The Sun.
London, England, 1845-10-27 00:00:00

SECOND EDITION.

ebritwing
LONDON, MONDAY, °UMBER 27, 1845.

It is curious to remark in how powerful a manner the
;peaulations of those Contemporaries who dispute the action
of Sir R. PEEL'S currency legislation upon the money
market confirm, no doubt unwittingly, the propositions we
have so often asserted of it. The most vehement advocate
for the Premier's gold standard theory, asks what has
become of the 30,000,0001. of deposits which have been paid
into various bankers, on account of railway shares ? Another
Contemporary, who disputes this writer's views upon the sub-
ject utterly and unhesitatingly, tacitly admits that he cannot
answer this pithy question. He concurs with us, however,
in objecting to the mischievoui tone assumed by the in-
terrogator, in " running amuck " against railway invest-
ments in general. But he is not less committed to all the
disastrous fallacies of the bullionist. Now, in our turn, we
beg to ask the whole of this school—the bullionists, the paper
convertible into gold, the gold standard of currency
doctors—what has become of the enormous aggregate of de-
posits pail within these few months on railway shares? We
make them a present of our own incredulity as to the assumed
amount of 30,000,000/. Be the amount what it may, it is
however certain that the sum is to be told in millions. Has
it been paid in in gold? In paper convertible into gold? In
both the one and the other? The arewer will clearly be in
the affirmative to the latter. It is then enough for our purpose
to chow that the many additional millions, which to make up
even that it was not drawn existing aggregate of our
this aggregate must have been called out of private hoards,
mciruesut haveati
em addedet toit tbhee
contendedpi.evi o u
out of any hoards, but simply diverted from those branches of
investment in which it was befare placed into
this railway share application. Then it is cer-
tain, either that the previous aggregate of the
circulation is not diminished by the mere fact of the
change of investment; or, that if it be ( which is most un-
likely) absorbed into the caeital of private bankers, it still
exists for all purposes of the operation of the 7th and Bth
of Vic., cap. 82, and the 4th and sth of Vice cap, 50 3 the
one embodying the sublime scheme of the issue and banking
department of the Bank of England, and the other pe-
riodically promulgating the events aggregate accounts of
the circulation of all the banks of Scotland and Ireland.
This being so, •we take leave to ask how it happens
that the total circulation of the flank, according to
last Friday's Gazette, is contracted to 27,778,955/. ? That the
Bank of England felt it necessary to contract their issues
within the last two or three week., for some sufficing reason,
is abundantly evident on these two significant facts—they
have raised their rate of discount, and the last Gazette pub-
lication shows that the diminution tf their gold and silver
bullion stores has fallen below that which we had already consi-
dered its extremest point, On the 18th inst. we announced that
the issue department of the Bank of England showed a total of
28,068,8261.; and the bullion was, gold, 12,253,2891.; silver
1,815,5311., together 14,068,8201. With last Friday comes the
authorised announcement, that the notes issued are
something under 27,779,0001., and the bullion only
13,783,95:/. ; viz., gold 12,018,4471., silver 1,760,508/.
It would appear, therefore, that nothing is much more
clear, than that the combined operation of the Premier's mo-
netary system, and the continuous demands of railway wages
in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Belgium, Prussia, and
even Italy—wherever in short English capital has been em-
barked in these works—is fast draining the country of that only
legalised representative of active capital in what we may call
its money realization, which the sagacity of the Currency Laws
will permit to us. Our condition thou is now simply this :
at no previous period in the history of the country was there
ever such a development of the spirit of enterprising invest-
ment; such a demand for incidentaideposits of capital to con-
. duct the vast transactions to which that spirit has now espe-
cially addressed its most vigorous energies; or a disparity be-
tween the amount of the paper which must represent
these transactions, aud the - gold currency in which
that paper must by law ht ultimately dis-
charged, and not only nitimately, but at any
moment on demand— et) awfully apparent. Add to this
statement of facts, the consideration' that the issuers of that
paper, must pay this gold for it, at a fixed unvarying rate of
31. 17s. 100. per oz., when the operation of all the other ele
meats that compose this condition of singular em-
barrassment is, to enhance its market value to
an extent, the limits of which no man can
pretend to predict, although the enhanced value is already
sensibly felt in the turn of the exchange at Paris, Hamburgh,
Bremen, &c.,upon London; and we ask whether here is not
the shadow cast before an approaching catastrophe, whose
proximity it is impossible to doubt ? Whenever the !ba-
lancing of the operations we speak of arrives at that point
in the evolution of the capital engaged in them
at which it will become necessary far. large speculators,
either to realise, in time to rave their market, or with a
view, by closing accounts, to avoid incurring further losses than
their remaining open shall have already occasioned to them,
the immoderate rise in the value of gold money, will be in
exact proportion to the immoderate excess of paper money
and other securities, which are at present the floating ca-
pital, representing the unprecedented transactions in the
share market.

In directing the attention Wonr rotaders thus earnestly to
the course in which events lc em fast determining, we must
boldly avow our own opinion to be, that taken per se, the ex-
traordinary favour lately matifested by the public for railway
speculations is a great nation 4 benefit. ,Making all allowances,
that can in reason be insisted tpon, for improvidence, gambling
fraud, and deception—elemtntS that will interpose their
mischievous combinations in al dealings upon as vast a scale,
—the railway mania has dot immeasurable service to in-
dustrial labour throughout he country. It has applied
uncalculated masses of Britih capital to the most legiti-
mate of British purposes, by bringing into action,
latent and hitherto domant facilities of com-
munication between all pars of • the United Kingdom,
and with those facilities, uuliaited expansion to domestic
trade, new energies.. to foreigt commerce, and permanent
bases of increasing national gnadeur.
If the working of the Curre,cy Bills of 1819, 1826, And