The Australian panic has deepened this week, though there have
been signs since Thursday that it is drawing towards its end. Four more banks have suspended, one of them, the 'Commercial Bank of Sydney, being of great importance, and another, the National Bank of Queensland, most valuable to that Oolony. Fourteen banks have now suspended, with liabilities tstiraated at ninety millions, and probably exceeding that sum. Reconstructions are to be tried in all cases, their general Principle being that depositors shall accept debentures at 41 Per cent., not repayable for five years. That delays, or obviates, the ruin which would follow forced sales of mort- faged property in impoverished Colonies ; but it leaves the "41E8 loaded with huge sums for interest, and with little money for new business. It is feared, too, that many Australian businesses deprived of advances must collapse; and that the general loss and restriction of trade must in the end be felt by the great Australian houses here. We Rote one curious incident in the panic. Great sums in e 7 'coin were withdrawn by depositors, who re-deposited the in boxes in the same banks "for safe custody." That is a reversion to the old method of hoarding by deposit with the goldsmiths, and if secure 'interest sinks much further, will, we venture to Predict , become a common practice. Timid men capital absolutely secure, and forego their 1 or per cent.
