The daily union. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1845-1857, 1847-11-13
The Commercial Distress In Great Britain.
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The deputation OF the Liverpool merchants and bank
ers coming from the second port in the empire, and that
involved in the most serious disasters, has ord
these gentlemen as we DO for too many others Who with
great game in their hands, suddenly find themselves
obliged to give it up; and, with capital enough to leave
an ultimate surplus, ruined for want OF Immediate
" available fraction Of their means. They ask for
advance on the credit OF the country. We have long
foreseen the day when British merchants and manufac-
turers would have to follow the example set by Irish
railway directors. The demand is just as the
other and there be doubt that the balance Of
utility is in favor OF regular and reproductive employ
works Of the railway We pointed this out last April,
when Sir Charles Wood brought up again his loan to
Irish railways; adding, that there many of our own
manufacturers and merchants who stood in far more
need Of money than the Irish speculator; while the
spective conditions of the two people would present
the very claims The conclusion we came to on
to this instance. Any advance the credit of the
ton any boon which government can bestow, cannot
possibly be addition to the capital of the country II
can only be re-arrangementa violent disturbance of
the natural order for the sake of few favored persons
or classes In fact the nation is poor All poor.
All must bear it as they The weakest must be left
to that fate from which it is, unfortunately impossible
to save them, without throwing their burden on
other perhaps equally unable 10 bear it. The aid given
to one class starves another. That Irish railways may
be finished English ralwaysmust be suspended The Irish
Southwestern goes on. Even the English Northwestern
is brought to stand-st We only trust that shall
not soon find that the population of Lancashire must die
thal ualWdy anu lippeIdIy may oe leu
From the London Morning Chronicle.
We take the Liverpool memorial and depuation on the
subject of the present most distressing posture of
tile affairs to be the most substantial step yet taken to-
wards some direct and immediate interference for the
alienation of crisis the most intense, the extern
sve and the most perious which has ever placed in
jeopardy the best interests Of the country We i'm
aglne few circumstances more adapted to arrest the
attention of first minister of the than the presen-
taton of such statement from such men, and rendered
impressive by SO many aduncts OF melancholy couobora
ton The merchants of the greatest outpo OF the empire
are scarcely likely to be the vehicles of merercious
representation.
The practical people of Liverpool make perfectly
practical request They that the Bank OF England
holds nine millions of treasure; their daily experience
teaches them that the credit and sodty of the bank
is questioned by living person; they behold first one
man swept away, and then another, simply and purely
because he cannot obtain any the temporary use
of fraction of circulating medium, of the power to
command, if needfu the of such fraction and they
confne themselves to the of desiring
that what the bank is perfectly able to grant, and the
country is in the utmost anxiety to receive, shall no
longer be withheld.
1t utterly beside the question to fall back upon the
eated assertion that capital and not currency what the
country requires. We have admitted already, and we
admit again. that the recent absorption of capital has I'M
doubleday raised its value Butt abuse OF language
to say that we have suddenly passed from comparative
to absolute exhaustion and that any argument found
ed solely upon railway calls and grain importation can
explain, with any pretension to seriousness, how it hap
pens that loans have become impossible upon almost any
ierms and that the business of the country has been
placed in imminent danger of suspension. There was
gradual enhancement of the of interest but there
panic so long the position of the banking de-
parment enabled the directors to dispense their customary
accommodation. state of things has arrived when in
selfdeence the doors of the bank have been very nearly
closed and we behold the consequences the prevalence
of an intense apprehension which impes the holders of
capital TO withdraw il from the competition of the market
not because they have under obligations for its
pendure in railway shares foreign investments but
because the indscrlmnae destruction which is tearing
up around them the staeest trees OF the forest deter
them from hazarding total loss of their property bv
parting with it even for single instant We state what
have seem We argue from personal knowledge when
we affirm that the real exacerbaton of the present crisis
not the want Of capital but the existence Of an intense