wisher to his fellows who does not rejoice from the very core of his heart at the alliance of the Western Powers, nor that any one can dread it who does not secretly cherish iniquitous designs which will not bear the light. We begin, therefore, to perceive that the great, lasting, and most important consequences of the war will be the closor union of the West and the East, a further interchange of their mutual advantages, and the extension of civilization in both. These great The second cause of the un-English sym-effects, though accomplished by our instrupathies of the United States to which we have alluded, has been very clearly and succinctly stated by a writer in the last number of the North British Review. We give it, therefore, in his words.- [See "Significance of the Struggle," Living Age, No. 605.] From The Economist, 24 Nov. UNEXPECTED EFFECTS OF THE WAR. On Wednesday the Times dwelt with some earnestness on some of the unanticipated and unintended consequences of the war in the East. We copy a paragraph for general instruction: mentality, are not what we propose to ourselves, nor what we send our armies to the East for; yet they are what the most philanthropic desire, and what all politicians in the main strive or hope to accomplish. They bring distinctly into view the principle to which we have continually endeavored to attract attention, and which is quite as true of all our own internal political regulations as of our wars abroad, viz., that collateral or unintended effects are always of more permanent importance than the intended effects, to which in general political writers confine their attention. The unintended effects of the war in the East on our institutions and minds are already, to some extent, obvious, and are quite as important-though of a "All over the East there is such a demand for different character-as the unintended efprovisions of all kinds as never was known be- fects abroad. It can, indeed, only be necesfore. A huge voracious monster must be fed, sary to remind our readers of what has and many nations and tribes are only too happy already taken place as to administrative of brilliant speculations, incredible profits, mirac- reform, as to the organization of the army, ulous changes, and unprecedented activity. It as to our relations with France, and in the is the West gone to visit the East, and all Eng-public mind generally on all these points, for land could not make a greater stir on its visit to the French Exhibition than the Western Powers by their protracted sojourn in the Euxine. It is true their primary object is simply to protect Turkey from Russia, but incidently they have conferred upon her a more substantial boon. to feed him. The most fabulous stories reach us "As much as a year ago we gave our readers an inkling of what was going on, and invited men of enterprise to follow the new market. Of course, we now know a good deal more about it. All round Constantinople, the shores of the Dardanelles, the Coasts of Asia, the Islands of the Archipelago, Candia, and Greece, are verdant with unwonted cultivation. Immense profits are made out of crops that were once hardly worth reaping. Even in Syria whole districts are being transmuted from rock and waste into the likeness of fertile Belgium or the picturesque Black Forest. As early as last spring we all heard what was doing at Heraciea. There the working of the coal seams had created roads, a railway, a canal, a port, villages, in fact a new county of Durham, with everything but good bishopric and four golden prebends, on the shore of the Black Sea. The same process is going on everywhere. Market stuff is almost as heavy as coal, and there does not exist every - a where in the East a line of road as direct and well metalled as that which conducts the produce of Turnham Green to Covent Garden. So water-carriage is first sought for, but roads to the port soon follow; and even as you coast along the shores of the Levant you can easily detect everywhere an unusual stir.” them to be convinced that consequences the most important will in the end result at home from the war. It is clearly not merely the Russian empire which will be curbed and brought probably to a conviction that it can only again endanger the peace of Europe at the cost of ruin and dismemberment, but the institutions, military and civil, of this country which will be improved and purified. Benevolent and philanthropic men, who have doubted and distrusted the consequences of the war, will now begin to see that the instincts of the people which hurried it on have been rightly directed to bring forward more social and political advantages in a short time than could have been accomplished by any political contrivances. We regard the observations of our contemporary as calculated to impress a great lesson on the whole people, and especially to moderate very much the present furor for improving society by regulations, of which the unintended effects are always of more consequence than the effects intended. The place where the remarks appear make them the more valuable; for no journal so intemperately, mently, and indiscriminately urges forward all the schemes now proposed-we must say in complete ignorance of what will be their consequences. for improving our municipal, political, and social condition. vehe A similar lesson, indeed, is taught by all 124 history. The kings and nobles who set out actually determines its course, by examining, on the crusades, the hermits who stimulated as he best can, all the consequences, intended the enterprise, and the popes who blessed and and unintended, of all his acts. From The Examiner, 17 Nov. CRIMINAL BREACH OF TRUST. the Law Amendment Society, has under its THAT very useful and meritorious body, consideration a proposal for a very necessary amendment of a gross defect, submitted to it by the most distinguished of law reformers, as he is still the most active and vigilant. At the first meeting of its new session encouraged it, were quite as unintentionally the means of importing the use of windmills, and a knowledge of the Arabic