The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1857-12-04

is all.
Financial Affairs In England.
The British Parliament met yesterday, being
summoned at this unusual season to take coun-
sci with the government on the financial crisis.
and especially to pass an act of indemnity re-
leving the Bank of England from the forfeit
ure incurred by the late overissue of notes 1t
is obvious that the session will be an arduous
one, and that Ministers will not obtain the
legislation they require without some stormy
debates. There is a party already which de-
mands that the bank charter be repealed and
new one enacted; one may Judge from the tone
of the Times money article, which we gave the
other day, how bitterly the policy of the bank
is likely to be criticised by the friends of the
houses which have gone down. Whether any
thing practical in the way of bank reform
can be effected seems, however, very doubtful
indeed.
The position of the bank and of the chiefs of
British finance is, in truth, very irregular and
unprecedented. The policy which the bank
would have pursued in former times-which it
did pursue, for instance. in 1887, when it broke
the three American Housewives when the
panic came, to discount to the verge of its le-
gal capacity, then to refuse to forfeit its
charter, and let the insolvents break.
This was the course to be pursued ac-
cording to the old principles of bank
ing; it was the course attempted by
our banks here, and really pursued till
they were broken by their depositors. Instead
II pursuing it, in England, the bank, wrought
upon by private menaces consented to forfeit
its charter rather than accelerate the downfall
of embarrassed firms by refusing them discounts.
1t discounted when by law ii had no right to
discount. and no means of redesming the paper
it put forth. Nor was this privilege seemingly
exercised with niggard hand. The house of
George Peabody. we perceive. is understood to
have obtained from the bank aid to the amount
of million pounds sterling at a time. and
other houses, also known to have given credits
on this side the water, have been az freely
accommodated.
OF course the public have no means of know
ing what security the bank obtained for these
advances and as the newspapers affirm that the
security was ample, there is no prima facie cause
for apprehension. But it cannot be disguised
that the bulk of the assets which these Anglo
American houses had to pledge must have been
of American origin. either promises to pay in
the United States or railroad or other corpo-
rate stocks; and that the one must have been
made to pay for produce, cotton, sugar, corn,
or shipping at time when these articles were
much higher thar they are, while the other
the railway stocks-arc going through
a similar process Of decline in value.
To feel assured therefore of being reimbursed.
the bank must have something very
unusual in the way of margin; else, when. six
months hence, the goods which the American
paper represents and the railroad properties
represented by the stocks have still further de-
preciated where would the bank be.
There are not wanting persons who, Judging
this very singular state Of things with the light
of common sense and by contrast with the
Bank of England has been acting under coer-
cion that the Anglo-American bankers first
forced the bank to suspend-that is to say to
break its charter; and next that George Peabody
forced it to carry him through. They say that
the financial condition of England is such that
neither the government nor the country could
afford to let house like that Of Peabody's 90
down; and that at any cost that, and other SINH
lar houses in the same position, are to be car
ried through at all events till the spring
Time will shed light on this novel theory, Of
which we will only say that 1t seems not intrin-
sically improbable. Times are changed GER
tainly from the days when the bank could
quietly choke off the Anglo-American houses
without seriously disturbing trade; now, we are
asked to believe that one single American
banker has practically forced the Bank Of Eng
land TO break in order to save him
VINO ARE To HAVE Hrxg-We fear that the
several cliques interested in Mr.. Tiemann's cleo