The Sun.
London, England, 1857-10-19 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY, OCT. 19, 1357.

The Bank returns are again unfavourable.
There has been a decrease of bullion of 552,7491.,
of notes unemployed of 581,6401., and an in-
crease of " other securities" of 563,0341. This is
of course very agreeable to the Batik, although
the community at large may think very differently
on the sulject. The Directors know that under
any circumstances they will be saved, and conse-
quently regard the emergency with comparative
indifference. Government interposition will pre-
vent any act of bankruptcy on their part. A letter
similar to that of the 25th October, 1847, will
prove effectual at any moment. The knowledge
that the Ba.ak has power to advance any amount
of notes without limit will produce the effect with!
out the possibility of doubt or aiffizulty.
The American intelligence is of a very gloomy
charact3r. Tice Eschange is greatly against Eng-
land, and there is no prospect of any decided im-
provement for a considerable time. The Banks
of Philadelphia and Baltimore have with one con-
sent suspended cash payments,. and the people are
acting as currency reformers on their own account)
and by their general agreement to accept the notes,
although temporarily inconvertible, as cash, they
will get through the crisis, which might otherwise
be very formidable.

There must, however, be considerable exports
of bullion for some time to come, and as we have
already explained, there is no way by which the
formidable consequences of• such an opera-
tion can be averted. It is true that the
scarcity of money is merely artificial, pro-
duced "by the mischievous 'and whimsical
Provisions of the Bank Charter Act of 1844."
But still it will very prejudicially affect the indus-
trious classes, and occasion great privation and
suffering. Seven pea- cent, is bad enough but it
is still worse riot to be enabled to obtain the ne-
cessary monetary facilities at any cost. The know-
ledge that an unlimited supply of Bank-notes could
be obtained at even a higher rate, ou unobjection-
able security, would produce the offt:ct 30 urgently
required.

To effect the desired object, the people must set
their own shoulders to the wheel. The press
can do much, but there must be a founda-
tion to work on. There must be "the pres-
sure from without," and that of a steady
and resolute character. It is well worth the
trouble ; and a tenth part of the energy and de-
termination exhibited is reference to the bread
tax will enable the nation to purchase bread, and
that of the best description.
The use of gold should be economised. There
is from fifty to Sixt—
y millions of sovereigns in
general use, which could be replaced by I'.
notes. In Scotland and Ireland these notesi

are used in the transactions of everyday life.
Gold coin is very unpopular, and when
received from some wandering tourist, it is ex-
changed for notes on the first favourable opportu-
nity. The small notes would be willingly accepted.
They saved the nation in 1825, and would do so
again in 1857 if resorted to. An Order in Coun-
cil, or even a Ministerial Letter, would be all that
could be required. If the Act is to be suspended,
it may as well be to the full extent required. A
step involving such extraordinary responsibility,
and so undisguised a departure from the law, can
only be justified on the ground of absolute
necessity, and when adopted should be fully
adequate to the emergency. There is no
law that fixes the extent and denomination
of the Exchequer-bills issued for the public ser-
vice. They may be delivered for 11. as well as
for 1,0001. It was only the laziness of a former
Camptroller of the Exchequer that led to the
issue of the larger denominations of bills. Now
the small bills would test the efficacy of the
system that we advocate. Being receivable in
payment of taxation, and duties of every de-
scription, they would be readily accepted for any
payment that could be required. The agricul-
turist, the manufacturer, the butcher, or baker,
would rejoice at receiving what possessed
a purchasing power, and could readily be disposed
of in satisfaction of any liabil:ty. They might
not be hoarded, but that would be a great ad-
vantage. Hoarding is one of the inevitable re-
sultsthe b Ilionist system. Mr. JAMBES WU,-
u
sox, the best financier connected with the Govern-
! ment, has proved that the issue of twenty millions
lof one pound notes would be equivalent to the
digging up of an equal amount of gold in the
Icentre of England. We know the excitement that
would be produced by such a discovery. Why
may we not produce a similar result by different
and far easier means ?