numerals, and all the civilization of the East into the West, helping to overthrow the power of Rome and of feudality, as we are now unintentionally the means of weakening fanaticism in the East, and imparting to that quarter the arts and civilization of the West. Neither the founders of Spanish nor of British colonies in America ever intended to make that country supply Europe with the materials of clothing, with sugar or corn, or Brougham on the subject of breaches of trust, "The Chairman read a letter from Lord to spread from it over all the world the use in which his lordship says, 'I hope the attention of a narcotic herb, the parent now of far of the Criminal Law Committee of the Society more trade than ever enriched Genoa and will be directed to a matter which, in moving the made Venice the mistress of the Mediter-resolutions of March last on procedure, I glanced ranean. Neither the Governments which at as one of the grossest defects in our law (not have in our time encouraged trade, nor the in our procedure) regarding breach of trust, individuals who have carried it on, ever however gross, as no offence, but merely ground intended it to be a means of making nations of debt. I gave the instance of a trustee leavmutually serviceable, and establishing be- ing his infant wards on the parish and dying tween them such binding relations of friend- insolvent, but had he survived he was not punship and interest as to make it necessary ishable. The line is easy to draw. for every Sovereign to take them into his trustee, who for his own benefit appropriates especial consideration. In promoting trade trust-funds, be treated as a criminal — not for -as one after another almost ment in Europe has, however awkwardly, every error, though hurtful.' ›› Governendeavored to promote it-no Government tion that a remedy has still to be provided What a discredit to our criminal legislaintended to raise up an interest and a power for wrongs like this! But it is the old story that should give laws to States, and influence, of immunity for the rich. Not till a very Let the if not control, their policy, both domestic few years ago does it seem to have occurred and foreign. Governments may determine to the legislature that so respectable a man what they will undertake, as Mr. J. S. Mill as a banker might play the thief with trusts says, they may determine what institutions committed to him, and even then it so bunthey will establish; but they can no more gled the remedy as to leave still an outlet of determine the consequences of their under- escape to fraud, by which many a guilty takings, than determine how the institutions man might easily profit, and the innocent they establish shall work. Not only by their suffer ruin. resolves, but by the consequences of their that tripped up Messrs. Paul and Strahan. It was but accident, after all, undertakings and institutions, which they cannot determine, and which are far more Lord Brougham's on criminal law procedure We have turned to that able speech of important than their intentions, their under- for the examples to which he alludes in his takings and institutions are tried and their letter. merits ascertained. The State at one time but not worse than must flow incessantly Certainly they are bad enough made a law to put every forger of a one- from a state of the law in which deliberate pound note to death, and the numerous misappropriation of trust money is regarded executions which followed excited a strong but as a ground of debt, and the only check sentiment against capital punishments, led upon it is a chancery suit to be maintained to a rigorous investigation into the assumed against the wrong-doer by the ruined person, right of the State to take away life, to a frequently a helpless girl. conviction that the assumption was Here, as in so warranted, and to the weakening of that than our own, and to this our own must be un- many other cases, the Scotch law is more just power of the sword in the hands of rulers on brought into agreement, if we would clear which all their authority ultimately rests. it of a defect nothing short of disgraceful. The State did not intend any such change. The course of society, in fact, is not great determined by the intentions of man, and he only learns and knows whether he have fulfilled the intentions of the Power which Brougham's letter is referred to in his speech The case of the trustee mentioned in Lord as that of a "not undistinguished member of the legal profession, who, when guardian of two orphans, spent the whole of their patrimony in riotous living, and, dying in- | act, and solely with a view to their own sesolvent, left these two female wards on the curity and their own profit. parish." We suppose there can be no harm The other fallacy is that the Bank of Engnow in saying that this man was Sergeant land- that is to say the Bank of Deposit Bearcroft. The other case is hardly better. and Discount, of which the Issue DepartIt was that of a clergyman deprived of a ment is quite independent-can raise or large fortune by the villany of a trustee, who lower the rate of interest at pleasure. left him no compensation beyond the decis- This also is an error, as far at least as it ion in a civil court that the fortune undoubt-relates to the average permanent rates of inedly was his ("we tried it on appeal from terest, which are governed solely, like the Ireland in this House," says Lord Brougham, prices of all commodities, by the laws of "on a somewhat remarkable day, the morn- supply and demand - the proportion of ing after the Reform Bill was rejected")-buyers to sellers, and borrowers to lenders. the fruits of the crime having already been This fallacy, however, would not have takremoved beyond the civil judge's jurisdiction. en deep possession of the public mind if it We have seen how narrow was the race did not contain some element of truth. between criminal and civil procedure in the Mercantile men see clearly enough that, case of the banker thieves-and how easily however little the Bank of England can afthe shelter of laws for defence of commercial