The Sun.
London, England, 1861-02-18 00:00:00

feelings of their responsibility. A shrewd, plain
experienced Manchester man, who knew
the system well, was asked by Sir R.
PEEL before the committee of 1819—" What
do you consider to be the inconvenience
arising from the Bank being prevented from pay-
ing in. specie ?" 11e replied, "I am not aware of
any." "Do you mean your answer," said the
statesman, " to apply to the non-payment in specie
permanently, or only for a limited time ?" " I can
only say," was the further reply, " that I have
experienced no inconvenience, nor do I know any
body who has; and if the Bank continues to be
always conducted as it has been, I do not expect
that any inconvenience will arise in future." Such
was the opinion of one of the best bankers in Lon-
don, Mr. LEWIS LOYD, Lord OVERSTONE'S father.
During this period the rate of discount was steady
and uniform at 5 per cent. " Have you consulted
your books," was asked in the Committee on Bank
Acts of 1857, of a London banker, a contemporary
with Mr. LEWIS LOYD, "to ascertain whether
you did not charge more than 5 per cent. during
any part of that period ?" " I have not consulted
the books," was the answer, " because I so confi-
dently know it ; it was a thing which never
occurred to us. I would venture to say that we
never charged above 5 per cent. in any single
instance." Did you charge no commission ?"

" None."
Now, observe, from 1819 to 1844 the rate changed
from 40 to 50 times at least. From 1844 to 1856,
the rate charged by the Bank of England, by their
returns to the Committee of 1856, has varied—
sometimes merely for small sums-143 times, and
has fluctuated from 2 per cent. to 91-, per cent.
It is not necessary that we should state in detail
the evils arising from this uncertain and fluctuating
rate of discount. They are well known to every
commercial man, and have tended more
than any thing to introduce a system of
Wild speculation and commercial gambling. But
the evils of these changes, and especially of a high
rate of interest, affect thousands who have little or
nothing to do with bills of exchange and discounts.
For a high rate of discount means dear money ;
and dear money means cheap goods and low prices ;
and low prices, with heavy taxes, mean distress,
confusion, and ruin ; mills closed, workhouses
full, and poverty and consequent crime on the
increase throughout the country.
Strip this system of the mysterious obscurity
with which the cunning Hard Calculator and the
Philosophical Usurer have enveloped it, and what is
it ? It is one by which all contracts between
man and man, and all the interests of trade and
commerce, are made dependent on the presence
or absence in this country of a particular com-
modity—GOLD. At this time we want money,
an abundant supply of the circulating medium,
which the industrious producer may buy with
his goods to pay his heavy taxes. We want
money for our national defences, money for the
development of our trade, money to conduct the
gigantic enterprises of a hardworking ingeni-
ous population. But if the French Bank
wants gold, if the United States want
gold, if the Indian Government wants silver, or if
the Emperor of CHINA should take it into his head
to want gold, any one of these gold and silver
buyers may, by diminishing our stock of bullion,
cause the contraction of our money, of our bank
notes, and of our bills of exchange, and thus throw
the whole commercial machine out of gear.
With these evils we are threatened. Now! when
not even a word can be said about over-trading, or
speculation, but when the English people are quietly
and steadily pursuing their path of over-working
industry.
The effects of the gold discoveries ought to have
brought permanent prosperty to the people of
England, as the silver mines did in the days of
ELIZABETH. The ingenious contrivance of a set
of Currency Charlatans has done much to neutralise
the good effects which even their folly could not
destroy. We have, indeed, gorgeous palaces spring-
ing up around us, luxury, refinement, and wealth on
the increase. But we wish to see the poor man, the
working man, and the " pauper " getting his fair
share of the good things of this life. That can
never be the case while the present monetary sys-
tem exists. And though we indulge in no visionary
dream of anfluctuating and universal prosperity, we
believe, most firmly, that the end of good governs,
ment, " the greatest happiness of the greatest
number," would be essentially promoted by sound
Currency Reform. For this, the great question of
the day, we are content " to labour and to wait."

England and France having very recently opened
for the new year their respective Parliaments, the
latter on the 4th, the former on the sth instant—
Sardinia (shall we not rather say, Italy ? ) now in
her turn inaugurates upon this very day, the 18th
of February, at Turin, the most momentous legisla-
tive session recorded in her history for many
generations. The character of the Italian Parlia-
ment is already known long before the inauguration
of its labours. The majority accorded to CAVOL'R
is clearly overwhelming. A result attributable
entirely, we believe, to the magnificently magnani-
mous reticence of CAVOLTR'S renowned and most
formidable rival, GARIBALDI. Had the Hermit of
Caprera but raised his finger as a summons to the
electors of Italy, the majority, we are firmly con-
vinced, would have been his ! The bulk of the
representatives chosen in the Northern and
Southern as well as in the Central States of the
peninsula would have been the sympathisers with
the Soldier-Champion and not with the Statesman-
Advocate of Italy One and Indivisible ! In that
contingency—had GARIBALDI but spoken the
word—the sword of the hero would have been flung
into the scale, and not, as now, the pen of the
diplomatist.

To GARIBALDI, and to GARIBALDI alone, we
believe to be attributable the fact, now visible and
notorious throughout Europe, that CAVOUR has
an immense, and, as we have said, overwhelming
in majoritygly as
tihne tehvee
ante wea
altalianbe
ePgaarrl
di aemdebnyt.
thAeccraoerdre-
ardent or the more prudent spectators, this extraor-
dinary display of self command on the part of
General GARIBALDI at such an important crisis in
his own destinies and in those of his native land,
will be reviled as Quixotism or revered as Mag-
nanimity—as Quixotism half born of weakness, half
of vanity—as pure and simple Magnanimity, a
magnanimity dictated by the loftiest motives of
prudential patriotism. Designate it how you will
—there is the Fact now resplendently shining
before the recognition of all Europe, that GARI
BALDI has conceded to CAVOUR by his silence,
by his retirement from the scene, by his long-con-
tinued, and therefore doubly astonishing display
of self-abnegation, GARIBALDI has in this
way voluntarily conceded to his rival, CAVOtili, a
vast and commanding majority in the new Italian
Parliament.

As to the one sole motive dictating this course
to the Victor of Calatafimi, there cannot very well
by this time, we presume, be two opinions. The
charge of weakness, of timidity, directed against a
man like that, is nothing more nor less than simply
ridiculous. It is just for all the world like an
insinuation of cowardice thrown out against Pam'