The Sun.
London, England, 1842-11-01 00:00:00

SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE
BONDS.

The unfortunate position of the parties who became
purchasers of the Treasury bills of Spain, issued
through the agency of Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, in
1836, has been often alluded to. A letter published
_ _

in one of the Morning Papers of to-day, witli the sig-
nature of Sir Isaac attached to it, makes known the
fact, and it is one with which the public are not at all
familiar—that the worthy Baronet was made the me-
dium of another calamitous loan arrangement in the
same year. Sir Isaac was, if this meeting be pro-
perly interpreted, for his anode of expressing himself
is far from lucid, induced by the representations made
to him at the period referred to, to get up a loan for
Portugal, to the extent of about a million sterling.
According to the terms entered into between Portu-
gal and Brazil, at the time of the separation of the co-
lony from the mother country, the former became
responsible to the latter for a portion of her public
debt. Sir Isaac says in his letter, which is addressed
in the way of remonstrance to the Conseiller De
Paiva Preira da Se, that he was assured, in treating,
for the loan in question with Baron Moncorvo, him-
self, and Mr. Vanzeller, that " the claim of the Por-
tuguese Government upon Brazil was for 1,800,000/.;
and that there was no doubt that the right to at least
800,0001. would be established." But Sir Isaac was
further under the firm impression, and it is to this
point he desires more particularly to call the atten-
tion of the Conseiller De Paiva Preira cla Sa, that the

individuals named were " all convinced the Brazilian

full powers tor the settlement of the debt would ar-
rive by the next o: by the succeeding packet, and that
in a few months it would be settled and discharged.
This last assurance was, he proceeds to observe,
strongly urged as a reason why he might " with per-
fect confidence enter into the proposed contract," and
on this ground it was that he of his own accord stated,
that although it was an invariable rule for a Govern-
ment raising money on loan not to exercise the power
of redemption below par yet in this instance, as the
account would be so speedily settled, he would consent
to fix 90 per cent. as the price for redemption.
The upshot of the matter appears to be this. Sir
Isaac was, in the Portuguese-Brazilian arrangement,
Made a cat's-paw of, pretty much in the same way
that he was in the Spanish Treasury bond matter with
which he allowed himself to be mixed up in the same
year of 1836. Portugal suspended payment of her
dividends almost as soon as she got the money out of
British pockets, and Brazil has never from that time
to theyresent come to any settlement at all. It re-
sults that there is clue to the bondholders at interest,

there being, out of eleven dividends payable from
June, 1837, to December, 1842, four discharged and
one advertised, 211. 55., which, added to the capital at
the redemption price of 90 per cent., gives to the
holder a claim of 1111. ss. on each 1001. bond. This
liability it is proposed by the Portuguese and Bra-
zilian authorities to get rid of by an issue of bonds at
the rate of 85 per cent., the only reason that can be
assigned for taking those high figures as a standard in
the case, being that such was the value of a Brazilian
bond years back, when the business was first brought
under discussion. The bondholders ask, and with
much reason, why, after being grievously prejudiced
by the bankruptcy of Portugal, and the deception
practised, they should have thrust upon them, in dis-
charge of the Portuguese obligation, a Brazilian bond
at the price of 85 per cent., which will fetch, at the
market value of the day, no more than 55 ? Upon
this principle there would he a confiscation of 30 per
cent., and Sir Isaac, with an energy greatly becoming
a man in the situation in which he is placed, com-
plains of the contemplated injustice, for such it un-
questionably is; but the injustice committed by
Spain in the Treasury bond affair is, it must be al7
lowed, incomparably more gross and outrageous.
The Treasury bonds were redeemable instruments,
having but six and twelve months to run in the man-
ner of bills of exchange, and payment of them was
actually advertised in the London journals, but the
holders never got their money. Not a fraction of
either the principal or interest was ever paid them,
whereas. the holders of the Portuguese bonds, under
Sir Isaac's contract of 1836, have already received
four dividends, while a fifth is advertised for payment.
And yet, in the case of the wretched Treasury bond
dupes of Spain, nothing in the shape of a remon-
strance, or even of a complaint, has ever emanated
from the pen of Sir Isaac. The sufferers would be
thankful for an exposition of all the circumstances
and instructions under which the Spanish Treasury
bills were ushered into circulation ; but Sir Isaac
turns a deaf ear to their applications for them, and
there is no document whatever before them to show
that he has ever once raised his voice against the
shameful fraud which, through his influential and re-
spectable name, was practised upon them.
Sir Isaac, to be of any service to his clients in the
case of Portugal and Brazil, 'should afford some proof
of his zeal, consistency, and impartiality, as the gene-
ral course of action. The first of the ensuing month
will, he is reminded, complete the sixth anniversary of
the Spanish Treasury bill delusion.
The Portuguese Government seems disposed to
quarrel with the bondholders, on the ground that, in
their endeavours to obtain an adjustment of their
claims, they have been over-urgent, as if, indeed, they
were the wrong-doers in the case. Sir Isaac meets
the insinuation in the following manner :
" Is it not rather hard that the bondholders should
be subjected to the imputation conveyed by your let-
ter, when, after being assured at the outset that the
redemption would take place in a few months, they
have waited for it six years with a patience almost
unexampled, and when their recent remonstrances
have been directed, not to Portugal, but to the. Bra-
zilian Government ?"
The interrogatory will admit of but one reply. It
is extremely hard, and in fact disgusting; but, on a
comparison of the two cases, there is again this
material distinction to be made in favour of Sir Isaac's
Spanish constituency. The Treasury bondholders
have payment stipulated for on a given date under
the authority of the Queen and Cortes, but in the
instance of Portugal there is no stipulation, no specific
pledge whatever. All was left to vague indefinite
assurance.—Post.

