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No. 432, July 3, J858.] .TIE.LBADE R. 63...
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HE HAS KO FRIENDSSo have at him again: a...
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QUARTER DAY. To throw away the opportuni...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
The Accommodation" Bill System. Iv.Vre M...
But how can an admitted commercial evil , however great and growing , possibly he cured , even by the very best laws , if those laws are administered by incompetent judges ? Take the whole range of the Bankruptcy Commissioners who have to deal with and to investigate bankruptcy cases involving in themselves , directly , many millions , and , indirectly , an amount that would appear incredible to most of our readers , and then let any qualified and impartial person say , if he can , whether tho Bankruptcy Bench is occupied by men fit by previous training , experience , or habits , who have a competent knowledge of the general bearing of commercial questions , or who
are qualified in any respect to deal fully , and with advantage to the trading public , with the intricate cases that come before them for judicial decision . The Bankruptcy Court as constituted , with its machinery of incompetent Commissioners , overpaid official assignees and messengers , is one of those acknowledged abuses which afford a standing reproach to this country . For this state of things , however , we have mainly to thank our aristocratic legislators , who appear to be guided in their legislation by the principle that anything is good enough for trade and traders ; any _ political hacks clever enough for Customs _ or Excise ; any effete and briefless barrister sufficiently qualified to administer the . Bankruptcy Laws .
If legislation must take place on matters that are purely commercial , let it take place only on large and general grounds . Let us have no bit-by-bit legislation on questions that may involve and peril the very first principles of commercial and political economy , took at the difference and the effect of practical men dealing with this question . The Bank Directors saw the mischief , and adopted -right and ready means to check it , for which they cannothare too . . much praise . By-their wise determination to refuse " rediscounts , " they at once laid the axe to the root of the upas-tree of the accommodation bill system . This was operating in the right direction ;—but it was the right direction only because the parties originating it knew the trade of the ' country thoroughly , and their experience and freedom from extraneoxis or interested influences led them to adopt the right means at the right time .
No. 432, July 3, J858.] .Tie.Lbade R. 63...
No . 432 , July 3 , J 858 . ] . TIE . LBADE R . 639
He Has Ko Friendsso Have At Him Again: A...
HE HAS KO FRIENDSSo have at him again : and if the vexed reader of the Shires be disposed to cry " ad nauseam , " let him bear in mind that , we are but borrowing a leaf from our old enemy ' s book , and endeavouring , like other unfortunates , to rouse our neighbour ' s sympathy , if we may not have his company in our boat of tribulation . Once more at that old Father Thames , sometime a silent pleasant highway for great folks in gilded shallops , making gay progress from palaces in the Strand to palaces about Queenhithe , whose banks , within the limits of our present bridges , have sometimes re-echoed the shout of the
gay courtier , and along whose placid bosom the \ mpollutcd western breeze bore the pleasant chatter of aristocratic dames , soft notes of cithern , and interwoven harmonies of madrigal . Then he was a popular jolly old river , called " Father" and " Silver " —and maybe other endearing names , and earned a repute which all his evil deeds may not rub out . But since , with our Parliaments and Acts , and Boards of Health and Works , and great muck vestries , we have clothed him with the function of a grand main drain , his popularity is a by-word ; he is a " ghoul , " a " Stygian flood , " a " cloaca maxima , "
a father of all uuclcanncss . In fact , nothing is too bad for him . His Venetian epoch is over . The grraius puella risus is hushed with the cithern and the madrigal . The grand-children of Dihdin ' s dexterous young watermen have long since migrated up-country with the swans before the sable flood ; the salmon of the oldest inhabitant no longer tempts the unsavoury estuary ; and the penny steama j ° VftSers of to-day , wlio represent the squires and dames of the water poets , attempt to outvie the odours of the stream with the short pipe , or roadly dream of purifying them by filtration through many tolds of cambric . n i i ¦ ¦ i ; i
All whose presence in the face of the enemy is optional have rotreatcd ; but the mass , whose ' life demands their presence within the pestilential circle seems doomed in this year of grace to sullen : for the conimon-liciilth of posterity , lhat , the " gloomy oracles may he justified who foretold Ihe roc-oil upon our hends , of our incomplete . sanitary measures , and the melanchol y imliiro of the local double government-. Ihe evil has already begun to work . We announced lust , week the death of the ihbt witnesses j j , j i r : -
