The Sun.
London, England, 1828-03-11 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, MARCH 11, 1828.

SALES BY AUCTION.

Four remarkably well-built Carcasses, and Thirty-two Plots
of eligible Building Ground, directly facing the King
Harry's Head, Mile End-road.—Land Tax redeemed.
TO BE SOLD BY AUCTION,
By Mr. JOSEPH BANKS,
At the Auction Mart, near the Bank of England, on Mutts-
nAv, the 13th inst. at Twelve, in Two Lots.
Lot LCOMPRISES four very substantial
and respectable Third-rate CARCASSES,
as the same are now completely covered in, and known as
Inglisb.'s-place, on the south aide of Mile End-road, in the
county of Middlesex, and adjacent to the Jews' Hospital,
held for 70 years, at a ground rent of 61. each.
Lot 2. Consists of thirty-two plots of very desirable
BUILDING GROUND (seven plots whereof have been
recently underlet at 171. per annum.) The whole adjoin-
ing Inglish's-place above mentioned, the boundary of this
Estate has been entirely circumscribed by a capital fenced
wall, with ornamental arched entrance, held for a like term
of 70 years, and 3l /. ground rent.
May be viewed until the Sale. Particulars laid at the
King's Head, Stratford ; Golden Eagle, Mile End ; King
Harry's Head, Mile End-road; of Samuel Oliver, Esq. 83,
Hatton-garden; and at the Offices of Mr. Joseph Banks,
Auctioneer and Surveyor, 48, Lothbury; Auction Mart;
and Hackney, Middlesex ; where a plan aed elevation of.
the Estate may be seen.

Capital Investment, with an amply-secured Net Income
of upward* of 210/. per annum; held for nearly Eighty
Years unexpired from the present time, arising from
• molt substantial and eligible Property, near Drury-lane
Theatre.

TO BE SOLD BY AUCTION,
By MR. J. BANKS,

At the Auction Mart, near the Bank of Englaad, on
THURSDAY, the 13th inst., at Twelve, in One Lot, by
order of the Proprietor,
THE Undermentioned and exceedingly Va-
luable ESTATES, consisting of the Old Red Lion
Public-house and Gin Shop, in Great Wild-street, Lin-
coln's Inn-fields ; let by an under lease at 601. per annum,
for 28 years unexpired, an adequate premium being given
for each under lease. Two Houses, numbered 1 and 2, in
Brewer's-court, adjoining ; let also by under lease, for a
term of 16 years unexpired, at 611. 12s. 6d. per annum ;
and an attractive Shop, Dwelling-house, and Premises, No.
141, Drury-lane, many years established in the trade or
business of a Tobacco and Snuff Manufacturer ; now occu-
pied by Mr. Joseph Heath, (late hficklam) in both the
above businesses, at 1401. per annum.
The above are all held under one lease for '7B years un-
expired at Christmas last, at a ground-rent of 501. per
annum. A considerably improved rent will accrue on the
expiration of the existing under leases.
The different Estates may be inspected by leave of the
respective occupiers, of whom printed particulars may be
had ; of James Collins, Esq., Spital-square ; and at the
Offices of Mr. .1. Banks, Auctioneer and Surveyor, 48,
Lothbury ; Auction Mart ; and Hackney, Middlesex.

PUBLICATIONS.

Speedily will be published, in one handsome vol. l 2mo.
FAREWELL to TIME ; or, last Views of
Life, and Prospects of Immortality.
By the Author of The Morning and Evening Sacrifice.'
Printing for Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh ; and Geo. B.
Whittaker, London.
Of whom may be had,
The MORNINO and EVENING SACRIFICE ; or,
It:Byers for Private Persons and Families. Fifth Edition,
is. 6d. boards.

This day w•as published,
AN ANSWER to FABER', Difficulties of
Romauism, from the DI. S. of the Bishop Or Stras-
bourg, late of Aire.
By the Rev. F. C. HUSENBETII.
1 Vol. Svo. price 12s.

Sold by Hurst, Chance, and Co. 66, St. Paul's (lurch-
yard; Booker, 61, Bond-street; Keating and Brown,
Duke-street, Grosvenor-square, London ; and Bacon and
Kinnebrook, Norwich.

CHEAP EDITION OF LonD BYRON.
This day was published, in four pocket Volumes, with
Portrait and Plates, price ()illy 18s.
A NEW EDITION of LORD BYRON'S
POEMS.

Printed for John Murray, Albemarle-street.

This day were published, post Svo. is. 6d.

ETTERS addressed to a Young Person in
A 4 INDIA, calculated tn afford instruction for his con-
duct in general, and more especially in his intercourse with
the Natives.

By Lieutenant-Colonel JOHN BRIGGS,
Late Resident at Satara.
Printed for John Murray, Albemarle-street.

