The Sun.
London, England, 1826-11-21 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP Tilt PUBLIC JOURNALS.

It is very singular, that though the mischief of country
banks has been universally felt and acknowledged, i* im-
parting insecurity to the .circulating medium of the country,
and raising the price of the necessaries of life, yet men will
occupy themselves in futile endeavours to improve this
radiCally vicious tystetn, rather than rn play their wits, if
they hate any, or at least their time, in helping the country
to dispinise with it altogether, and assimilate the prices
through public frugality and retrenchment to a circulating
medium of moderate ,magnitude. A letter from a Mr.
Harming, of,liillington-house, in Somersetahire, to Lord
Liverpool, we see, has been noticed in some of the journals;
and we must therefore, we suppose, follow the example of
our confreres; though otherwise, we confess, we see
nothing either in the plan itself, or the probability of its
adoption, that should put us on the alert. The object of
the writer, as stated by himself, is " to make country
bank paper equally secure with that of the Bank of -Eng-
land, and for keeping in giteulition the requisite supply of
coin and paper money to support trade." So that rivalry
with the Bank of England is courted in the first instance:
and a vast circulation, under the term " requisite supply,"
is the object at which the writer aims. His project is thus
detailed. That provincial banks, containing a numerous
body of partners (330 for example, for the county of
Somerset), should be established throughout England, and
the following is the distribution of his scheme of the county
just cited. That there should be
10 persona £20,000. each £200,000
20 ditto,
50 ditto 5,000 ditto . , .... 250,000
100 ditto 2,000 ditt0,.,...... 200,000
150 ditto l,OOO ditto 150,000

$9O 1,000,000
Now, for our own parts, we should hardly have con-
ceived it possible to organize so detestable a system of
provincial tyranny, so readily as this writer seems to have
clone; and so far we give him credit, if he understands his
own plan. Three hundred and thirty monied _despots of
_all_ sizes, commodiously distributed over a county, would
make their paper pass no doubt. In a work on animal
biography it is stated, that a little dog, having been beaten
by one of greater strength,*immediately ran home yelping,
and fetched the house dog out of his oWn yard, whom he
set to worry his enemy, In like manner'' according to this
system, if a little sharer in the Bank of 1,000/. found a re-
fractory,eerson in his village, who refused ,to accept or
pass the joint-stock notes, he would set on a larger sharer
of ten or twenty thousand pounds, to worry the said per-
verse and refractory person. No, no, Mr. Henning, of
Dillington-house, Somerset ; if you understood Greek,- we
should be disposed to quote to you a line out of Homer,
which says, " Don't let us have many` tyrants ; if tyrants
we must have, let there be' only one.

