18 OCTOBER 1873, Page 2

The Bank raised its rate on Wednesday to 6 per

cent., and there is a good deal of alarm in the City. It is said that a few more heavy drafts from America, where we are purchasing corn largely and helping the banks whose business it is to finance its conveyance to port, would bring about a suspension of the Bank Act, as would also any severe demand from the German Govern- ment Dealers, however, are pretty well forewarned, and with Mr. Gladstone at the Treasury need not be much alarmed, except at a system which compels one Bank to bank for the world without any adequate reserve. Peel's Act would work nicely enough, if we were driving a trade of twopence-halfpenny a week, but now that we are dealing in shillings it requires modification.