PRICE 7D.

THE BANK OF ENGLAND AND THE

COUNTRY BANKERS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TYNE MERCURY.

Sia,-Yeu have informed us, and I dare say correctly,
that the Directors of the Bank of England, nothing moved
by the representations of the committee of country bankers
assembled in London, are at length making active prepara-
tions for the opening of a branch bank i❑ Bailiff-gate, in
this town. On whose advice, in this instance, the Direc-
tors can have acted, it is difficult to conceive. The bankers
themselves eaianot have urged the necessity of any such
establishment ; nor is it to be supposed that any portion of
the merchants, manufacturers, or tradesmen of the town,
can have been actuated by a wish of seeiii introduced here
a principle of banking calculated solely to check the free
circulation of money, and thus inevitably to injure all classes
of the people.—The measure would seem to me to bear
upon the face of it every appearance of a job undertaken
for the advantage of a few hungry and dependent friends of
the Bank. But, with whatever views this establishment
and others have been projected, the public are bound to
look upon them with the utmost jealousy. The clause in
the bank charter in virtue of which the right of establish-
ing branch banks in any part of England is claimed, was
never until lately considered to admit of any such construc-
tion ; if it had been 'supposed to invest the Directors with
a power of unfair competition, a,s against 'the country
bankers, we may easily imagine that the charter would not
from time to time have been renewed without the most
pointed and strenuous opposition. It is only, therefore,
upon what, at best, had long been a dormant right that
the present very questionable policy of the Bank is found-
ed. I n3ed not inform you, Mr. Editor, or your readers,
that the bank charter was originally granted in the reign
of William and Mary, and that it was not until a period
long subsequent that country banking can be said to have
at all existed. Under such circumstances, therefore, that
a clause should have crept into the charter incompatible
with the rights of private persons, and with the interest;
of the public, can excite no surprise. I say incompatible
with the rights of private persons, because, iu more re-
spects than one, the Bank of England has adiantages which
the country bankers have not ; and I say incompatible with
the interests of the public, because the interests of the pub-
lic consist only with fair and equal competition. The
Bank, however, would seem to say with Shylock—
" I stay here on my bond." " I crave the law !"

It can hardly, I think, be doubted, but in the course of
the present session a question will be brought before
Parliament, if not of the right, at least of the expe-
diency of the Bunk of England establishing branch banks
throughout the country, not with the wishes, but abso-
lutely against the wishes, of the trading classes of the
people, and without a single reason having been advanced
in favour of such an extension of the privileges of the
Bank. Surely the enlightened mind of Mr. Iluskisson will
perceive, that where no want of banking accommodation
is complained of—where the stability of banking establish-
ments is beyond any rational doubt—and where innovation
may do harm, and cannot possibly do good, it must be
the height of absurdity to risk an experiment. —Upon
what ground, practical or demonstrative, it can occur to
any man to defend the policy of the Bank, I am unable to
conjecture. Lord Bacon tells us " it is good not to try
experiments in states, except the necessity be urgent or the
utility evident." Tried by this test, how stands the con-
duct of the Directors? What " urgent necessity" has there
been for the establishment of branches of the Bask of Eng-
land at Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and
other places, to which the ramifications of the Bank have
already been extended ? In none of those places does it
appear that the slightest difficulty had been found in dis-
counting approved hills. The Branch Banks profess to
discount no other than good bills. Where, then, was the
necessity of any interference ? In fact the business done
by the Branch Banks wherever they have yet been esta-
blished has been of the most trivial amount, and neces-
sarily so from the narrow and cautious principles on which
the managers are bound to proceed. such establishments,
therefore, neither having " necessity" iat, "utility" to
recommend them, ought never to have been put forward
as an experiment on the credit and commercial resources of
the country.