We have abstained from making many observations
upon the late disclosures brought about through the com-
mission of inquiry into the management of the public
Boards, because the case of one of these Boards, namely,
the Stamp-office, has appeared to us to be still sub fiance,
The dismiesels which have been announced as already ef-
fected among the Commissioners of 'that notorious Office,
Were matiifestly such as could not be dispensed With, if
the public business was to go on et all. They were in
the nature of mere precautions for the future; for the past
they offered no sort of redress or indemnification. It is
perfectly impostible that the subject matter and results of
the inquiry alluded to, as they are incorporated in the re-
port* of the Commission, should not be laid before Par-
runt now sasembled, and become the ground of some
stronger and .more exemplary measure than any that has
yet been adopted by the King's Ministers. Nothing need
be suid at present of the detailed abuses of their trust,
and gross derelictions, of their duty, by members of the late
Board of Stamps, with which every page of the report
upon the conduct of these persons ie absolutely saturated
seer we read it. The indecent bickerings between some of
them--the cOntinned and barefaced absence of others—the
general neglect of whatker belonged to their statiOim—
except the salary alone, which eitevemilied ,for and pm!,
Itched ai a thing of course, with edifying punctuality—all
these things may be considered as under the general: head
• of a system of delinquency, okody,4practiSed and shettlefidly
tolerated for a series of years by the higher class of public
'functionaries at the head of that Doartt, which 'assumes
(and exercises when it finds convenient) the power of con-
mulling all the lesser departments of finance. It cannot
be imagined that the Lords of the Treasury, fur instance,
were in actual ignorance of the manger iie.rhich business
had been carried on at the Stamp-dice, 141.4 enough before
the commission of inquiry was appointed, or even thonbt
Is it conceivable that no weekly or monthly returns wets
matte tea Downing-street of the amount of attendance given
by the Commissioners of Stamps, either'as to the number
of days, or the number of hours to avaii•day ? And if stieli
returns were regularly and honestly made, how happens it-
. that the Board of Treasury did not, by a decisive and pe-
remptory interference long ago, enforce the discharge of
• their duties by the individuals who have just been die-,
missed, and snpersede the necessity of these voluminous
reports, by gentlemen who ought already to have had their
timefullyertgaged with the business of their severe) Aires?
The parties whose names were some weeks ago PublidlAvd
in dna Journal, haVii, it is true, though r then tardily, Leo
ajected from the Board of Stumps. But, it seems, they
have retired- on pensions I Now, ie,not this a monstrous
abuse of the public feeling in cases of akknowledged de-
linquency ?If these men were riot wrong-doers, why have-
they been turned out of office ? If they are really cUlpeMe,
why have they been revearded by new inshiries, only differ-
'mg in character from those :wbielohey formerly received,
by being payments tot avowed idgin&is, instead of for idle-
pest that wus Winked ? Parliament does its duty in
en occurreiwe of this flagrant nature, it will not simply re,.
&tie to e~onfirrn pensions granted as ericoUragetnetits to
official guilt, but will, direct the Attorney-General to 'try.
whether means may not be foetid ter compelling.those who
carried off their 1,0001., per annum from the national Trees
miry, without performing any one of the conditions on
which that large Meow, had been given, to return the
money data iniquitously abstracted from an overworked
and impoverished community ? That will be the duty
.of
; otherwise the House of Commons makes it-
seW a party to this abominable system of defrauding
the 4.*ltate, !wording •to which any worthless dependent
en a Minister, or on the friend of a Minister, may
commis ontiened depredations to a frightful mag»itude,
absent hitrisOf fur years together, as one of these men
did, from Ow scene of hue ostensible employment,
and when the iiuia.tt to the country becomes too notorious,
and the puh,le ditgoz too loud, sneak away in silence
from the effect* 010 M; and be comforted with an elec-
. moaYmirY p,lO/490 at the expence of those whose pockets
he cur no longer pick in the regular form of pay. The
pension-list, therefore, we take Toy granted, will not be
suffered by Parlimaent to exhibit tha additional burden
and disgrace of rewards to these ousted stamp Commis-
sioners. But there is on the subject of the Qemp-office
another circumstance worthy, of graves; regard.' pre,44tie
whole of the evidence offered to tint Commission of In.
. yuiry, it seemed obvious that two Counstisaiours would
yftur's end w the other... When ft was
business,- rout one
hparovveeadrntphliat ssuel°titeoettdio moreel et
chug tne tehvareterey
(._)C:coaemre_ti::oxitis,esii;t‘eey
tsil;Piloot;
:seven ever thought of attending
of them the period of attendance did no!
,_that °them Hardly oune
411* tWO hours at the utmost
oesr-the office at surely is not too mi+ to imy,
per annam hetwe.eit
that two Commissioners with 2,b00/.
the Stampsofhe'e
• them, would have done the duties of
more effectually and completely by attending with Punetu
ollity four hours each, than all the its help
artful schemers, who were receiving amonget them 7 5001_
Y-e4tr, for bringing the Government into obloquy, and
cheating the•publie -service. Here, then at the fortnation of
a new tioard, was a fair opportunity of aecomplishing
en economical, popular, and highly-useful reform. Five
• lumbering COMiltilitiOnefli, entt 4,0001. per *mum, might.
have beau directly saved to the'Exehequer, Yet, wbot