The Sun.
London, England, 1844-04-10 00:00:00

--A#1•111;

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 1844.

ject, the development of the resources with the
expenditure of the country; and the coincident ac-
cumulation of the national capital with the in-
crease of the debt of the nation. To the
future historian of the present age, it will present a
prominent epoch in the annals of the public credit or
faith, which he may conveniently select for the close
of one eventful period in the financial and domestic
progress of Great Britain, and, assuredly, from which
he may date the commencement of another.
The last occasion upon which the Three
per Cents. were at par was in, the year 1749 (just
95 years since). The amount of the Public Debt
was then 78,300,0001. The preceding year had wit-
nessed the conclusion of the " Spanish War," as it
was called, which commenced in 1739, and had in-
creased the debt to the amount just stated,
from a total of 46,955,0001. (or to the extent,
in about ten years, of 31,339,0001.) The
amount of the Public Debt, at this moment, is
in round numbers, is 752,000,0001., being an increase,
in the 95 years which have elapsed since 1749, of
674,000,0001. If the fact of a given description of
stock being at par in the money market raises a
legitimate inference that there is capital enough afloat
to purchase up the whole of it, then we must assume
that there is capital seeking investment in Govern-
ment securities at this time to the whole amount of
the Three per Cents., viz., for England, Three per
Cent. Consolidated Annuities, Reduced ditto, Debt to
Bank of England, and South Sea Company Old and
New ditto Annuities ; S. S. Annuities and Bank,
497,329,000/. ; for Ireland, 2,818,000/.—in all, say
500,147,0001. Now, this is pretty well. It would, in
practical operation, give such a value to the remain-
ing portion of the debt in the nature of increased
interest, as would speedily enable the Government to
reduce the dimensions of the Colossus to those of the
minute " General Thoma 3 Thumb," the last favoured
object of Royal curiosity. The expectations of the
Herald, we presume, greatly exceed our moderate
dealing with this bagatelle of 500,147,0001. In 1749,
says our Contemporary, the Three-and-a-Half per
Cents. were at par, the public debt being no more
than 78,000,0001.
" This proved that there were rich men enough—and
rich enough—in the country to purchase or to possess
78,000,000/. ; at present the debt is, we believe,
750,000,0001., and the Three per Cents. are again at par
—does not this prove something like a tenfold increase
in the wealth of the country ?"
That is,—carrying out his own argument to its
legitimate extent, that, with a similar price of
Three per Cents. in 1844 as in 1749, there
must be " rich men enough—and rich enough—in
this country to purchase or to possess 752,000,0001."
On the same principle it would follow that if
in 1815, when the National Debtstood at 864,000,0001.,
—the Threes had risen to par, there would have
been " rich men enough—and rich enough—in
this country to purchase or possess," in the way of in-
vestment, even that fearful aggregate of capital stock.
But remembering that, on the aggregate of the last four
years of the war, from 1812 to 1815 inclusive, the
amount of money raised on the country had been, in
taxes, 300,183,3291.; in loans 187,525,8061.; (collec-
tively, 487,709,1351., or per annum 121,927,2831.);
we really take leave to doubt the correctness of the
assumption to which our Contemporary's theory in-
evitably leads. At the same time we quite concur
with him that to consider the total increase of the
wealth, or available capital of the kingdom to be ade-
quately measured by the test of the quantity of stock
uncancelled, concurrently with the Three per
Cents. rising to par, would be a very absurd error.
For, he adds :

"Foreign loans, railroads, docks, shipping, great
buildings, and machinery for merchandise and manu-
factures ; all these have been drains of capital assisting
to keep down the price of public securities, but nearly
all of them additions to the wealth of the couutry."

'We pass, however, to a startling specimen of the
post hoc—ergo propter hoc"—reasoning of a thick
and thin upholder of the Premier's administration of
affairs in the following passage :

" The Three per Cents. have risen in value 12 per
cent. since Sir Robert Peel's accession to office (the
Whigs had indeed reduced them three per cent. by their
wretched misgovernment) ; but is there any good reason
why the present price must be the maximum? Why may
not the Three per Cents. rise 10 or 12 per cent. more
in price in the years before us?"
If the policy of Sir ROBERT has had anything to
do with the vast accumulations of relieved or unem-
ployed-capital which are now pouring into the market,
not only from the treasure of our own capitalists, but
from foreigners seeking investment here for their
money,—Mr. MURPHY, of weather-wisdom notoriety,
has grave cause of complaint against all who dispute
his private intimacy with the genii of the winds and
the waters, who cram him for his almanack. "The
wind bloweth where it listeth," however, despite Mr.
MURPHY ; and the rise of Consols has at least as little
to do with the profound management of Sir ROBERT
PEEL. Our Contemporary might have found a better
reason for the steady, upward tendency of prices of
stock for some months past, to which he directs atten-
tion, in the principle he nee touches upon. Ile
says :

" After all that England has suffered and toiled to
maintain her public faith, there never will be a question
of the inviolability of her engagements."

With this fact in her favour, and the impressive
commentary supplied by the contrary course of cer-
tain continental Monarchies in Europe, and repu-
diating States on the other side of the Atlantic, no
thing is more natural than that capital for safe in-
vestment should flow hitherward ; and in such plenty
as proportionably to raise the price of the securities
in which it has been determined to invest it.

We will now endeavour to answer the question of
our Contemporary, as to why the " Three per Cents.
should not rise is i elve per cent. more in price in the
years before us ?" That is, supposing the country
is really to be blessed, according to his prayer, with
an indefinite prolongation of the PEEL premiership
and policy.
It is evident that nothing would have sustained us
through the awful crisis of the last war —that no
monetary system would have sufficiently represented
the wonderfully developed resources of the country, but
the now deprecated paper issues of the Bank of England
and our other banks of issue. The conviction, on the
one hand, of the immeasurably superior amount of
real wealth, and the substance of capital, in the United
Kingdom over its funded and unfunded debt—on the
other hand, the reliance entertained by one class of
the community in Great Britain on the moral pro-
bity of the other—gave confidence to all in the
general solvency of those sources (especially the supe-
rior ones) from whence the paper representatives
of that capital and wealth were diffused. Public
credit, however subject to chimerical alarms occa-
sionally, was never substantially shaken, from 1797
till 1819, when PEEL'S Currency Bill shook it
throughout its whole relations. If Sir ROBERT
really proposes to close up the joint-stock banks
now existing, by giving to the Bank of Eng-
land the exclusive privilege of being a bank
of issue ; if he will mate his enormous blun-
der of 1819 with a still more rash and stupendous
folly in 1844 ; if he have determined on crippling
the gigantic energies of our commerce by continuing
to contract its limbs and circumscribe their action
with the golden fetters of his currency plan; he will
assuredly not remain in power as many months after
Easter as our kind-hearted Contemporary speculates
upon years.