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to its foundations , and makes your claim to he a divine church appear what it is—an arrogant delusion ; refuse to grant liberty of worship ; , your conscientious- course , not as Peers of Parliament , but as pillars of the Church , and you declare war against one of the most sacred rights of man . ! Not only this ; you place yourself in the most
inconsistent position , lamenting the heathen darkness of the land , unable , yourselves , to raise up a spark of light , and making believe that you hold , and to some extent holding down , an extinguisher over the lamps of those who would , to the best of their ability , light their fellow-creatures out of the crooked paths of wickedness .
! Let us have liberation . On every side there seems to be a breaking-down of the prestige of olden institutions . If the land were really Church of England—if Church of Englandism were any real , intelligible , heart-seizing thing—it would not need this system of registered public-worship tenements for its protection . It is because the Church is a political establishment , with a "territorial constitution , " that it needs protective laws . But , it would seem , there
is no one doctrine in the sacred books and articles upon which the Church founds herself , then why pretend there is but one , harmonious , and divinely derived ? One sect has as much right to be heard as another ; one sect has as much right to official protection as another ; surely one man or men have as much right to pray when they please and how they please as another ; surely this is a matter in which all have equal rights , in which , to use the words of Lord
Shaftesbtjrt , a man shall be at liberty to do as he pleases , providing he does nothing subversive of morality . It is not always that we can concur with I / ord Shaftesbuby ; we think his position , as a member of the Established Church , at least anomalous ; but in this principle we heartily concur ; and if there be one maxim more sacred , more fruitful of greatness and goodness in states than another , it is that no Government , no earthly power whatsoever , has the least right to dictate to any
man or set of men where , when , and how he or they shall worship . [ Least oS all when , as is admitted , the metropolis , nay the nation , has gone far beyond the grasp of a Church falsely calling itself national , has that Church , because , by an accident , it possesses the remnants of an autocratic power bequeathed by the elder institution , of which it is only a contumacious offshoot , the right to dictate to those who are neither of the elder Church , npr of the younger prevailing schism ?
Lord SnAFTESBUitY ' s Bill escaped condemnation by a majority of o ? w . Its great opponents were the Bishops and stout high-church and political-church Lords . Clear-sighted enough in such cases , these gentlemen see that if the law be relaxed , it will really bo a great blow afc the theory of the Church , for it will permit an almost endless divei'sifcy of so-called church services , starting from the Prayeivbook as a basis , and diverging in all directions . In the fanciful words of Lord Carnarvon , "the lino of demarcation between Churchmen and
-Dissenters would be obliterated , and there would only bo a tangled wilderness of vague and shadowy Christianity , professed by persons who , in reality , belong to no church or sect . " But , in fact , is not this a tolerably accurate descrip tion of tho actual state of things hidden under that veil of lip-conformity which Lord Carnarvon desires to perpetuate by penalties ?
We have cried out ere this for tho utmost freedom of speech , writing , and worship ; wo have , whilo doing battle for tho honost portion of the Church , and contending for her emancipation from tho fetters of tho State , remained
evev true , tathe cry for thefull freedoms of the whole people-in matters spiritual , and , therefore , we are glad , to see a movement made in the House of Lords for the repeal of that disgraceful prohibition which would prevent Englishmen jfrom assembling for public worship , unless , like the landlord of a gin palace , they first obtained a . license . Think of one worm begging of another worm for leave to pray to the Supreme Buler , the Father of all !
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BRITISH BANKRUPTCY . The- stoppage of a bank of high character is tie text for a moral preached by the Money article of the Morning Chronicle . It is pointed out as an instance how dangerous it is for a house , let it be in what business it may , to step beyond the strict letter of its functions ; and how much more prudent it is to put up with the first ascertained loss than to seek to cover it by increased liability . The moral is narrow , but it is sound so far as it goes . A Banker's business differs from that of every other mercantile firm whatever ; but it appears to us that the distinctive peculiarity of banking in reference to its control and its guiding moral principle , is never kept in view with sufficient clearness . It is generally thought that bankers are traders in money ; but a consideration of the function that they perform in trade will show this to be an erroneous description . In all commercial business , properly so called , some commodity passes from a seller who produces it at less cost , to a purchaser who can give in exchange something not so valuable to him ; and hence a double profit in the increased
value which each commodity acquires for the person receiving it . A merchant , for example , buys a quantity of print goods in Manchester at one price , which he can well afford to give , and sells it to a foreign house at a higher price , which that house can afford to give ; the difference being the merchant's profit . In some trades , as in tha < 4 of Commission Agent , a service is performed with a percentage on the amount of money passed ; but here the service may be said to be the thing sold on speculation ; and the chances of the market in the long run will justify the calculation of the dealers on both sides .
