The Bank Charter Act cannot be maintained... — page 5: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

of the 12th of November last. It must be obvious to you, Sir, that a pressure and a panic may be considered two different stages of the same crisis; the former may arise from many causes which must always operate; the latter always from one which it is in the power of the Legislature much to mitigate. What I call a panic simply arises from this ; namely, the low state of credit or confidence (the invariable re-action from over-inflation), requiring that all our vast com- mercial and speculative transactions should be more or less brought down to a Currency test, when that basis is entirely inadequate for its object. 1847 and 1857, and all minor panics, have arisen from the same cause; the whole com- munity at once trying to protect themselves upon a Currency system, which everyone knows is fotally insufficient for the exigency of the case. I believe, Sir, the more we look at a panic in this light, the more easy it will be to apply the remedy. Now under the present state of things, the Commercial Public (the cautious and the imprudent alike) have not only to bear the pressure of a monetary crisis, but are constantly more or less compelled to prepare for a further alarming exigency, a Free-trade and Currency-collapsing panic. If the apprehension of these calamities were only mitigated, the pressure itself would assume a totally different character; but now when the pressure-gauge begins to tell, every one is compelled to prepare for the worst with more or less exaggerated alarm; for no one knows when, where, or how, the catastrophe is to end. A few bad Bank returns under these circumstances, are enough to give the alarm to the tite OG: whole country, ‘“‘sauve qui peut;” and, in fact, just as the Currency is hastening to “a /ock,” the demand becomes the more intense for supplies. Clearly, the great object of all Currency laws must be, to a. eal \ . ov give a safe, adequate, and steady representative of real pro- perty, to meet the requirements of commerce, and the general wants of the public, at all times, especially in the time of pressure; and not continually to harass, perplex, cripple, and even tend to paralyse private and public ercdit. Clearly, the Act of 1844, carried fully out in its entirety, does not accomplish the former, but rather induces the latter. Tn these panics money is not annihilated, there is abundance of it in the country, but it has become stagnant and useless, “for people will not part with it,’ as all confidence is gone. The working of the Currency machinery is clogged, well nigh stopped; bills, drafts, cheques, notes, ete., will not circulate freely, ‘we mast have Bank of England notes, or gold,” is the expression of the day. The Clearing-House system of doing business in the City, is impeded by the hourly failures that are taking place; whilst parties from the provinces flock into London for assistance, which they say “they must have”: for bank failures are pending, and further runs are expected. The wealthy squire with his thousands of teeming acres, and the more opulent merchant with the wealth of Croesus in his stores—these combined in deputation with the shrewd lawyer that has accompanied them, can raise little or nothing on the best securities. In fact, when the whole property of the country is without any currency representation, the demand ts the most pressing. In such an exigency as this, from whence can relief come, but from a further representation of real property through the agency of the Bank of England? As far as I can see, Sir, no other system can be devised. If the over- trading and speculative part of the community are caught, it is no reason the legitimate trade of the country should le prostrate too. Only let the supplies from the parent source <S (E(0)