against pur long inaction ; and , although the official returns present an amount of cholera below the average , and of dysentery of no more than the average , we observe an excess of twenty-five per cent , above tlie usual average of deaths from diarrhoea . The return for the week after ( ending June 2 G ) informs us that diarrhoea was fatal last week in 54 cases , which is double the average for corresponding weeks ; its recent increase is evident , the numbers of the two previous weeks having been 18 and 31 . There were also S deaths from cholera or choleraic diarrhoea . " Within the last three days it is announced that the family of a clergyman ill j Pimlico hare been taken from him at one fell swoop . And we may safely assume that the ground , is being , day by day , prepared for the footstep of any epidemic the winds of heaven may seiid us . A fearful predisposition for disease must be surely ' engendered by the present state of the metropolitan atmosphere , and were the Angel of Pestilence . to set foot among us a fatal harvest would just now be ripe for him among men of all sorts and conditions . And it is no violent hypothesis that the quality of this possible crop oftdctims may do something 1 towards quickening the course of sanitary legislation , and improve our chance of speedy deliverance from that old man of the sea with whom we j were saddled in an ill-starred hour by the late well-I meaning Minister of Public Works . For many a hecatomb of Billingsleys might have perished unnoticed and unknown beyond , their own j humble circle , and the records ' -of the health-office j without quickening the slow pulse of officialism , or loosing the bonds of red tape , half so much as the plaints of a few of such as might be missed in the forum or at the council board . So wide and deep lay the roots of this conviction out of doors , that we should indeed be blind not to notice it . The good old wish for a eomminxited Bishop , or " a Director on each Buffer , " as preventives ot Railway accidents , 'have just now every day their parallel ; and the course of events seems to favour the sound - ness of the notion . Our contemporary who proposed to immerse an engineer or an M . P . in our modern | Styx , jpowr encourage ? les autres , was not aware , when he so gave colour to his thought , that the High Court of Parliament would on Friday night attack the subject with a zeal and ardour worthy of a newfledged board of works . Such was the ; case , however , for in spite of Mr . Gumcy , and his infinitesimal doses of lime , the demon had invaded the Sanctuary of St . Stephen ; the air of the Law Courts was exorcised from the bench for conteinpt of court , and Committees A to Z called their senses to witness that , if the river were not somehow cleansed , or the site of their deliberations removed , short Parliaments and frequent elections would be virtually introduced by the force majeicre of plague and pestilence . The proximity of the two Houses to the Lambeth bone-boilers may not have been wholly inoperative towards the . partial abatement of that nuisance : so , we may venture to hope , some such considerations as above hinted at may have recruited the number of our representatives whom higher motives have all along prompted to deal with the oft-repeated prayer ot those who have their business in and about our valley of foul waters , and to treat as a nationally important subject the solution of the great Metropolitan drainage mystery . Of the " How to do it , " we must speak iu . succeeding numbers , in continuation of the notice previously given of the deodoriziug plan . Much interesting evidence is being taken by Mr . Kendall ' s Committee on the state of the river ; from which , together with the Sewage Commission and the last Metropolitan Druinagc lteports , we may hope preseutly to supply our readers with some comnionsense conclusions . But the case is as yet only half heard in cominitt . ee , and the whole mutter indeed is at present ; in joint care of the Metropolitan liourd and Lord John Manners , who , if we mistake not , owns no responsibility . On this , again , as upon all occasions which offer a prospect , however remote , of hirge public expenditure , quackery will lift her head ami blunder ; nor is the still small voice of jobbery unlikely to be heard iu a earner , Et would hence seem to us somewhat premature to decide at a very short notice , as some of our more audacious compeers have already done , upon tho conflicting merits of the last batch of embanking , deodorizing , and intercepting plans—nearly all old friends with new faces—whether singly or in ooinlunation ; nud we advise such of our readers as feel interested iu the matter , to dolor yet awhile their adhesion to any of l . he ; n , however highly sponsored , JlOWCVCr inuvMHOiislv mlviinppil
Quarter Day. To Throw Away The Opportuni...
