The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-12-07 00:00:00

has the care of t

to attribut

:ulties to the
lome market,

customer of each during the past year ___ -
noticed above the enormous increase in the impor-
tation of foreign agricultural products ; yet by the
aid of the high prices which he has been receiving
for these, it will be seen that the British agricul-
nd the labouring community, employed on
tilways and other similar works, have been enabled
_ _

We have

dities, and of course of British
H
al result, in addition to this
td stuffs. Thus we find the
1845. 1.980.618 gallons, and

lanufactures, as a n

nflux of br

in 184

E 7, 2,684,008 gallons; of brandy, in 1845,
53 gallons, and in 1847, 1,263,482 gallons ;
f Geneva, in 1845, 13,003, and in 1847, 24,933
.• a a a •.1 • Ada

few of the principal

Retained for Home_ Consumption,

Bricks, England, (Nc

1847.
1,727,348,001 .. 2,088,676,663
51,444,854.. 60,640,920
24,916,670 .. 20,935,487
138,653,343.. 129,531,362
16,876,548.. 14,475,666

Malt, (bushel

Soap
British spirits

The above enormous increase of three thousand
millions in the consumption of bricks may, of
course, be in part accounted for by the railway pro-
gress which we have been making. The falling off

in the consumption of malt is attributable in part
to the high price of grain and the use of molasses
in distilleries. Moreover, we had, in 1836, the
large consumption of 28,000,000 bushels as a set-
off. Throw these railway companies into a suspen-
sion of their operations ; disband their vast masses
of labourers; adopt the only device which our cur-
rency-mongers can devise to relieve themselves of
their difficulties ; and the returns of the revenue
and the profits of the manufacturer will assume a
very materially different complexion to that which
they at present wear, bad though it be.
We leave the above figures to be digested by the
read r On a future occasion we may remark fur-
ther upon them.

IN common with ‘a great portion of the public,
we have been a little taken by surprise by the
announcement made by the Watth Committee, at
the last meeting of the Counc:l, of the change
determined upon by them, with respect to the fu-
ture management of the police force. It was our
full intention to have adverted at length to the
subject; with a view of endeavouring to elicit what
are the most powerfully inducing reasons for the
step taken. We feel it impossible, however, at
present to do justice to it, and shall therefore
withhold our remarks until next week.

THE debate upon the motion of the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, for a select committee " to en-
quire into the causes of the• recent commercial
distress, and how far it has been affected by the
laws for regulating the issue of bank notes payable
on demand," presents a fair epitome of the various
opinions of the leading members of the House of
Commons upon the important subject of our cur-
rency laws ; and has, no doubt, been perused with
deep interest by all commercial men. In referring
to it here, we do not propose to enter into any dis-
cussion upon a subject so wide, and with respect to
which the views of so large a portion of the talent
and experience of the day are now before our
readers. Our only ob;ect is to endeavour to arrive
at the conclusion to be drawn from it, as to the

probable future policy of the legislature with regard
to a question so litany important to the community.

passionate and careful perusal of the three day's
debate, that the act of 1844, as it stands, is already
doomed. With the dogged pertinacity of his nature,
indeed, the Chancellor of the Exchequer clings to
it, and would preserve it, totes teres atque rotundas.
Yet he is compelled to admit that it has not an-
swered all the expectations, or even the most im-
portant of those expectations, of its authors and
supporters. It has not checked the extravagance
of speculation. On the contrary, it has even en-
couraged the commercial community, relying upon
the security which it was imagined to offer against
the result of such extravagance—a recoil and con-
sequent panic—to rush into it with more headlong
madness. The house was distinctly told by a gen-
tleman, Mr. J. Wilson, whose opinion upon com-
mercial questions will he received with great weight,
and who made, on Wednesday, one of the most
successful &buts, when the unattractive nature of
the subject is considered, that we ever remember to
have observed, that :
`• lie (Mr. Wilson) could personally bear witness to the
fact of many eminent merchants in the year 1845 having
expressed their conviction that, notwithstanding the mania
which then prevailed, the act of 18-14 would carry them
through without any precaution, and would save them
from all ill consequences. Many of those who in the last
year had fallen sacrifices to commercial pressure had en-
tertained the same belief, and at the period to which he
referred bad consoled themselves with the hope that from
the self-acting principle of this hill nothing like a panic
could occur, and that the same discretion and attention
which had been needful in former years was then unneces-
sary. The act had done some injury in having created
among the public an unfair reliance upon the supposed
securities which it would afford, and to it might be attri-
buted that mischief which inevitably flowed from every
interference of the Legislature protecting objects connected
with commerce and trade. ( Hear, hear.) Every law affecting
to protect commerce, and intending to impart prudence to
the public, had the effect of spreading among the commu-
nity a false reliance upon the Legislature, and, pro tont°,
did induce them to throw aside that self-support and cau-
tion which would otherwise characterise them."