We have latterly had before the public many of those
schemes expressively called " bubbles;" but nothing has
appeared to me so very strongly in point with the recent mea-
sures of the Bank as the famous" South Sea bubble." The
Directors of the Bank—the greater part of them young and
inexperienced persons—seem to take it for granted that the
issues of the Bank never can be carried to any dangerous
extent. New what is this but the principle of the Missis-
sippi scheme ? " The idea," says Smith, "of the possi-
bility of multiplying paper money to almost any extent,
was the real foundation of what is, called the Mississippi
scheme, the most extravagant project both of banking and
stock jobbing that, perhaps, the world ever saw." And
yet, after the lapse of more than a century—a period in
which the Bank of England, on one occasion, was reduced
to the necessity of paying in sixpences; on another, to the
necessity of obtaining an Act of Parliament exempting
them from the payment of their notes in cosh; awl en
another, and that quite recently, driven to an extremity
which threatened a general convulsion of credit (the country
being said to have been " within forty-eight hours of
barter")—after thus witnessing that the Bank is any thin,'
but invulnerable, that it bears " no charmed life," but yields
as other Banks must yield, to force of circumstances, we
must needs be doomed to a new experiment on the circu.
lating medium of the country, founded on the very admis-
sible principle, that the more extended are the issues of
the Bank, the more capable will it be of meeting its engage-
ments !—Really, to any man of plain understanding, it
must appear incredible that the Directors of the Bank of
England, who only two years ago were subjected to a run
which drained them of almost their last sovereign, should
now be taking measures for more than ever increasing their
issue:,—measures which, at the same time, most judiciously
nuiltiply the points at which in a moment of yank: the
Bank would be assailable for gold !
To the memorial presented to Ministers by the Com-
mittee of Country Bankers, I see that an official answer has
been returned.—From that answer, it appears that, with
respect to stamps, Ministers are willing to place the coun-
try Bankers on a footing of equality with the Bank of Eng-
land ; but that they decline adopting the suggestion of
the Committee for putting down the Brapel;
Now supposing the Country Bankers, with respect to
stamps, put upon a footing of equality with the Bank of
England, still they must be exposed to a most unfair com-
petition, and a competition the idea of which never could
have occurred to them. Country Bankers cannot combine,
nor would it he for the interest of the public that they
should do so ; and yet, singly, as opposed to a chartered
company backed by the GoYernment, they must labour
under many disadvantages. They are not exempt from lia-
bility either in person or property—have no deposits of the
public money—and, be the exigency what it will, they
cannot have the benefit of a restriction act. These are
important considerations, and shew very clearly the injus-
tice of subjecting the country bankers to a rivalship with
such an institution as the Bank of England.

It is said the Directors have relinquished the idea of
establishing a branch at Hull, even after having gone so
far as to contract for• premises in which to carry on the
business. But why they should fOrego a branch at hull,
and cling to a branch at Newcastle, is not easy to discover.
The Directors must have been strangely misinformed, if
they have been given to suppose that any change in the
system of banking is wanted here, "and least of all, such
change as they would bring us." There can but be two
grounds of complaint against bankers—either that they do
not afford to the public the accommodation they have a
gnlron,mtt he advantage,
darknessabs
right to expect, or that the local currency supplied by them
is not such as to carry with it implicit confidence, Now
I am sure that in Newcastle no person can experience the
smallest difficulty in turning into money any amount of
bills, at the ordinary dates, which are esteemed to be good;
and as to the security of the currency, I think it may be
in Newcastle.
stability of the paper in current circulation more amply
very safely affirmed that in no part of the kinogidnotnnileinettheto
guaranteed. Can it then be pique, er 4-.-spriee, or igno-
rance on the part of the Directors, which induces them to
establish a branch in Newcastle in preference to Hull ?
eee, Newcastle with the exercise of the colossal powers of the
Perhaps the enlightened cambist who is to be entrustedeident
oin
affordli a
Fnk,
.o,
in them
tahpyeunebosl
tit: tballiiissnhoklmuiettinodtne:ofofgaattßhoerrayrni to his I
Beh.iasnakp
there-
fore,so remote,farimaginable sfi
t aabs:oelite'eird)
cause,l public
motives,
eaown:rvhi concerned,
ecwadenr;a at.
ti.
1.11:'n d e r t a k e s the defence o:
our present system of credit, is necessarily made to contend I

rt4th argutneolis of a stadowv and fethlotii nature. 14
this, however, and Lily former letter on the subject, I have
not evaded, nor I trust, left unrefuted, any argument which
has occurred to me as being possible to be urged in favour
of the establishment here of a Branch Bank. of England.
consider such an institution as a violent experiment on our
circulation, demanded by no party, and holding forth no
prospect whatever of good. " Let well alone," is an old
maxim, but one which, unfortunately, the Directors en-
tirely put aside. In vain we tell them, "We are well,
our pulse and complexion prove it—let those who are sick
take physic." " 0 yes," reply the Directors, " you may
be very well ; but take our draughts, and we assure you
you'll be better. Now, this is a doctrine which goes much
against the grain with us, and very naturally ; for we have
all heard (and we wish to profit from experience) of the
epitaph of the poor Italian, who, not content with the en-
joyment of good health, wild be better, took physic, and
was no more ! If, however, the Bank, reason or none,
will medicine to us, wg may at least indulge the hope that
their practices cannot be of any long duration. The time
for monopolies is past. Every man must now see that alt
exclusive privileges are for the emolument of a few, at the,
expellee of the many. In a eery few years (if 1 mistake
not in PM) the charter of the Bank of England will ex..
pire, and in the meanwhile it is not to he expected that any
Minister will be found told enough (or, which is often the
same thing, weak enough), to propose a renewal of it, ex
cept with such alterations as will render it harmless, if not
beneficial, to the community in general.