"With regard to money , the case is wliolly different . A Banker ' s business is to take care of cash , and so far to save the attention , the trouble , the time , and the costly machinery which the same care would entail upon every private possessor . This is a service that can always be performed , but it differs from the Commission Agency in this respect . The money itself is an ascertained value ; the payment for the service is to be got out of that very money ; and there is no necessity for depending upon the speculative value of the market . Safety is the first
consideration for all , whether it be safety of custody or safety of transport ; and the very commodity sold is abstracted or adulterated when the banker neglects any precaution necessary for securing the absolute safety of the money . As the money always comes to him an ascertained value , so ho has no excuse for mistaking tho charge ia his kooping . There is nothing speculative about it ; and as soon as the element of speculation ie introduced , the business of tho banker is invaded by a foreign and an incompatible business—the banker is traitor to his
customers . Tho only chance for a legitimate niiatiiko in trade ia where the banker ia custodian for a given amount of property of ascertained , but not immediately convertible value ; whilo tho claim for money of immediately convertible value exceeds tho proportion that ho may happen to have on hand . In such cases , his bank may stop payment ,
but it will be- solvent ; , and urill pay 20 a ., in the pound . No bank can pay less without being guilty of a breach of trust ; , Themoral of the- Mbrning Chronicle ? , therefore , strictly applies to banking ; A similar moral may be extended to most kinds of business ,- if we give it a . broader interpretation . If every man . in trade abstained from transgressing his professed function , we should have fewer speculative losses * The purchase and sale of
cotton requires experience , and when : the agent devotes that experience to the purchase and sale of cotton , he can make a . very hand- ? some profit on the transaction-. But he is not content with this ; he endeavours to get up in the United States a false estimate of the stock on hand in England , that he may buy cheap ; he endeavours to get up a false tht
estimate in England of the crop , ahe may sell dear * His transactions are like those- of others , based upon credit ; and . before the whole round of deception can . be completed , the trick is found out ; the capital that he has invested in his business is not sufficient to meet the _ demands upon him , and he is bankrupt , because he tried to add to the business of cotton dealer th at of swindler . Yet
there are cotton merchants -who run these risks without going into the Gazette at once , and the highest in the . land are glad to invite them to their tables and pay them honour . It is the . same in ship dealing . A person owning a number of ships is making , a fair profit by the employment of those vessels ; he thinks that with the prospect of war there will be great demand for shipping ; he has command of a large sum of money , and while he is supposed to be in possession , of 50 , 000 * ., he can obtain credit for half that amount
from , we might almost say , fifty different people , because they believe he can fulfil what he promises to do . He purchases , therefore , scores of ships , to be paid for . , not immediately , but at a date not very long distant . The anticipated dearth of shipping is neither so sudden nor so vast as he calculates . He has not been carrying on a trade in shipping according to demand and supply , been
but a trade not his own , and he has accumulating ships that nobody wants , and distributing bills that he haa not the means of paying . The mistake explodes , and he goes into the Gazette , because he has drawn a number of people into his blander without telling them what he was doing . Here was a gentleman trading in ships and dreams , but he called himself only a trader in ships , or nobody would have traded with him . if he had
told his real business . So again it is even when we descend to the most respectable of the retail traders . There is hardly a grocer's preparation , a drug , an article of composite food , or even simple food , which is not mingled up with something that adulterates it , and the tradesled
man over his counter sells real goods ming with counterfeits , making the purchaser pay for the whole as if it wero genuine . I he thing is done all around , and -thus the community spends in tho aggregate an immense amount of money for tho carriage and consumption of tilings that it docs not want ; to say nothing of tho amount spent 111 doctors bills , because wo consume poisons whero we would purchase food .
Now falsehoods have no substance in thorn j there umsfc bo a point in tho whole transaction whero tho sham breaks down ; and at that point bankruptcy sets in . What is the amount of bankruptcy transacted in London every your ? Wo aro aware that nobody can answer tho question . Tho amount is by no nienuH expressed in the accounts of tho caaes gazetted . Besides those flagrant acts ot bankruptcy , there aro many cases ot bauk-
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Jtjhb 16 , 1855 . ] 01 M H IkElA J ® H B . 50 $
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 16, 1855, page 567, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2095/page/15/
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