On this page
-
Text (3)
-
594 TO! LEAjDEB. ' JN6. 476, May 7. 185 ...
-
FURTHER RISE IN THE RATE OF DISCOUNT. Wj...
-
THE ITALIAN MOVEMENT. [specially communi...
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
First Fruits Of War. Tnb Austrian Govern...
see the uses to which ; national banks are put we may congratulate ourselves that we have not got one—at once to advance £ 14 ^ 600 , 000 . To enable the National Bank to comply with its demand , it tias authorised the Bank to withhold payment of the notes it issues , by promising to pay which it borrows the money of the people . At once , th e refore , the Austrian Government suspends cash payments , and adopts a measure which should be one of the last resources of despair ,
though it is sometimes one of the first , when voluntarily and generally adopted—as in the United States at their revolution— - *> f ardent patriotism . It begins by an act of bankruptcy , and before it has finally recovered from former insolvencies , it again contracts engagements which it avows itself unable to meet . The notes issued by the Bank will gradually displace so much coin , which will find its way from the Bank to the Government , and thus the Austrian Government begins the
war by a forced loan , to be expended in maintaining oppression in Italy . Unfortunately , if the cause of the Sardinian Government be better than that of Austria , it takes similar improper means to uphold it . The National Bank of Piedmont has been authorised to cease from paying its notes in cash , and to issue notes of 20 francs to the amount of 6 , 000 , 000 francs . The Bank is accordingly to advance . £ 1 , 200 , 000 to the Government . The sum is not large ; the principle Involved in the measure is very important . To carry it through the Government has found it necessary to amend what it formerly established , as a safe law of banking , and has authorised the Bank to diminish its assets of the precious metals in proportion to its liabilities . The Government then at once vitiates the
security of the bank , and disturbs all banking business , while it furtively taxes or plunders the people . It will divert to its own purposes the spare funds of the Bank , as well as the gold and silver the Bank may collect from the people by a forced issue of notes ; but to obtain this little assistance it violates principles which modern experience has taught mankind cannot be held too sacred .
The French Government is also beginning the war by a loan . At present its conduct is less objectionable than that of the other Powers ; but that it will not appropriate the funds of the Bank of France , authorising it in turn to withhold the money of the people , should difficulties arise , very doubtful . The war , however , which is nominally to bestow freedom on Italy , will crush the future industry of France , and make a long cession of fiscal extortions and fiscal restrictions essential to redeem the obligations he is at present allowed by the nation to contract in its name . The measures of all three Governments arcs condemned by science , and those of Austria and Sardinia are direct violations of honesty . The public has lately been reminded by Mr . Cobden , and those journals which have quoted his remark , that Sir . Robert Peel , when he introduced the resolutions for altering the Bank Charter in 1844 , dwelt very emphatically on the vast influence over contracts , public and private , of even small alterations in the amount of paper currency in circulation . " There is no contract , public or private , " he said , " which ia not affected . The
To alter the measure of length or of weight could not be more troublesome or disastrous . In former times the sovereigns of Europe , who claimed the prerogative of coinagej debased the coin , while its denomination was unaltered , and so furtively plundered their subjects , While they ignorantly caused inconceivable mischief ; but , since bank notes came into use , they have played the same unhallowed pranks with them . Between 1793 and 1815 they flooded Europe with a forced paper currency , far greater in amount than the value of all the gold yet obtained from Australia and California ; and the paper money of Austria arid other countries was , as much debased in a few
years as the French livre or the English pound by the successive corruptions of several sovereigns , in barbarous and ignorant times , through many ages . Austria has not yet finally restored her currency to truth and honesty . All her people yet suffer from the former swindling of the government by forced paper issues ; and yet , at the very first pressure , she enters again into the same degrading , ruinous , and reprobated course . In small things , if this be a small thing—^ as in great things , if the oppression of nations be a great thing , she has learnt nothing , and seems doomed to learn nothing . She is therefore doomed , we think—at least the government of Austria is doomed—to destruction .
