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    -992 ^1B LJJA^.SB. pfo. 330, Saotjtoa.y3

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    The Panic. Never, Has The Commercial Wor...

    During the past week the Corn Market las declined & otu the 'favourable' range of pricea which we saw a few -weeks back . Jjh other words , prices hare gone hack towards a more natural level , and the public may again eount upon a sufficiency of bread at terma wiich the industrious multitude cap . jneet . 2 tor the corn dealers still speak as if their interests were against the interests of

    the public at large . Again , during the end . of last week , and . the beginning of the present , there was a panic in the Money Market—a kind of quiet , subdued palpitation of the heart throughout the moneyed world- —for reasons which no-Taody precisely understood . The wise men , indeed , reckon up some reasons , and they are not to be omitted from the account .

    They are evident enough . The Emperor of the JTbench :, in his -wisdom , thinks that Trance would "be saved from many of her commercial trepidations if sne were to possess a gold instead of a silver currency ; and in this view—although , perhaps , the theory ia not quite so philosophic as we might wish—Napoleon III . is falling in with the natural tendency of commercial Europe , Throughout the East and the South the English gold sovereign has gradually been becoming 1 the standard of value , partly because throughout the world the English Mint has been the most exact and the most honest .

    It would be a great advantage for the old "world , and also for the new , if some one unit of value should be adopted throughout ; and probably the systematic Bonapaete has his eye upon this ultimate purpose . At all events , he is aiming to be the " Naioleoh of Peace , " which Xiouis P hilipp e attempted to be , though he turned out hut a spurious counterfeit after all . " While Louis Napomots

    is working at this conversion of silver into gold , he assists the drain upon English coffers , which had been set going by th & expansion of trade and credit in Prance . It is quite possible that that expansion may be overdone ; but we should be blind to facts if we did not admit tiiat the present ( Government has given a real extension to commerce , has

    weaned the French , to a great extent , from the habit of hoarding , and has infused into the community a spirit resembling that which has guided our own trading public . There is much that is overdone , and ds so far unsound and unsafe ; mueU also that is real ; but whether real or not , the increase to the trade of France has called for an absolute

    increase in those precious metals which Louis Napoleon desires to be gold rather than silver . A somewhat similar expansion , of industry and trade in the Par East , and particularly in India , has occasioned demands for the silver ¦ which J Erance will otherwise send to us . The total imports of gold and silver during the first eight months of the current year have been about 18 , 000 , 000 ? . sterling , of which 4 j , 100 , 000 Z . were in silver . The exports of silver were at the same time in excess of imports—about 5 , 000 , 000 ? ., paid for in gold chiefly to Prance . There remained 9 , O 0 Q , 0 OOZ . of gold ; of which it da calculated , by the Idverpool Albion , in an elaborate and careful

    paper on the Bubject , that 1 , 000 , 0002 . probably was simply transhipped to Prance , « kJvx about 1 , 500 , 000 * . to the East . But © , 000 , 0003 , of gold hoe been taken from us irrespectivel y of our payment of the silver imported from the Continent . ir , ^ n i ^ * T become of that ? Prices nor ™ l 1 y 6 t i haTe not 8 ilver eno « g » > nor gold enough ; - ~ nor do We manage our paper currency , whether in the Bank of England or m commercial businosfl , so as really

    to meet the demands of . a constantly moving and increasing trade . In the Corn Market lately there was that ' favourable' - rise which delighted dealers , and threatened dear bread to the multitude . Before the rise had been maintained for many days , however , people began to inquire whether the harvest had "been really affected by the rains at home so much as to * justify the enhancement . Mr . Caibd is surveying the Continent for the Times , and discovering pretty generally in the IjTorth of Europe a full average crop . Russia made peace with England in part to permit the renewal of her corn trade from the Black Sea . The official

    statistics , in . which America excels us , show a generally favourable , soiaetimeB thin , but a very generally fine wheat crop , over a spread of land exceeding any that the United States have ever laid down under corn ; and we may anticipate that the calculation of ten per cent ., in excess over their usual crop is under the truth . / With these prospects , buyers naturally thought that corn -would not continue so very dear as the dealers seem to represent ; buyers , therefore , hesitated to invest their money in corn at 75 s ., when they will probably corn at 75 s ., when they will probably

    purchase it at very much below that figure . Now , in former days , looking to the rain and the rise of prices , speculators would have hurried into Mark-lane and bought up stocks , and we should have seen a struggle protracted through several months to induce the agents between the -wholesale dealer and the public to buy at proportionate prices , in order to make corn dear , even if the seasons should make it aheap . The . attempt would have failed . Mien who had counted upon doubling their fortunes would have made themselves bankrupt in the speculation , and the end would fcave been ruin to numbers .

