revival; if the shareholders are to escape a loss of capital, which in the two Scotch banks is very large-two and a half millions, equal acarly to the paid up capital of all the London joint stock banks. These catastrophes have been attended by a severe criticism on the Western and City Banks at Glasgow. They, and all the other joint stock banking companies, have been charged with the concession of extraordinary facilities to adventurers, and very remarkable proofs of the charge have been tendered. These cases are very strange; yet they are not so bad as some that have become public property in connexion with private banking, from which we infer that the other is the better of the two, and certainly is not the worse system. Glasgow, during the panic, has lost among its traders quite one million by bad debts; but the City of Glasgow Bank appears to have had little or no connexion with that body, and succumbed for a time before a run for gold, which was the fruit of a panic. One of these Glasgow banks has assets equal to one and onefourth million, and the other to one and threefourth millions over its liabilities; but they could not be turned into money with sufficient rapidity. Their suspension, temporary, as we hope it is, illustrates the statement that no security for circulation can maintain a bank of deposit against a run by its customers, either from necessity, or from timidity. A number of heavy failures had occurred in Glasgow. They had injured the confidence felt in one of the banks, but all arrange. ments necessary for the management of its huge business had been concluded, when the stoppage of a very large mercantile house in that city, with responsibilities ascertained since to exceed two millions, rendered further efforts for a time useless. It has been ascertained since that this house pur. poses to pay all liabilities with interest; but the shock to credit cannot be easily repaired. If we include this large sum, the mercantile failures of the month, inclusive of the banking, come up to twenty millions, one half of which will be lost. These facts describe a greater pressure than has ever been known in the country for a single month. The calamities in Glasgow have excited considerable feeling against the Government, because it is said that no assistance could be obtained on valid security during the pressure there, although, when a similar pressure only began to be experienced in London, the Bank Charter Act was immediately suspended. That step was, in the present year, as well as in 1847, deferred until it was too late to save many houses from ruin; and the partners of these firms, with their connexions, say that they are treated injurionsly, because relief is given at a date suitable for other people's purposes, although it was refused on the day required by them. The argument would not justify the Government in doing evil for ever, because they had done so for a time. We notice these cases, because they raise the inquiries whether the currency law be responsible for these misfortunes altogether; or, if not altogether, in part, and how far that part responsibility extends? We have no hesitation in denying that the entire blame of these misfortunes can be ascribed truly to any currency system. In some instances the parties had manufactured and sold goods at a loss for a long time. That practice admits of only one end, and it came to pass. In others, overpowering losses had been sustained in the United States, and no imaginable currency law can prevent the natural consequence in these instances. A third class, and the more important of the three, are clearly traceable to the currency law, because the parties had property sufficient, and more than sufficient, to discharge their liabilities, but could not render it available for that purpose. No subject has been discussed more assiduously or more keenly during the month than the currency, but because it has been so frequently talked and written over, we do not observe that any discovery has been made. The Act, it is said, should not be altered, because the Parliament are not entitled to interfere for the purpose of making money cheap. Did the Parliament of 1844 have any right to interfere by making money dearer? Either Parliament correctly interfered in that and previous years, or injudiciously intermeddled. It did interfere, and it did meddle. That at least is certain. If it had no right to do anything then, as it did something without a right, it has now the right to come and rightly undo what was then unrighte ously done. If it was entitled to accomplish what was effected in 1844, it is entitled to do what may seem to be right in 1857. The argument on that point, at least, is worthless. Next, the condition of the United States is quoted in evidence that an unlimited issue of paper money would not save us from trouble. Nobody dreams such dreams, surely. Toil and trouble are heritages entailed irrevocably on humanity, and we must bear our share of them. But the United States do not always circulate paper money. They circulate paper promises, which are much easier made than paper money. Money must either be in itself value, or it must represent value. A paper currency is of no intrinsic, and often of no representative, value. As we do not advocate the repetition of the latter error, the difficulties of the Union furnish no illustration against or for our views. A relaxation of the present currency law is sure, it is said, to inundate this country with cheap money. A great calamity, assuredly, prevented, however, by a law, from which we gather that, if legislators may not interfere to make money cheap; they may, by simply maintaining a law, interfere to keep it dear, and not dear only, but scarce