Another Australian Bank has suspended—the English, Scottish, and Australian Chartered
Bank—and Melbourne will be fortunate if no more of them are closed. The Bank had a oapital of 2900,000, with a similar sum uncalled, and its position is said to have been very sound, its money not being locked up in real securities. All Banks, as we read their reports, are solvent when they fail, though we do not see that shareholders and depositors find it so; but no doubt the Australian Banks have had to face a special element of danger. They pay good interest for money, they obtain large deposits, and therefore, whenever a panic occurs, their very life-blood is sucked dry. Such a panic is evidently now raging in Australia, the impression among depositors being that Bank managers have over-estimated the selling-value of "city lots,"—or, at all events, calculated on prices which it may take years to obtain. The embarrassment to the Colonial Govern- ments from falling revenue, will be great ; but the Colonies, unlike European States, possess great properties in their unfilled lands, and if only they can be economical, rapidly recover. The sole obstacle is the weight of the Labour vote, the labourers insisting that huge public works shall go on to keep them comfortable.
Previous page