She is now violating all contracts . She is secretly raising the prices of food and clothing , and debasing the wages of labour . Furtively , she is plundering her own creditors by paying them in a currency which will be less than its -. nominal value . She is doing all this wrong while scientific writers are insisting with great energy ' on the injury which may possibly accrue to creditors from the influx of a little additional gold into the circulation , of the world . A forced paper currency maybe indefinitely extended , and its value , indefinitely debased , and the governments of Austria and Sardinia have begun the work .
Some coin may be hoarded in those countries , but the general . effect . will .. be to banish the precious metals from circulation there , and increase in other countries the effects of large supplies ^ of gold , against the consequences of which scientific writers are now warning the world . Some of the . first fruits of war are confiscation , the violation of contracts , and of all the principles of property by those whose' great duty it is to enforce on other men the observance of them .
They have in their zeal , as they say , for order , let loose the dogs of war , What blood will be lapped , what bones crunched , Avhat hallowed places desecrated , cannot now be known , but all the past is a warrantry that- the human race in increasing freedom will continue to expand and flourish ; and if sovereigns , by falsehood and vile ambition , and profligate di phonesty , stand , as they now seem to stand , in the way of progress , they most surely will be destroyed .
enterprises of commerce , the profits of trade , the wages of labour , pecuniary transactions of the highest amount and the lowest , the payment of the national debt , the provision for tlie national expenditure , the command which the coin of the smallest denomination has over the necessaries of life * are nil affeoted " by banlc regulations , which could at the utmost only cause variations in the currency to the extent of two or three millions . These emphatic words are now quoted by scientific writers to warn the public in time against
the possible effects of the depreciation in the value of money likely to result from the gold discoveries- In spite , however ; of those , and in spite of the more emphatic teaching of much experience- —when the nations of the Continent , and . especially Austria , witnessed a confusion in Jihe social ana pecuniary relations of the peopleq suspension of business , a stop to enterprise , a universal destruction Of confidence ^ thwt were more disastrous than war itselfr—in spite pf all this Austria is now , on a great scale ., and Sardinia on iv less scale , beginning the war by tampering with 1 ft » e ourrenoy , and altering the measure of value
594 To! Leajdeb. ' Jn6. 476, May 7. 185 ...
594 TO ! LEAjDEB . ' JN 6 . 476 , May 7 . 185 9
Further Rise In The Rate Of Discount. Wj...
FURTHER RISE IN THE RATE OF DISCOUNT . Wjb stated last week , in the article which recorded the rise in the rate of discount , that we anticipated a further rise in . the value of money , and a further fall in the value of securities . We stated , too , that a general rise in the rate of discount througlfout Europe , to 5 per cent , was expected . The former prediction has been verified , and the latter is in progress of realisation . On , the Continent the rate of interest has been generally raised ,, and cm Thursday the Bank of England ngain raised its minimum rate of discount 1 per oonfc ., so that it now stands "at 4 j . Tho < immediate and practical reason for this stop was , no doubt , the continued efflux of bullion from the Bank , and the continued
They are not exactly hoarded , but they are guarded in the tills and strong boxes of t / a / Then there is the additional " demand oocSS by the war for services in the field &• that-the Bank , which has of late . experien « rf ^ continual efflux of bullion , is likel y to expeSe a similar efflux in future ; and to provide n ^ kinst iJ the Bank compels all who wish tomorrow cawt eJ to pay -a higher rate for it . From a banW point of view , considering only the interest of the Bank there can be no possible objection" to its course . It is what every prudent banker when he experiences the commencement of a run , might be expected under similar circiim stances to do . But the Bank of Eno ] and is a national institution . It is not merely" a bank it is the authorised regulator , under the law of the currency . It is the recipient , also , of the taxes , and may have