Almost simultaneously, Lord CANNING and
Lord ELLENBOROUGII appear in the papers to-
gether ; they both appear also by written docu-
ments, and we have not therefore to judge their
acts by the statement of others. Lord ELLEN-
BOROUGH has, we acknowledge, one advantage, he
writes entirely uncontrolled by any advisers what-
ever; poor Lord CANNING writes as the ama•
nuensis of a Council who would dictate to
him wrong, if his unacclimated Eaglish
sense would otherwise have dictated to him
aright. It is a great mercy not to be pestered
with a self-sufficient Supreme Council, still,
as Lord CANNING has the right to toss to the
winds the advice of those whom he is bound to
hear, he must be held responsible for accepting
the bills on his credulity or weakness, drawn by
them in favour of the " covenanted " Civil Ser-
vice. We rather fancy that Lord ELLENBOROUGLI,
Or Sir CRARLES NAPIER, if living, or Sir CoLIN
CAMPBELL, or any of the really great men who
have held for us the North-west Provinces, would,
in the post of Governor-General, have listened
to the incompetents, and, having made them
a polite bow, would have retired to his closet
and have dictated his own despatch with hardly
a thought of what he had heard, unless, indeed,
what had fallen from old General Low, the mili-
tary member of the Council. All the pert and
conceited flippancies of GRANT, the legal quibbles
of PEACOCK, and the complacent follies of the effete
Mr. DORIN, would by such men have been barely
endured. The despatch which was to go would
indeed have often been ready cut and dried for
the messenger, before they had ever listened as in
duty bound to the clishmaciaver of the Fours,.

However, here the two documents lie before

us. Lord ELLENBOROUGH'S we adverted to in
part on Saturday. Unable to attend the
meeting of the Winchcomb Agricultural Associa-
tion, he writes to it his views of the character of
the mutiny and the mutineers, and of the mode
by which the sons of the soil may best discharge
their duty of providing the requisite force to re-
tain, as well as to reconquer India. Ou the latter
point we gave our opinion on Saturday. Let
our readers, however, compare the tone of Lord
ELLENBonouces remarks on the deserts of the
mutineers, with those of Lord CANNING in his
circular to the Indian authorities. Lord ELLEN-
BOROUGH, at least, writes in the spirit of his
countrymen ; appealing to them to aid in raising a
competent militia, he says—
" Gentlemen, you may not have looked into all
the details of what has taken place in India,
but you must know this—that we have there a
great war forced upon us by rebels who would de-
prive all our countrymen of their Eves, and Ens-
land of an empire—that where we placed our con-
fidence, we have been met with treachery—
where we acted with kindness, we have encoun-
tered murder—murder, not directed only against
man by whom resistance might be made, and from
whom wrong; miglit have been feared, but extend in--,
equally b unoifending, helpless women—to to
children at their knees, and to the infants at their
breasts—sparing none, and cften ieflicting dfeath
with torture upon the body where it bad alrea,:iy,
more cruelly tortured the mind.
" We have seen there, in almost every instance
of mutiny, oneaeneral leliberate design, not oni:ry-
to deprive 11.3 of 'the dominion we have so long held
with Amtour, but to place us, as a people, uncle,:
circumstances of outrage and of indignity, which,
if we submit to them, must render us, in the eyes of
all living men and of all future generations, a de-
spised and degraded race. will you submit to this?
You will say you never will—you will have redress,
and vengeance. We will say nothing about ven-
geance—that belongs only to a Higher Power ;
but to punish crime so signally as to deter ali
hereafter from its commission, and to vindicateour
sovereign authority, this is no doubt our right, and
it is our duty."

Again, urging the value of their example, if a
patriotic one, he exclaims—
"lt is impossible to over-estimate its importance.
There is nothing man holds dear for which we have
not now to fight. If we should not bear ourselves
manfully in the contest thus forced upon us, if we
should not succeed in it, we must be content not
only to lose the noblest empire in the world, but to
make the name of Englishman a byeword of shame
amongst nations. _ _ _

"The wives and daughters of our countrymen
have been publicly violated, their children have
been put to death with circumstances of cruelty
surpassing all we read of in history as the punish-
ments inflicted by God upon the offending Jews.
It has not bean deemed sufficient to destroy tr. We
were first to be dishonoured, and this in a country
through which we have proudly—perhaps too
proudly—stalked as conquerors for a hundr,d
years. '

These are unquestionably the sentiments which
stir the bosom of every Englishman at home, the
sentiments which arouse farmers and farmers' men
to do what in them lies to wipe out the foulest
blot ever inflicted on the fame of England.
Bat we turn to the document issuing from the
Governor and his Council, all of them persons al-
most on the spot—issuing from this maT),
and theso men, if, indeed, several of thew
deserve the name ; for to us, in one's native clime,
it seems as if a tropical climate had reduced them
to the condition of those unfortunate porsomi
who guard the Earems of Rajahs, Nabobs, Peish-
t
was, and Elstern Emperors, and who cannot be
stung
ppees
rsible indignation with indigni-
ties ung
to o
either
sx._we turn to this document, and
what is its object ? To proclaim martial law
wherever mutineers are in foreo ? To en -
c .urage firmness and decision when everything
Aepenols upon it? To refer the civil authr.:-
' rities to the military commanders, as the best
judges of what course the former should
take in each district ? Nothing, indeed, of this
kind from Mr. Home Secretary BEADOIV—no ; tut