Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1864-05-28
nm. Rank afRnaland.

The Bank Of England was projected ana
the plan of it laid before the Lord Cham
celler Of the Kingdom, by William Pater-
son, Scottish merchant. An act OF Par
lament was passed to legalize it on April
25th, 1894, and commissioners were ap-
pointed to receive subscriptions to loan
Of FL 200, 900 to the Government at 8 per
cent, the subscribers being incorporated
as the Company of the Bank of England.
The career of this Bank has been very
checkered; it has welded immense power,
and has been on the whole of vast adyan-
tage to England. Its history has been
published in q volume Of considerable size
and reads like romance. It enjoys GER
tain privileges, measures the public debt
and pays government sureties. BY afford
ing loans to the government at moderate
rates of interest it has saved the nation i'm
mense sums, and it has been the means OF
rescuing it from pecuniary difficulties on
several trying occasions. 1t has mad its
trial, and during the terrible struggles with
Napoleon in 1897, it suspended specie pay
ments by an order of the privy council;
but in doing SO, notice was given that all
the notes issued were secure. This sus-
pension it is said, prevented the ruin ofthe
bank, and it continued until the peace in
1915, period of eighteen years, and was
not fully resumed until 1928. During the
wars with Napoleon, the government bor-
rowed E500, ZOO, 900, and with only pop
ulation of fourteen millions in the two
kingdoms and four millions in Ire
land, the annual revenue reaching the en-
ormous sum of 1900, 900 (about $780,
900, ,000.) At the conclusion of these long
wars, the value of bank paper was l6per
cent. below that of gold; in two years
afterwards it was only per cent. -..
In 1874, the charter of the Bank Of Eng
land was renewed through an act passed
under the premiership of Sir Robert Peel,
limiting the circulation of its notes to the
amount of coin and bullion in its vaults
and the amount of its securities. Every
note issued beyond the sum of national
securities must have its representative in
an equal amount of bullion. The object
of this act was to prevent the ever varying
expansion and contraction of issues, but
it has failed to effect this object. This
bank controls all the others in England,
and its notes are legal tender, except to it.
self. 1t has "a distinct issue department
for its note, separate from its banking bu-
siness; the issue here being equal in amount
to the government debt owned by the
bank, and the gold and silver in its pos
session. Its circulation, is therefore, al
ways contracted in proportion as its bull
lion diminishes; and although this was
held by Sir Robert Peel to be perfect
security against financial troubles, it was
found to be the reverse in the crisis of 1867
when during the month of October, the
Privy Council permitted the act of 1874 to
be suspended and an increase of issues
were advantageously allowed.
The Bank Of England is the greatest in
stitution of the kind in the world. The
whole revenue of the government soon
finds its way into it and is instantly rem
dered available for the demands of the
State. In all these transactions scarcely
any metallic currency is used; the whole
is effected by purely banking arrange
ments. The government collector at
Liverpool may require to transmit fifty
thousand pounds to London, and some
private individual may want to transmit
like amount to Liverpool from London on
the same day through the Bank of Eng
land or some other bank. Both transac-
tons are carried out by the mere entry in
books and the instructions sent by tele-
graph or post. The revenue is paid into
the Bank of England at the rate of over
one million pounds weekly; and for all