as much as nine or ton million of the public money in its coffers " The rules for its conduct , therefore , should be somewhat different from those of a private bank and we rather demur to its reaping the advantag es at once of a commercial establishment and a Government monopoly . In the latter Capacity ? rather . than the former , while it carries out in spirit the old regulation of . fixin g by law the rate of interest it now declares a minimum rate of discount and this is made in a great measure , by its possession of the public resources , the general rate throughout the country , whatever maybe , arid omdu fo be , the value of capital in peculiar localities . In London , the joint-slock bank ? , and the great discount houses have immediately altered their terms for taking in deposits , and making loans in the . sense of the Bank alteration ; and they will induce a similar rise throughout the country . On six months' bills the Bank is to . make , advances to its customers at 5 i per cent .: and as such bills are common in all extensive traffic , that is already the rate at which many traders can borrow . A serious check is at once put on peaceful enterprise , which is impeded to supply-Governments'with the means of destroying human welfare . . As . our argument elsewhere , relative . the price of securities , rests on the increased demand for money , and its rate in the market , we cannot but remark that the iresli-visc in the Bank rate is a ' confirmation of cmr statements . The sudden fall might be due to the . new : ? , true or false , of the Kusso-Fra-nco treaty . ' Its suddenness may have helped the ruin , but the fall in the value of securities , and the ultimate loss by those who had speculated for a rise were inevitable , however ensy they might have found it to get over tho fall , had it been . spread over a longer period .
transmission abroad of all the bullion wluoh arrives from America and Australia . It may bo expected , perhaps , that the bullion which flows from the Bank would flow into the coffers of foreign banks , but this is not so . They are losing bullion as well as tho Bank , or they would not raise tho rate of discount . Abroad , aa well as hero , all persons engaged in business who carry on their operations partly on credit , are now extremely desirouo to be , as well as possible , provided with the precious metals to meet their engagements . Tho desire is probably more potent abroad than here , and hence there may be said to be a universal demand for the precious metals by private men as contradistinguished from lodging them in the hands of bankers
The Italian Movement. [Specially Communi...
THE ITALIAN MOVEMENT . [ specially communicated . ] War has begun . Casale , Novavn , Vereelli are occuniod by the Austrian ? . Turin and Alexandria are centres of operation for the piedmont cse ant French armies . One hundred and thirty thousand German soldiers tread the ricdmonteae soil . ltoe army of Victor Emmanuel retires , doubtless to offer a field day to Austria , in the hope ; . if successful , of cutting to piece * or taking prisoners the if ol i
whole of the advance corps : overcome , ccmiting , either at Alexandria or ( xenon , nnu adopting tho same . stratcgetic line formerly traccu by the conqueror of Murongo . Fnmiljnr as in with the site of the present wnr , -iimi *<* *»«> honourable scars gained on the flold ol DMtio , thoroughly initiatcS in tho school of no mealland military tactics , my opinion will bo kit >> be oi weightf and will be shared by nil who Know ftp fact ? oi tho case . A victory and a defeat y ill cle i- ai - < -T *^ i . A ¦ v ' xntnrv and a ClulOftt « U 1 ui win ami / —^
, , uu mu vm '' **¦ »»~ - ...,. „ ,, oblige Europe to decide ibr either war o cace . A vfotory and a defeat Will oblige Napoleon IU . to mnko a declaration which tno " 0 « kiujW » J imbecility of tho men who' have -tl . o / l . jection oi foreign affairs in this vast metropolis 1 no P ™ vented them from understanding , much low nnn Ci l Does " Napoleon III . fight JOT ^^ Piedmont and Italy or not ? Does Jj » « JJ whose only true virtue is the secrecy w »> whion ho can Veil his intentions , desire , in mmbI : u g Vjog Emmanuel , to render Italy free •»<*• " »« onjr ^ does he aim at the realisation of tuo & W ^ scheme of the greatest genius ?^ * Hrinolpal century—tho division of Europe > n * o two F »« states , and tho suppression or neutmlwntion 01
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), May 7, 1859, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_07051859/page/18/
-