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every note issued beyond that amount , it iniitst have gold in the strong-boxes of the Issue department . Thus , on the notes issued against bullion , there is a constant contraction and expansion ; and the effect was produced of making the paper circulation contract and expand exactly as a purely metallic circulation "would contract and expand . The opponents of the Act object to it on various grounds : they say that the Bank of
England should " support credit" by giving accommodation to mercantile men when they are in difficulties ; that , scientific as the Act may be , it should "be " relaxed" in time of difficulty ; that the Act failed to perform its functions in 1847 ; that f rom increasing trade we want a larger currency ; that therefore more notes should be manufactured ; that the Bank enjoys profits too large , and that the Act should be altered in all these
respects . Experience as well as science is against them . In 1825 , when there was a great impulse in joint-stock speculation , followed by a tremendous amount of bankruptcy , companies and banks breaking in every direction , the Bank of England did its best "to support credit , " by making advances , and what "were the consequences ? That the Bank itself was nearly brought to the ground . There was an imminent chance that bank-notes would
The breakdown of the Act in 1847 is a fallacy . In 1847 the managers had not yet acquired that experience of its working which they now have , and they still had a traditional feeling that they should ' support credit' by accommodating the public . They ^ did give ' accommodation , ' permitting their reserve to get very low—down as low as -l , 50 O , O 0 OZ . The abrupt removal of private deposits , or even a small portion of them , would have exhausted that reserve ; and the Banking department would have been in the position of stopping payment , or of realizing its securities m a rash and disastrous manner . We
may note , by the way , a singular instance of the many mistakes into which the opponents of the Act have fallen . Commenting upon that fact , the . ~ 3 fornin < j Post stumbled upon the assertion that , with 8 , 500 , 0007 . bullion in the Issue department , the Banking ; department would have been literally unable to pay five sovereigns for one of its own five-pound , notes ; the writer forgetting that notes paid in can always be carried to the Issue department to be paid and cancelled . The great point on which opponents rely , is , that Liord John Htjssell and Sir Charles Wood sent a letter to the
Bank , promising indemnity if the Bank did issue notes beyond the legal limit ; only advising it to do so at an interest not less than 8 ' per cent . That letter , it was said , was a repeal of the Charter Act ; but what was the fact ? Not a single note was issued under the letter . The Act did continue its working ; the depositors did not withdraw in a panic ; and , notwithstanding the banking mistakes by which the governors brought the difficulty on themselves , the Act helped to pull us through that year of trouble .
In 1856 we have seen the difficulties of 1847 renewed abroad—over-speculation , followed by contraction ; but , notwithstanding that contraction , our trade has so expanded , that the ten months' exports of 1856 exceeded the whole of the immense exports of 1855 , which exceeded 100 , 000 , 000 ? . The Bank has been under no pressure . It has raised its discount in exact accordance with
the exchanges j and the rule has kept everything smooth . There was a little nervousness in the mercantile community , but no panic ; a little 'tightness , ' but a striking absence of auy unusual bankruptcy ; and , in short , substantial prosperity in the very midst of the most gigantic difficulties with our foreign customers . It is this stable ground for our currency which the opponents of the Bank Charter Act desire to exchange for a renewal of those " relaxations" which dragged the Bank into participation with speculative excesses at the very moment when those excesses were gradually becoming bankruptcies .
cease to represent five pounds sterling ; and the Bank was only saved from these difficulties by the dangerous trick of taking a parcel of old forgotten one-pound notes from a cellar where lumber had been put , and the Bank was ' saved . ' But that Bank does not really ¦ " support credit" which is under the necessity of ' , saving' itself . Again , in 1837 , after a year of prosperity and expansion followed by contraction , the Bank " supported credit" by advances at a cheap rate of interest ; in 1839 the bullion was reduced so low as 2 , 545 , 000 / ., and the Bank again had to resort to a trick . It obtained a credit in
several of the principal towns of the Continent to the amount of 2 , 5 OO , OO 0 Z . Tin ' s trick practically shifted the drain from the Bank of England to those towns : and at the same time it enabled the Bank , by selling bills upon those places a , ud receiving its own notes in return , to contract its issues to the extent of two millions and . a half . But obviously for the time the Bank was at the mercy of those foreign towns . Now in 1856 we have seen
all the commercial towns of Europe in difficulties exceeding our own ; and if the policy of supporting credit had been followed out , aa it was in 1837 , the Bank must inevitably have been brought into the same difficulties , but without any such opportunity of foreign reliance ; while in 1856 , notwithstanding those difficulties on the Continent , we have seen the Bank , public credit , and the immense increasing trade of this country sustained without a jar .