also. The terms currency and money are not always considered interchangeable; but we have used both, in this instance, to express the same thing. A cheap currency can never be more injurious CHEAP CURRENCY. to a country than cheap corn, cotton, or any other article in general consumption-cheap and useless would be dear; but cheap and good is the nation's want. By the present law a part of our currency is based upon national securities; a part upon gold, and a portion upon general repute. Private and joint stock bankers were allowed by the Act of 1844, to continue their average circulation to that date, with no other security for its validity than their general repute for wealth. The Bank of England issued notes to the value of fourteen millions on national securities; and that appeared to be the smallest sum which had been at any time previously in the hands of the public. The remainder of the circulation is based on gold, and no notes beyond the amount of bullion in the hands of bankers, can be circulated legally. That is the present state of the law, and it leaves our currency liable to the action of every foreign state; for it is based upon one description of property, limited in quantity and required in all parts of the world. Let us only have a cheap currency, based upon our own property, perfectly secured by the property of the country, payable in silver or gold, and it will be convertible, because nobody will ever seek its conversion; while, at present, the currency is inconvertible, when people sometimes want their money. We have lamentable evidence of this theory in Glasgow at this day. No notes are more certain of being paid in full than those of the City of Glasgow Bank, and the Western Bank of Scotland, and yet a run closed their doors for a time. A similar run was made upon the National Security Savings Bank, because it was believed that part of its funds were in one of the suspended banks. The directors published a note of the disposal of their capital. They stated that excepting one per cent. of the gross amount, nearly a million, it was already vested in national securities. The run ceased. If the public had known that for every note circulated the Government had a corresponding sum of national securities mortgaged for its redemption, very little gold would have been required in exchange for notes. A run never would have taken place. We do not propose, therefore, a currency based upon nothing, or only upon credit. We have no objections to urge against the demand, if it should be made, for a deposit of government securities opposite the entire circulation of the country; but with that exception, we should have perfectly free trade in currency. The objection that the country would be flooded with paper, and expand into a bubble; to collapse into ruin, under the powerful influence of cheap money, is untenable, for we cannot see that a banker would be less careful in giving his customers notes, founded upon property, than he is now in giving them, when, to the extent of three fourths; they are founded upon reputation. This circulation would not be local, but it would be national. People would look not to the name of 755 the Bank, but to the stamp of the Government. It would be above and clear of any panic, except one that might shake the State, compress consols into waste paper, overthrow all our institutions, submerge the Crown, and threaten destruction to every interest. In that case, the public would be ruined at any rate, and any little addition that might accrue from the state of the currency could be of small consequence. The friends of the recent law insist that we must keep a stock of gold to regulate our foreign exchanges. Under all circumstances, gold will continue to form a considerable part of our currency. Many persons like its glitter and its ring. It conveys to them an idea of respectability, and it is a harmless idea, which they may be allowed to indulge; but if gold be wanted to adjust foreign exchanges, let those who put them out of order pay for the cost. Persons who are not engaged in foreign trade do not pay the freight of foreign goods, or the postage on foreign letters, and they should not be charged with the expense of remittances to foreign creditors. Many means of adjusting the gold difficulties exist. One of the most obvious is the employment of gold now in circulation for that purpose. A displacement of that gold would occur by an expansion of the paper circulation; and as we are told that usually the balance of trade is in our favour; usually, therefore, the world at large cannot be our creditors, but must be our debtors; and that would be always true, except for the habit of investing largely in foreign states, which has cost something like fifty millions to the country, in the United Sates at present, a habit for which this nation is not bound to afford facilities. The French Government have found the means of paying for gold, when they wanted additions to their stock; and we should not be unwilling to follow a good example. The Government will not, however, we hear, enter upon these questions. They want simplicity, and it may be found by them without, in reality, repudiating the principles of 1844. At that time a circulation of fourteen millions was conceded to the Bank of England upon the guarantee of national securities, because that seemed to be the minimum quantity of notes that the public had maintained in circulation for a very considerable period. Therefore, it was supposed that they would never require a smaller quantity. It would be equitable, on the principles of 1844, to add to this sum upon the same security, in proportion to the increase of population and trade since that year. The intention of