fect average permanent values, its operations credit is convertible into an Alsatia for pro- have an immediate and powerful effect on the tection of commercial robbers. But the pub- rates and prices which prevail at the molic is keenly alive to the whole question just ment; so much so that at times, if the fate at present, and Lord Brougham has well of the nation depended on the decisions of chosen his time to point attention to a scan- the Bank Parlor, they could not be watched dal which is but a part of the same defective for with more intense anxiety. branch of the English criminal law. The Law Amendment Society have promptly taken it up, and in the success of their agitation in this matter, as in so many others, all honest men are directly interested. THE BANK OF ENGLAND. To the Editor of the Economist (27 Oct.): One of them is the notion that the Act of 1844 imposed on the Committee of the Bank Parlor the duty of watching the exchanges, and of adopting such measures as they might deem expedient for checking a rapid drain of gold. The readers of the ECONOMIST need hardly to be told that this is an error; but, for the information of others, the fact requires sometimes to be restated. To account for this we should observe that the demand for capital is of two kinds : that which is governed by consumption, and that which arises from apprehension. If there were never any other demand for capital than that which is governed by consumption, or the ultimate need of capital, we should never see any sudden changes in the rate of interest from one extreme rate to another. A rise or fall in the rate of interest would always be gradual, because consumption, even in a time of war, is always a gradual process. It is otherwise with a demand arising out. of apprehension; to the rapid and extreme fluctuations of which, between a state of confidence and one of fear, especially as affecting money capital, it is hardly possible to assign a limit. When confidence is felt, a very small amount of notes or coin suffices for the daily transactions of business. Money circulates freely, because paid away as fast as it is received. Where distrust is excited, or an expectation of coming difficulties, payments are deferred. Every one seeks to increase his reserves. Even a small tradesman will keep by him the hundred pounds he could otherwise spare; and assuming that in commercial Europe there are a million of persons in a not less anxious position, this alone represents a demand for £100,000,000 sterling more than would be required if no apprehension existed. What is now called the Bank of Issue is practically a department of Government, issuing notes only in exchange for gold, and on the security of £14,000,000 of its own stock; and, how, in an extreme case, gold is to be found for these £14,000,000 of notes, practically inconvertible, is an affair for the consideration of a Cabinet Council, not for that of the Governors and Company of the Bank of England. An efflux of gold, like a rise in the price of corn, is to the Committee No wonder, then, that in such circumstanof the Bank Parlor only one of the indica-ces we should see the rate of interest suddentions that capital is becoming scarce; upon ly doubled, and six per cent. become a miniwhich they act as other commercial bodies mum of discount where the experience of a long series of years had shown that it could not be permanently maintained as high as four. 1. Without denying or affirming the propriety of issuing fourteen millions of paper on other than metallic securities, is it wise or expedient to give the use of them to a single body? But if the principle be correct that all rapid and extreme variations are occasioned, not by consumption, but by apprehension, 2. Is it possible thus to foster the existence it becomes a subject for very grave inquiry of a gigantic and irresponsible interest withwhether the action of the Bank of England out placing, at critical periods, the whole is not directly concerned in those we are now industry and prosperity of the community at witnessing. its mercy? The Bank of England differs from other banks of deposit and discount in being allowed a monopoly use of the £14,000,000 of notes issued only on Government securities-an exclusive privilege to which there can be no adequate counterpoise in private competition. The leviathan influence thus erected, on whichever side it may incline in the scale of commercial values, must always produce violent oscillations. Monetary panics have lately been of frequent recurrence; but the history of all of them (those only excepted brought about by political revolutions) is nearly the same. There is first a slightly perceptible growing demand for money, which excites but little attention until notice has been given that the Bank have raised their rate of discount. This, by the uneasiness it occasions, increases the demand; upon which the Bank, when ill-advised, raises the rate again. The second advance, following soon after the first, and rumors of a third in contemplation, operate as an alarm-gun at sea; every vessel in Her Majesty's fleet reefs topsails and prepares for a storm. With a third advance the next week or fortnight, rumors of a fourth, and the appearance of the Bank broker as a large seller of Government stock, panic begins. Very mistaken is the notion that the Bank of England, by discounting largely at a time of pressure, although at a usurious rate, affords any relief to the public. It would do so, of course, if its capital were in hand; but when money is cheap that capital is invested in Consols and Exchequer bills, and these must be sold to procure the notes required for additional discount accommodation. Consols and Exchequer bills are a barometer for all the stocks of Europe; and to force them upon the market at an unfavorable moment, for the sake of discounting, is to kindle a conflagration with one hand, and seek to extinguish it with the other. The object of this letter is to invite you to discuss the remedy for such an evil. The subject is one quite distinct from that of the basis of our currency; which, with £11,000,000 of gold in the Department of Issue, is at least in no immediate danger. These are the questions I wish to see answered: 3. Have there been no instances of the Bank, looking only to its dividends, acting against the Government, in the very crisis of a public loan? In a word, would not the country be safer than at present from mischievous vicissitudes in the value of every description of property, and periodical monetary convulsions, if free trade in corn were followed by free trade in banking, and Government interference with the circulating medium were confined to the protection of the coins which form our standard of value?