We have already shown that the attempt to increase the currency in any country by an enlarged issue of notes can have no effect . Our increased trade , however , has drawn to itself , virtually , an increased currency , though not by the issue of notes . We have in notes only exactly the amount of metal which is required by our commerce in its transactions :
but currency ia economized in a variety of ways—by bills of exchange , by setting off one debt against a nother in the books , and by tlie operations of the London clearing-house , in which the clerks of bankers meet to set oft the cheques of one bank upon another , and actually transfer notes only for the small balance . The Economist remarks tho
disappearance of about 2 , 700 , 000 ? . from the circulation — exactly tho amount which is saved by the operations of tho London clearing-house .
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THE ENGLISH AT BRUSSELS . Nothing more un-English can be imagined than the English abroad . Not that they are French in France , or German in Germany , but that they denaturalize themselves without acquiring the manners of the country in which they reside . According to Sterne , your idlo people of this class are usually induced to sojourn in strange lands by one of three general causes : infirmity of body ,
imbernaledictory words ; we saw , lately , how an Englishman conceived himself ' all right ' when he thrust his conversation upon a party of French gentlemen and ladies in a public room . But it is the officious folly of Englishmen abroad , with their spasmodic servility and abandonment of all national and personal dignity , that disgusts even more than their uncouth mimicry of foreign manners . Who , on the Continent , is so subservient to power , so affectedly severe in , his repudiation of liberal sympathies as an
Englishman ? Assuredly , it is one thing to respect the laws of the country whose hospitality you enjoy , since it is of your own free choice , or through a home-bred ' inevitable necessity' that you have become subject to those laws , while it is quite another thing to repudiate every national characteristic , and to outkneel the knees of paid officials and pensioned courtiers . The English abroad are continually exposing themselves and their country to contempt
hy their obsequious antics . What sort of humility was it that prompted them at Naples fco present an address of congratulation to Ferdinand , and , not satisfied with their national Ensign in the Bay , to approach the foot of that throne and that monarch , with thanks for his indulgent protection ? Englishmen in England are disgusted and indignant ; in Naples they flatter the Bouebon " , and express their veneration for his sacred person . We have so much confidence .
indeed , in the lust for abasement of our travelling fellow-countrymen , that we verily believe they would have humbly addressed a Nero on his providential preservation amidst the flames of Uome , and congratulated a Borgia on his convalescence from a scratch of his poisoned ring . At Brussels , the classic city of British emigres , our countrymen have been exhibiting their simplicity in a more harmless , but still regrettable manner . A deputation of the English
residents ' waited' a few days ago upon the Prince de Ligne , to repudiate the disrespectful references ^ to him made recently by Sir "Robert Peel . Our readers know how we , in common with the rest of our contemporaries , have animadverted upon the caperings of that untameable farceur , the baronet of Tarn-worth . The oozings of a wine-press arc of more consequence than auy words he may utter . But it is to be deplored that any Englishman should take advantage
of Sir Eobebt Peel ' s hiccupped vulgarities to put himself into a situation of solemn foolery . It appears that a certain exclusive fraction of superfine Belgian society have taken upon themselves to vindicate the offended dignity of their nation from the outrages upon good taste and good breeding perpetrated by Sir Robert Peel in his descriptive memoir of the Prince de Xiqne , a gentleman bearing a high historic name , of noble descent , and , we believe , enjoying a tain
cer esteem among his fellow-countrymen . Now , we cannot be suspected of a desire to abet any attack on Belgium . We entertain a cordial and peculiar sympathy for its national independence ; we watch , with solicitous interest , the growth of ita institutions , its resistance to despotic encroachments , its free thought , its assertion of the rights of conscience and of political citizenship . Wo entertain a friendly admiration of its activo and able press ; we acknowledge the gratitude due from all Liberals fop ita shelter of
proscribed patriotism . Unfortunately , however , the manner in which the English at Brussels set about the task of expressing their Belgian sympathies , waa not less graceless and clums y than their usual demonstrations . Their address took the form of a confession , an act of voluntary humiliation and
cility of mind , or inevitable necessity . To which of these categories we should assign the Anglo-Belgian population of Brussels it might be impertinent to decide . Many of them , no doubt , would justifiably plead inevitable necessity , and , judging from a recent occurrence , wo should bo disposed to make some allowance for 'imbecility of mind . "Wo have had testimonies from Rome as to tho insulting levity of Protestant Englishwomen , in Catholic cathedrals ; wo know how tho monuments of art ftro defaced by Cockneys , whoso names nre moro offensive than
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1 Q 8 THE LEADER ; . [ No . 358 , Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 31, 1857, page 108, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2178/page/12/
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