perpetually standing by fourteen millions, even if business and population were trebled, could never have been entertained by the most devoted friend of this act and of its policy. The Ministry can hardly propose the restitution of the Act in its integrity. They will move the present minimum a little higher than fourteen millions. Some persons say that twenty millions is to be the fixed issue of the Bank. As matters 756 THE LONDON AND GLASGOW JOINT STOCK BANKS. stand, the Act might as profitably be repealed as left to starve upon the margin. Therefore, if all parties be satisfied with twenty millions, let that be tried. Bad in principle, it may work well, like other loose evils in practice. The extra six millions, according to the friends of the Act, are only to be doled out in return for an advance of interest. Two millions for each one per cent. extra over five per cent. will give together a circulation of twenty millions, and a discount of eight per cent. As these parties do not so much care for bullion as for a high rate of interest, this scheme would suit them not better, but not worse than the present. A reasonable outrider to this condition would place matters quite square; for it it were enacted, that the Bank, whenever it was obliged to resort to two millions of circulation extra, and be consoled with one per cent. of increased discount, should be obliged to offer five per cent. for two million's deposited in gold, to remain in gold, for three months certain by a beautiful system of balancing, and our constitution favours balances, the whole fabric would be kept steady. Abundance of gold would be obtained by this simple arrangement; and being once got, it would not be sent out of the country for three months. The cost to the Bank could only be £25,000 on the lot, something smaller than five per cent. on what the nation pays by the present mode of arresting gold. the Bank of England had been subjected to a proportionate pressure it must have collapsed long before the City Bank. The sum named is fifty per cent. over the circulation of the City Bank. Could the Bank of England have paid fifty per cent. over its circulation-or even fifty per cent. of its circulation, or fifty per cent. of its notes issued above its fixed circulation? Published figures answer all these questions in the negative. Not only, however, were these banks unable to obtain assistance; but their management was assailed in terms the most vituperative. One of them apparently made injudicious advances and discounts to local parties, in extraordinary sums, and entirely out of the range of healthy trade It is hard that this money should be lost to the shareholders, although their high profits for many years afford some consolation; but we do not know that even this circumstance warrants leading journals in applying the term "upstarts" to the management of these banks. The writer of these articles is said to have much influence in monetary and political circles, and to be one of a family acquainted with upstarts, although we dislike to use the term. He has made several obvious blunders in confusing family names; and supposing that there can be in Scotland only one family of one namea sin that can hardly be forgiven here where a very different state of things exists; but he must have been ignorant of the circumstance that one manager to whom he refers has lived in that capacity for eighteen years; while the manager of th City Bank made no extraordinary losses, and ha, occupied that position for, nearly twenty years earning, as he lived, the good will and the kindly feeling, we believe, of all whom he met in the discharge of his public duties. The country need not place the slightest confidence in the expectation that the Government will deal satisfactorily with the subject, unless they be compelled from behind or beneath. Some local irritation exists in Scotland on our local treatment. An idea prevails that something might have been attempted to relieve the City and Western Banks of Scotland, in Glasgow. They are not com- The suspension of the Bank Charter Act was panies formed with a defective capital. The done to save Liverpool, London, and American paid-up money of the shareholders of the City is interests. The difficulties experienced in Scotland one million sterling, and of the Western, one and made little impression on the Ministry—that is a-half million. Their united capital absolutely the idea prevalent here, and it sours many tempers, employed in their business was two and a half and would have been useful to the Scottish Rights millions, or within a trifle of the money paid-up Association, if it had been in a state of vitality at by the shareholders of all the London Joint Stock the commencement of this winter. The best cure Banks, except the Bank of England. The in- for all grievances involves their prevention subsedebtedness of the two suspended Scotch banks is quently. If any addition is to be made to the ten millions. Their paid capital is, therefore, fixed circulation of the Bank of England, we equal to one-fourth of their liabilities. The paid shall be justified in expecting a similar addition capital of the London Joint Stock banks is not to that of the Scotch banks, not of course in equal to one-tenth of their liabilities. The amount, but in proportion to their circulation shareholders of the London Joint Stock banks are under the act. If the Scotch representatives able, doubtless, to discharge all their liabilities; cannot accomplish that object, they are unworthy but not more likely to do that than the share-of their seats. Even with his large majority, and holders of the City and Western banks, whose private property is quite equal to the liabilities of the respective banks, if these concerns were not worth a halfpenny, instead of having apparent assets for three millions between them above their debts. The City of Glasgow Bank, we are told, paid out half a million in gold before its suspension; or considerably more than all its circulation. If with opponents almost impossible, as his successors, Viscount Palmerston, would not cheerfully lose the support of the Scotch members. They are not a numerous body-not so numerous as they should be by fifty per cent.