QUARTER DAY . To throw away the opportunity of a brief fiscal homily upon the publication of the Quarterly National Balance Sheet , were a most irregular departure from traditional usage . If , therefore , the oracle must speak , we are bound to deliver our opinion that , all past things considered , matters look as well as could be expected , but that , as for the future , there are breakers ahead , of which only good navigation and some good fortune "may carry us clear . We have no space for a full reprint of three tables , which have been already given to the public in every daily print , and we must therefore content ourselves with an abstract from the mo « t important . This course is the more excusable , because the mere tables themselves , though lengthy , are comparatively insufficient for the purposes of the analyst without reference to the last Board of Trade returns . It appeal's that after the fitful fever of 1857 and the convulsions of last winter , our finances are recovering themselves . The returned exports of the first five months of 1858 , while the dulness of trade and the dearth of speculation were household words , about equal those of the corresponding period of 1856 , when the shipment fever had not reached its culminating point , or when , at least , the tide had barely turned . It is no unfair augury , then , that , -with ' peace and a return of that more than skin-deep tranquillity which is required to loose the purse-strings of capital and stimulate the energies of merchants , sucli expansion may be hoped for as shall legitimately raise the Customs branch of the revenue-at least to the level of the first and largest half-year of 1857 . The Increase and Decrease in the quarter and year ended June 30 , 18518 , as compared with the corresponding periods of the year 1857 , are as follows :- — . '/¦;¦' ¦ ¦'¦' / . , ' ¦ ¦ " ' -.. ¦ ¦ ¦¦ ¦¦ ¦ : . ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦¦ '¦ ¦ ¦ ¦
Quarter Day. To Throw Away The Opportuni...
. ' . -. Quarter . j Year . ¦ _^ : i - - Increase . Decrease . I Increase . Decrease . £ £ £ £ Customs . ... 270 , 810 . ... 7 « 7 , 674 Excise ......... 119 , 000 ! ... 277 , 000 Stamps ......... 233 , 879 ! ... 284 , 981 Taxes 2 , 000 ' ... 57 , 013 Property Tax .. ... 1 , 255 , 953 ... 5 , 838 , 561 Post Office .... 90 , 000 ... 165 , 000 Crown Lands .. " ... ... ... 8 , 203 Miscellaneous . 79 , 588 ... . 642 , 839 Total 524 , 467 1 , 526 , 263 1 , 426 , 838 6 , 614 , 438 There is , therefore , a net decrease for the year of 5 , 118 , 105 . / ., ' and ' for the quarter of 1 , 001 , 796 / ., which is more than accounted for lay the decrease in the yield of the Customs and Property-tax , the former due , we need hardly say , to the abolition of the war ninepence , and the second to the late commercial crisis . It becomes U 3 now to look forward , more especially as the last year ' s yield of the Property-tax was 10 , 330 , 162 L , which will be diminished by two-sevenths , two-sevenths , and three-sevenths , until , according to the arrangement of 1853 , it is supposed to disappear from our assets in the year IS CO . To what resources arc we to look for the maintenance of a public expenditure which shows no symptoms of decrease , cither by the quarter or by the year , beforeJ ^ that period , or , indeed , for some time after ? The large increase iu the produce of the Excise , though mainly contributed by beer and spirits , may be regarded as sound and permanent . The falling off in the production of foreign vineyards , and the impulse consequently received hy our wholesale wine and spirit industries , warrant us iu imtieipjiting a still larger increment under this head in future returns . The 284 , 981 / . increase in Stamps will be expanded wheu the recently imposed tax upon banking has begun to contribute regularly to the ^ Exchequer . The iucroase of 57 , 013 / . upon the Land and Assessed Taxes ia , to a certain extent , satisfactory ; but would be rnorc so , if it could bo taken as evidence of the inauguration of a new regime at Somerset House , it is "within the knowledge of many unoflicial persons , that the syatom of collection in sundry country districts—not to say all—requires revision ; and that , were this undertaken in an uncompromising spirit of even-handed justice , a very largo additional revenue might be collected without extra pressure upon the h . umbler classes ol con tributaries , who arc already sufficiently within the power of the authorities . VVo hail the steady progress of the receipts from
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 3, 1858, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_03071858/page/15/
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