    At present , -watlx the greater information which has followed upon free-trade ,, and the extension of newspapers , all parties' look a little more to easily ascertained facts . Agents discover that their true interest ds to facilitate the exchange of the largest possible quantity of corn ; and t"he safety , as well as profit , of the merchant is found in the same course which secures the largest practical amount of plenty for the multitude .

    If this same principle were applied to trade , we might , perhaps , not see a dozen or so of men make unexpected fortunes by a happy stroke , but a large number of men steadily realizing a good property by serving the purposes of the regular trade . That commerce is safest , and really in the long run the most profitable , which gives a profit to both sides . It is the most moral , the most conducive to the extension of peace throughout the world ; but what we are insisting upon is , that it positively makes the

    largest return to both parties . Let us take a case . Not hug since -there was one Joseph WiNBiiB Coie , who thought that he could snatcli a large fortune out of other men ' s pockets by a particular plan . He hired a wharf , which lay between the two halves of a well-known wharf ; he placed upon ib Maltb y , a servant of his own , acting nominally as an independent wharfinger . Maxtbt obtained leave to lodge goods upon the neighbouring wharf of GhtovES and Co ., and

    Cole then sent a ca . rgo of goods to his friend ' s wharf , who placed the goods across the boundary line . ' Maztby then , made out a warrant , say , for so much spelter , landed at his own wharf , and consigned to the importing merchant ; he made out another warrant for the same spelter in the name of the importing ; merchant , as landed on the wharf of Gboves and Co . ; and lie made out a third warrant for the same spelter as consigned to Joseph Windle Cole . Cole

    obtained advances upo > n one warrant , and upon a second warrant , and sold the spelter upon the warrant given in the name of Gfeovss arid Co . If anybody holding a warrant doubted it , he could goto Malxbt ' s whar £ and there he saw the spelter . If he held Gboves ' s- warrant , and wished to see the goods , there they were on G-boves ' s wharf For although one consignment of spelter might be sold , it was replaced by other

    spelter . Here , then , Cole tripled the goods upon which he was trading . In this manner , within a few years , four millions and a half sterling passed through his hands ! He seemed one of the richest men in the country . He drew others into his system of working—^ notably Davidson and Gobdon , two young merchants highly connected . He had some dealings with IiACKEHSTEiirand Co ., who had previousl y been bantrupt , and who failed again to the amount of hundreds of thousands of

    pounds . This fictitious trade could not last : the trick was one day found out , and the whole broke down . The bankruptcy of Davidson and Gordon exceeded half a million in amount ; Cole ' s considerably exceeded half a million ; and many others were involved . One of the most respectable houses in the Citj was found to have made advances to the firm of Davidson and

    Gordon , after a partner in the house had detected tlie nature of its transactions . Here , then , regular commerce was found to be a conscious party "with this strange class of fictitious eommercel Other cases have since followed . " We have seen a corn merchant make three thousand a year by his business , to pay four thousand a year for advances which a xnoney lender was making to him —• what for , nobody knows . In a case of this latter kind , the money dealer probably recovers his first advances within a year or

    two ; and all the rest of the nominal loan is merely hx the shape of re-advances , for which immense interest is charged . Now that particular money dealer may retire in splendour to Westbourne-terrace , or Brighton ; may subscribe to charities , and be one of the shining lights of the age ; but for that one fortune which is made , not only the corn dealer , but the corn dealer ' s creditors , great and small , and many others besides , have suffered , perhaps to the extent of

    destruction . For all the profit which trade tries to fetch out of nothing , by this kind of fictitious trading , must , in . reality , come to nothing in the end , and must recoil upon the trading world and those dependent upon trade . Men appeal to the Bankruptcy-Court ; they clamour for a rigorous application of the criminal law ; they ask how merchants conniving at swindling could be ' Christians ? ' If they would set the example of bringing the light , of direct information to

    bear up-on trade ; if they would subject its transactions as much as possible to publicity , they -would find the same extension that is enlarging the corn trade ; they would find at home the same increase of industry , with a certainty of returns , that they are obtaining by the extension of geographical knowledge , and the application of practical science to shipping , in the general commerce of the world . Truth is-, after all , the true basis , aa well as the best , of trade ; and any advantage which is Bnatched at trade has to be

    compensated by a greater loss . Ueeent uneasiness in . the Money Market has been corrected , because information in that quarter is better and more generally diffused than it used to be . To complete the beneficial efl ' cct of truth upon comrnerco , and through commerco upon tie wholo country , wo have only to extend the same principle more generally—to diffuse honest and direct information .

    -992 ^1b Ljja^.Sb. Pfo. 330, Saotjtoa.Y3

    -992 ^ 1 B LJJA ^ . SB . pfo . 330 , Saotjtoa . y

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 20, 1856, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_20091856/page/14/