EFFECTS OF BAD TRADE ON
THE PROVISION MARKET .

The Dublin Evening Mail, of Wednesday last, in
an article on the panic in the provision trade, remarks,
that " the suspension of business in the manufacturing
districts of England" is, no doubt, one great cause of
the present depression in the prices of agricultural
produce; and it very naturally anticipates, that " the
Corn. law repealing party will therefore contend, that
the injury done to the agricultural interest by a stag-
nation of manufacturing industry, is greater than
would result from the repeal of our remaining pro-
tecting duties." That its anticipations on this head
will be amply verified, we firmly believe ; and we
must confess, that we hardly know a better argument
for convincing a farmer of the injury he suffers by the
food monopoly, than the one alluded to by the Mail.
We are continually hearing statements about the
cheapness of food, in consequence of Sir Robert Peel's
tariff; but we feel persuaded, that, in manyinstances,
the fall in prices is entirely owing to the extreme po-
verty of the labouring classes. It would be easy to
bring abundance of proof in support of our opinion on
this head : we shall, however, merely direct attention
to the enormous falling-off which has lately taken
place in the importation of sheep and pigs into this
country from Ireland.
We learn from Porter's " Progress of the Nation,"
that, in 1832, the number of sheep imported into Liver-
pool from Ireland was 98,337 ; of pigs, 149,090 ; and
that, during the years of manufacturing prosperity
which succeeded that period, this branch of traffic con-
tinued steadily to increase up to 1837, in which year
our imports into Liverpool. were—sheep, 225,050 ;
pigs, 595,422. What the amount of our annual im-
portations have been since that period, we have not
been able to ascertain ; but we have now before us an
account of the total number of cattle imported into
Liverpool from Ireland, in 1842, up to the 24th Oct.
inclusive, from which it appears that there have been
only 145,582 pigs, and 108,543 sheep. For the pur-
pose of comparison, let us suppose that importation,
during the remaining ten weeks of the present year,
goes on at the same rate ; and the arrivals in 1842, as
compared with 1837, will be—

1837. 1842. Decrease.
Sheep 225,050 133,332 91,718
Pigs 595,422 172,688 422,734
Now, in the face. of such evidence as this, which is
merely a sample of what might be furnished, is it not
utterly absurd to attribute any considerable share of
the late reduction in the price of provisions to the
working of the new tariff?
We observe that the country gentlemen are still most
indefatigable in their efforts to persuade the farmers
that there is not the slightest reason to be alarmed
about either the new sliding scale or the tariff. Per-
haps they are not very far wrong in the observations
they make on that head ; but the facts we have stated,
as to the falling off in the consumption of animal food
in the manufacturing districts, will show that no tariff
will protect the farmers from ruin, if the manufactur-
ing population should become so impoverished as to
be unable to purchase food.—Manchester Guardian.
[Query.—Have the landlords no sinister interest in
endeavouring to persuade the farmers that there is
not the slightest reason to be alarmed ? Will not the
fanners promise high rents in proportion to their con-
fidence in future high prices ? Do they not believe
that prices depend on the land ? Can those who wish
to hire land have, on such a question, less disinterested
advisers than those who have land to let? We beg:n
to suspect that the landowners have a deep design in
propagating these doctrines, and it may be advisable
that the farmers should nourish the same kind of sus-
picion.—ED. Sun.]

Accounts from the country state that the winter has
set in with great severity, and that such keen frost
and heavy falls of snow have not occurred in the
month of October for many years.