It was denied, indeed, by the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, that it had ever been represented that
the object of the act of 1844 was to repress undue
speculation. A different impression, however, was
entertained on this point by the public. The
restriction put upon the issues of private banks
was interpreted as an effort to repress undue spe-
culation. The weekly publication of the hank's
accounts was understood to be the index which was
to point out to the public its power to afford ac-
commodation. No one can deny that the commer-
cial world watched it as such, although it is clear
that a far better index would have been the amount.
of private deposits in the Bank of England and
the joint-stock and other banks, available for dis-
counting purposes. The question. however, as to
this object of the bill, is set at rest by its author,
Sir Robert Peel, who, whilst denying having ever
promised that it would prevent the occurrence of
anything like a monetary crisis, admits that he both
expected, and that it ought to have done so—

"We did hope," he says, " that after the panic of
1826—after that of 1836—after that also of 1839, we did
hope that the Bank:of England would have confined itself
to those principles of banking which their own directors
admitted to be just, but from which they had admitted
their own departure, though prescribed in part by their
own regulations. In that hope lam bound to acknow-
ledge that we have been disappointed. Seeing commer-
cial difficulty coming. seeing the approach of a panic,
they still did not conform to those regulations—commer-
cial houses were swept away which had long been insol-
vent—other houses, which under different circumstances
might have proved perfectly solvent, suffered from the
failures of those whose inability to meet the demands
against them was well known. The bill has not sufficed
to prevent these results, and so far also I admit that we
have been disappointed ; for the till was intended to im-
pose, if not a legal, at least a moral restraint on the bank,
and we hoped that it would prevent the necessity of hav-
ing recourse to measures of extreme stringency.

With respect to another anticipated effect of the
measure—its power of preserving inviolate the
convertibility of bank paper into gold—that, also,
has been disappointed. We do not say, of course,
that things have ever arrived at the extremity of
the hank's refusal to meetits payments in bullion ;
but it is tolerably clear that we have only been pre-
served from such a catastrophe by the unauthorised
violation of the act, contained in the Chancellor of
the Exchequer's memorable letter of the 25th Oc-
tober. What was the state of the Bank of England
at that time ? We give it, as stated by Mr. Her-
ries, on Friday night, and admitted by Lord John
Russell to be correctly quoted from the London
Gazette

" There was, at the time, in the issue department
£7,865,000 of bullion ; notes outstanding in circulation,
£21.865,000. In the banking department there was
£447,000 of bullion, and the reserve of notes to meet the
enormous deposits, public and private, £1,547,000. The
private deposits were £8,580,000, and the public deposits
£4,766,000. The merchants at that time were in great
difficulty, and were pressing for assistance. (Hear, hear.)

The bank was in that condition, that if the private deposi-
tors—among whom, he presumed, were -some of those
respectable men who formed the deyutations to the govern-

merit—had said that within 24 hours they might have

k for £2,000,000 upon theiidepdsits, the
bank must have broken if they had done so. The market
was in such a state that at that instant it would not have
taken their securities, and there was no other means of
meeting the difficulty. That was the condition the bank
was in ; such was the workings of the law that the bank,
full of credit, full of bullion, the exchanges favourable,
and the bullion coming in, was not able to issue upon

on to 8

with Exchequer bills, which were at 40s.
nd stock, in such a state that it would not sell
in. (Hear, bear.) What would have been the
ruin in the city if the bank had gone into the market with
£2,000,000 of stock at that time ?"

into the marl
discoun

It is not at all a mere " if," with respect to the
depositors of the Bank of England demanding their
amounts at the period in question. They had de-
_ _ _

Government that, unh

for some demobstra