi-
cally come back into its hands, failures have well
nigh ceased, end the stoppage in the mass of the
banking and commercial houses of England has
been averted. All this has been effected by the
simple relaxation of a restrictive clause iu the
Charter of the Bank of England. Sorely we are
justified by that one fact, oven if we had no argu-
ments wherewith to back it, in assuming that that
restrictive provision, and its indirect action, had
some not inconsiderable share in the production of
the evil state of things to which its suspension his
brought instant relief and given immediate
remedy.
To-morrow Parliament meets, especially and ex-
ceptionally convened, to take these maLere into
consideration, and there are two or three circum-
stances to which we would direct their attention.
There has been among our neighbours on the
Continent very great monetary pressure as well as
among ourselves. In France, Belgium, and Ham-
burg there has been great difficulty. Franco, an
empire which for more than half a ceatury has
been exposed to the shock of perpetually-recurring
revolutions, and to the exhaustion of gigantic mili-
tary operations ; and Belgium, a kingdom but
lately created, have each maintained their position
better than Great Britain. The Bank of France,
the management and organisation of which we have
been accustomed to see perpetually abused in the
columns of some of our contemporaries, is, and has
been throughout, in a far better position than the
Bank of England ; neither have the capitals nor
the greet commercial towns of either France or
Belgium exhibited such break-downs under pres-
sure as those of Great Britain. Where are we to
look for the reason of this difference ? Let us turn
our attention, first, to the organisation of bank-
ing. We find an absence of that particular machi-
nery the operation of which in England is found to
act so powerfully, not merely upon currency, but
upon the activity of circulation; and we find that
the Bank of France works under no legislative
restriction save such as is imposed by the obliga-
tion of convertibility. Are we to bo told that
these circumstances are to have no weight, or that
they are not an important element in the con-
sideration of the case against the Act of 1844 ?
In Hamburg alone has the magnitude of the danger
incurred here been paralleled, or the actual insol-
vencies exceeded. In Hamburg every obligation of
the Bank is represented by bullion in its coffers.
The system of Hamburg goes further than ours.
There is there, too, banking currency based on
securities. Yet Hamburg is in the greatest mess of
all.
To what conclusion do these facts lead us ? Surely
to these among others. Firstly, that the Bank Act
of 1844 invariably aggravates monetary difficulties,
and unduly hampers the nation in legitimate
attempts to get out of them ; and, secondly, that
neither Acts of Parliament nor the machinery of a
central bank have, or can have, that power over the
monetary transactions of the country which Sir
Robert Peel and his followers ascribed to them.
What had the amount of bank notes issued, or in
the hands of the public, to do with the crisis of either
the year 1847 or the year 1857 1 What has pulled
down the banks that have failed Not any issue
of notes, nor the command of too large a proportion
of currency by aid of the Bank of England, but the
reckless abuse of their deposits, which the public,
attracted by the high rate of interest, placed iu
their hands. Nine millions were held on deposit
by those two banks in Scotland that have failed
with a ciroulation which was under a million. It
was out of their deposits, not their issues, that
they furnished the means of creating and main-
taining firms, with no capital for the bank and
the depositors to fall back upon but their own
paper, crossed with a forged acceptance, and
unrepresented by commodities. It is worthy,
too, of especial remark, that the measures of the
Bank of England, and the periodical augmentations
inthe declared rate of interest, by which its directors
were struggling to recover their gold, had the effect,
so long as the public was free from alarm, of in-
creasing the power and influence of those discount-
ing banks, by bringing continually new and addi-
tional depositors to their counters. We confess we
observe with apprehension the increased dispositions
of the public to make use of their money in this
way, and we receive with the most unfeigned alarm
the disclosures which are forced out by our courts of
bankruptcy as to the organisation and management
of well-esteemed banking institutions. The control
of shareholders, as ordinarily exercised, is a delu-
sion, and the superintendence of boards appears to
be little better. How far these evils of administra-
tion are prevalent, whether they are exceptional or
whether they are common in the banking business
of the country, thrire are no means of ascertaining ;
but beyond doubt Parliament ought to make it their
first business to obtain such complete and accurate
knowledge upon the subject as will enable them
thoroughly to inform the public mind, and satisfy
the nation as to the soundness or unsoundness of the
system under which so many millions of money are
being administered.