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    m 2 THE LEAPE 1 . [* fo « 3 S 9 > Saturday ,

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    tamed advances upon , one -warrant , and upon a second warrant , and sold the spelter u pon the warrant given in the name of G-boves and Co . If anybody holding a warrant doubted it , he could go to Maltbi ' s wharf , and there he Baw the spelter . If he held GteoTUs ' s warrant , and wished to see fete goods , there they were on . ( xboves ' s wharf . For although one consignment of spelter be

    might "sold , it was replaced by other spelter . Here , then , € ole tripled the goods upon , which he-was trading . In this manner , within a few years , four millions and a half sterling passed through . lis hands ! He seemed one of the richest men in the country . He drew others into his system of working—notably Davidson" and Gosdou " , two young merchants highly connected . He had some dealings with Laokeestein" and Co ., who had previously been bankrupt , 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 Gobdok exceeded half a million in amount ; Cole ' s considerably exceeded half a million ; and inany others were involved . One of the most respectaWe houses in the City was found to have made advances to the firm of Davidson and

    Gtobdou , after a partner ui the house had detected the nature of its transactions . Here , then , regular commerce was found to be a conscious party with this strange class of fictitious commerce ! Other cases have since followed . " We have seen a corn merchant make three thousand a year by liis business , to pay four thousand a year for advances whieh , a money 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 in 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

    boar upon trade ; if they would subject its transactions aa 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 , as well as the beat , of trade \ and any advantage which is snatched at trade has to be

    com-During the past week the Corn Market has declined from the ' favourable' range of prices which we saw a few weeks back . In other words , prices have gone back towards a more natural level , and the public may ^ figoin count upon a sufficiency of bread at terms which the industrious multitude can meet . For 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 nobody 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 French , in his wisdom , thinks that [ France would be saved from many of her commercial trepidations if . she were to possess a gold instead of a silver currency ; and in this view- —although , perhaps , the theory is 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 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 Bonapabte has His eye upon this ultimate purpote . At all events , he is aiming to be the "• ' * ' Napoleon of Peace , " which Louis Philippe attempted to be , though he turned out but a spurious counterfeit after all . While Lours Napolion

    t . s working at this conversion of silver into gold , he assists the drain upon English coffers , which had been set going by tlie expansion of trade and credit in Prance . It is quite Sossible that that expansion may be overone ; but we should be blind to facts if we did not admit that the present Grovernment 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 is so far unsound and unsafe ; much 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 wnich Louis Napoieon 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 Prance 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 , 0007 . sterling , of which 4 , 100 , 0002 . were in silver . Tlie exports of silver were at the same time in excess of imports—about 5 , OOO , OO 0 Z ., paid for in gold chiefly to France . There remained 9 , 000 , 000 ? . of gold ; of which it is calculated , by the Zwerpool Albion , in an elaborate and careful

    to meet the demands of a constantly moving and increasing trade . In the Corn . Market lately tliere 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 . Mi . Caibd is surveying the Continent for the Times , and discovering pretty generally in the North 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 , sometimes 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 inay 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 eorn 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 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 Bhould make ib cheap . The attempt would have failed . Men who had counted upon doubling their fortunes would have made themselves bankrupt in the speculation , and the end would have been ruin to numbers .

    At present , With 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 is to facilitate the exchange of the largest possible quantity of corn ; and the 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 weie applied to trade , we might , perhaps , not see a dozen or so of men make unexpected fortunes by a happjr stroke , but a large number of men steadily realizing a good property by Berving the purposes of tlie regular trade . That commerce is safest , and really iu 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 makea the

    largest return to both parties . Let us take a case . . Not long since there was one Joseph "Windle Cole , who thought that he could snatch 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 it Malxbt , a servant of his own , acting nominally as an independent wharfinger . Ma : ltbx obtained leave to lodge goods upon the neighbouring wharf of GritovES and Co ., and

    paper on the subject , that l , O 00 , 000 i ! . probably -was simply transhipped to France , * w 5 v ^ 1 » > ° O 2- to the East . But 0 , 000 , 000 ^ . of gold has been taken from us irrespectivel y of our payment of the silver imported from the Continent . . ^ . ^ has become of that ? Prices in . England are better than in any country in the world s yet we have not silver enough , aor gold enough ; -- *<* do we m e J ^ ttaper currency , whether in the Bank of England or m commercial business , so as realfy

    Cole then sent a cargo of goods to his friend ' s wharf , who placed the goods across the boundary line . Maltby 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 saino spelter in the name of the importing merchant , as landed on the wharf of Geoves and Co . ; and he made out a third warrant for the same spelter aa consigned to Joseph Windle Cole . Cole

    obpenBated by a greater loss . Recent uneasiness in the Money Market has been corrected , because information ia that quarter is hotter and more generally diffused than it used to bo . To complete tho beneficial effect of truth upon commerce , and through commerce upon the whole country , wo have only to extend the same principle more generally—to diffuse honest and direct information .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 20, 1856, page 902, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2159/page/14/