-but they are compact, and generally sturdy supporters of the Premier, to whom he will yield this point. The currency questions are neither so light reading nor writing as to tempt us into their that bought bare food in one idle week. What then if there were ten idle weeks? What, but a twelvemonth passed in paying debts, working and paying, paying and working? Nothing can be done for the school that year. It is not the fee although that were nothing; it is the small garments that cost little-but the little is more than the family can pay. The present crisis has been peculiarly unhappy in Scotland, from the great number of young females who have been deprived of employment by the failure of a single gigantic house. Such is the tendency of monopolies and of our times. A banking monopoly produces gigantic manufacturing firms, because, of course, it secures a paucity of banks, whose directors prefer the accounts of their acquaintances and friends, or large to small accounts. If this particular trade had been divided, as it might have been very well among forty manufacturers, they would not all have failed at this juncture; and the deplorable thought would have been spared to many minds that through no fault of their own; for no reason that they could control, several thousands of young females are deprived of bread, because they are left destitute of work, and exposed to all those temptations that assail extreme poverty. discussion, except for their essential importance. | take five weeks of 2s. weekly to repay the 10s. The industrial homes of this land are made the sports and toys of capitalists; and not even a a large number of capitalists, but a knot of millionaires. An operation by a few gentlemen casts thousands into misery, and tens of thousands out of work. Not one town in the three kingdoms, exists now without its long list of the unemployed. The unemployed-statesmen know only the bright side of its meaning. They are often unemployed, but they do not go without dinner and wine because they are discharged and paid off. They do not know-what may be seen in maay homes of any manufacturing town this evening-little children looking beseechingly into their father or their mother's face for a very little bread, and they have none to give. They do not know how people, who have honest pride within their hearts, cannot think of asking any help, even from neighbours, and much less from the parish, and strive to look happy in hunger, sheer, downright want. They can tell They can tell nothing of the sorrow wherewithal thrifty matrons, who never had more than a few shillings weekly to save from, carry away some little remnant of the past a memorial of the beloved-a trinket of the dead-to buy meat for the living. They have never thought how, in a crisis, footsteps bend towards the pawnbroker's, who never turned into that door before; and when the ice has been fairly broken, the practice does not seem so deplorable. They have never dreamed how all this want creeps in between the home affections, and plants in the infant mind a thought a puny little thought; that its parents are not good and loving parents, or they would bring it bread enough-surely bread enough-and its father would buy a little biscuit as he was wont to buy, and give it just such a small hoop, as other children drive before them-for the young thing knows not how that heart may be beating dull, and slow, almost as if it would stand still and stop for ever, because there is no work-no work for the skilled hand, or the strong arm-and no wages; but the little thought grows up to be a dark shade-insist upon an effective change in that suspended between hearts, if the sorrow and the suffering thing which has been twice disgraced, and should last long. Rich men and statesmen, who have live no longer. never made the multitude their study, not in books but in their homes, could not think what they have never seen of evil arising out of these calamities, springing like the gourd for swiftness, bitter as the wormwood, like the hemlock poisoning the springs of life. This next session of Parliament will produce some very fair speeches on education-but we do not know a member likely to tell the truth that this crisis has put back the education of many young children for six months. Many artizans earn only 15s. to 20s. weekly, and many earn less in ordinary times. There cannot be much saving from that, even in a very small family; and when it ceases the family must run into debt. When it recommences the debt has to be paid, and it will The conviction that we can never have a hope of steady trading under the present currency laws -a conviction founded on the experience of past years-compels us to urge a change in them for the sake of those who have been allowed no vote in their construction. Their friends say that other plans would work worse. Worse!