-I am your obedient servant, W. E. HICKSON. FAIRSEAT, WROTHAM, KENT, Oct. 18, 1855. P. S.-The Bank returns published since the above was written confirm the fact that the drain of gold, upon which the attention of the public has been too exclusively fixed, is a mere coincidence of the existing mone tary derangement, and not its cause. The correct and well-understood principle of banking management is to keep in hand a reserve of cash equal to one-third the amount of outstanding liabilities. The Issue Department would, therefore, have been safe if, on the 13th of October, with a circulation of £25,205,855, its bullion had amounted to only £8,400,000, instead of which it was £11,205,855. Very different, however, is the case of the other department, governed, not by any fixed rules, but by the capricious policy of the Bank Parlor. Its reserve, instead of being three millions in excess, was (and at dividend time) nearly a million deficient, £5,104,056, against claims to the amount of £17,239,643. The crisis has been brought about by the old fault of the Banking Department,overtrading. It first, to procure business, discounts bills to any extent applied for below the market rate, and then, suddenly, when it finds it has gone beyond its strength, makes a convulsive effort to sustain its own credit. Seven per cent. discount means only that the Bank lends no more money till it has got money to lend, and for which it must wait the maturity of the bills it discounted at 3 1-2 and 4 per cent. As these fall due, every one may see without mystifying him self with the exchanges, that notes and gold will flow in; and, when they have done so, the Bank will again lower its rate of discount, as it did in December, 1847, to get back its trade. The popular theory now is, that if the Committee of the Bank Parlor were allowed to place their hands on the gold of the Issue Department nothing of this kind would happen; but it is obviously just as easy to overtrade with a capital of £30,000,000 as with one of £20,000,000. people of England; her oppressor stood elated with success on the neck of the victim, proud in the menacing attitude of the restored power of despotism, yet I found the curse of execration pouring down on his name from four millions of British lips. The conscience of the British people sat in judgment on the morality of kings. Was it I who lured England into those prayers, into that curse? I? The flowers of sympathy that grew up in my path from Southampton to Winchester, and along the streets of London, across the halls of the Mansion House and up to the mighty gatherings of hundreds of thousands of free Britons at Bir The remedy must be sought, not in surrendering the securities we have obtained for convertibility by the Act of 1844, but in the abolition or restriction of all exclusive bank-mingham and Manchester - the flowers of ing privileges. The Banking Department must either be placed on the footing of a private bank, or restrained from making the same free use as at present of the Government deposits. sympathy that were conveyed to me by addresses and delegations from more than a hundred localities where I never happened to be-were they the work of my words? I have England for witness that they were not. They were a spontaneous offering of the KOSSUTH ON HIS RECEPTION AND RESI- moral sense of the English people at the DENCE IN ENGLAND. shrine of justice and right. My task has been to gather the free offerings, and to THE Briton with the soul of ancient times, thank for the noble gift in the name of my the words of whom I quote; he, who so well country as well as I could in the broken can imagine how the Brutuses may have accents of a language foreign to me; and felt, and how a Demosthenes spoke, he remem- staggering as I was under the weight of honbered the 6th of October. [M. Kossuthors paid to me, sympathy for my country, refers to Mr. Landor.] I claim from him and not my own desert, caused to reflect on the honor of being allowed to offer to him my own humble self. On my return from herewith the public homage of my heartfelt America, I secluded myself in the solitude gratitude. May the best blessings of Heaven of undying grief, and of undesponding hope, be with him! Amongst millions of free justified by the imperishable vitality of my Britons he alone remembered publicly the country, to which I trust, like as the martyrs day on which Francis Joseph of Austria- of old trusted to their God, for the ultimate then yet a boy in years, but more than a triumph of their faith. It was on that vitalNero in cruelty-revelled with fiendish fero-ity, on the justice of the Eternal, and on the city in the blood of the bravest and the best inexorable logic of events, that I rested my of my country, and gloated upon the agony hopes, and not on foreign sympathy. This of a heroic nation. It was a deed, rarely equalled in baseness, never surpassed. Two years after the bloody day of Arad, I first landed on the shores of England, a homeless wanderer, powerless and poor; and I saw my landing become the signal for a universal outburst of sympathy with my country's wrongs, such as no people ever experienced from a foreign nation. Hungary, a couple of years before scarcely known by name, I found a household word at every British hearth; she lay prostrate under the iron hoof of foreign oppression, yet her name had a share in the prayers of the I did not court. I rather went out of the |