Lidderdale, the able and daring Governor of the Bank
of England, explained to his shareholders on Thursday the position of the Barings' affairs. They owed, when the crash came, £21,000,000, with assets estimated at £24,800,000. By March let, the debt due to the public had been re- duced to £3,522,000, but at the cost of an advance from the Bank of 26,650,090,—a sum equal to only a third of the financiers' " guarantee," The total outstanding debt. of the great firm is, therefore, still £10,172,000, against which there are, in good debts and cash, R4,213,000, estates worth £1,000,000, and other securities worth £1,250,000, and a quantity of South American paper. The ultimate issue will depend on the selling price of this paper, and though Mr. Lidderdale held that on the strictest valuation the guarantors would be covered, he did not venture as yet to go further than that. It is probable, of course, that the Argentine Republics and Uruguay will recover their credit—which has been greatly affected by mercantile disasters, as well as by their own mis- conduct—but the question for the City, including the Bank, is when P
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