-nay, and how much worse could any other plan work? Let us only try other schemes in the happy belief that we can scarcely go fartber to fare worse. Once a long number of years now bye gone, urged by our greatest author of the last generation, who, although his politics were those of a haughty school, loved intensely the homes of his countrythe people defeated one attack upon the currency then existing here. They can succeed now, if they That work requires to be commenced and concluded this month-begun and finished, before those winter holidays that will be so dark and full of gloom at many hearths. And it can be done, well done, if the members of municipalities, and the fathers of our villages, and leading men in parishes, will, for once again, as they have done before, assume the slight labour of preparing memorials to their representatives, or petitions to Parliament, against the Ministerial measure, if it falls short-as we expect it will fall-of the expansion and the security that the people are entitled to expect. The working men of England, Scotland, and Ireland, looked forward to a winter less severe on them than those that they have passed 753 STORIES OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. recently. God made his summer's sun to shine warmly on our fields. The crops bent with their own weight. Peace was taken away, but plenty was promised. And now this manmade cloud; in a great measure this law-made cloud, pours down its torrents of wrath, and hopes are bleak, and homes are desolate. The disappointment has been met calmly and courageously. Two places alone-Lurgan in Ireland, and Nottingham, in England, have evinced a riotous spirit. There will be no riots. The richest need not fear here for their greatest or their smallest. No offensive proceedings will shake the weakest nerves of the oldest lady in the land. As a rule, nothing of that kind will occur. Not less, how ever, do we ask for a quiet demeanour, the redress that strength might take. Not less successfully, surely, should we plead in peace, and law, and order, for the reform that mutinies and violences might bring, wrecking their good to us in their heavy price as they came. And if the middle classes cannot or will not now assist themselves and the unenfranchised in the removal of those evils that destroy profits and wages-cannot guide and lead to success on this practical question-they will not complain of the impatience that says we have waited long, wanting often, and we must wait no longer for those great changes that will work --not for the destruction, but for the preservation of property. STORIES OF THE THE dark history of 1857 in India cast shadows before it. The infatuation and treachery of the Bengalese sepoys were foreseen by some statesmen, and by many who made no claim to the title. Still, the Anglo-Indians lived in security, as those races live who have built dwellings, and chosen fields upon the crust of a volcano. The Government entertained the same feeling of insane security, and although they had been repeatedly warned by occurrences rather than opinions, yet they made no preparations for the storm until the late Sir Henry Lawrence telegraphed to Calcutta from Lucknow, in the month of April, for unlimited powers. The request was conceded, and the Council began to consider the use that they had made of their own powers. The first serious act of mutiny occurred at Lucknow; but that was suppressed by Sir Henry Lawrence. The real origin and root of the contest was at Meerut. This station is not more than forty miles from Delhi. It occupies a larger space of ground, and as the European soldiers were placed at distances of five to six miles from the sepoys, they were almost powerless to prevent the revolt. The arrangements were extremely bad, but, like many others, they were made without any provision for contingencies that might have been considered possible. The cartridges formed the ostensible cause of quarrel at Meerut. The 3rd Native Cavalry refused to use those provided by the Government. They were, on the 6th of May, offered old cartridges on parade, and refused to take them. Eighty-five of that cavalry corps were immediately apprehended, and on the 9th of May they were condemned, some to six, but the majority to ten years' imprisonmentironed, and marched to the gaols. This event INDIAN MUTINY. occurred on a Saturday. General Hewitt, who commanded the forces at the Meerut station expected, by this determination, to crush the mutinous spirit out of his corps. He might have been more successful if he had marched the men to a distant gaol; but no other occurrence stirred the fears of the Europeans at Meerut until the next evening, the night of the 10th of May. That was a Sunday, and they collected to evening service as usual in the station. The sepoys chose that hour for their mutiny. They began by forcing the gaol, releasing their comrades of the 3rd Cavalry, and along with them, 1,300 of the felons confined in the prison. The These criminals were the worst portion of the people, the dregs of an immoral population; and those who may reconstruct the social system of India should dispose of its criminals in a manner widely different from that formerly pursued. Banishment should, and would long ago have been introduced more generally among Indian punishments, except from the insane respect of the Anglo-Indian Government for caste and the feelings of the people. feelings of honest people should be respected in all honest things, but the feelings of felons are not easily injured. The safety of the community is the first feeling to be regarded in dealing with them. They were stored up in great strength at all the Indian stations, like magazines of murderers, ready to the day of the first insurrection. It came, and with it, cruelties, most horrible and ingenious—of which no doubt, these criminals were the chief doers. The ordinary quiet of that Sabbath evening at Meerut was harshly and suddenly broken by the yells of the mutineers; and the falling darkness grew thick with the smoke of the burning bungalows, until the flames, bursting out, |