22 NOVEMBER 1828, Page 8

MERCANTILE FAILURES—COMPLAINT OF COMMERCE AGAINST THE GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS.

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

THE mercantile failures in Glasgow have, by the aid of the press, been an engrossing topic of domestic interest during the present week. They have served as a text for much curious political economy; and have illustrated more theories of trade than are to be found in either SMITH or RICARDO. They are the natural effect, says one journal, of the bloated small-note system ; they have been caused, according to another, by the unhappy introduc- tion of the principles of free-trade ; they were inevitable under the present pernicious practice of credit, exclaims a third. These dog- matizing persons make no allowance for the consequences of indi- vidual imprudence, or miscalculation, nor for the common risks and accidents of trade; though that these causes are, from one year's end to the other, daily producing similar effects, there is unfortu- nately too much evidence in the London Gazette. It is equally clear, that were any of those theories assigned by our contempo- raries as the causes of the evil true, the evidence of its truth would be found, not in a few isolated bankruptcies, but in the general decay of trade and manufactures wherever it operated. We have only to look at the rapidly increasing wealth and population of Glasgow to see that a general cause does not exist in the present case.

All this, however, is harmless enough ; and to mercantile men, we suspect, as long as the facts of the case are fairly stated, amus- ing. But there is one journal which, by its gross misrepresenta- tion of these, deserves more serious reprehension. It states "upon the most undoubted authority, that failures to the amount of up- wards of a million sterling have taken place in Glasgow, and that as much more is certain to follow in that city alone !" and it adds that "the same embarassments are sure to overtake Lancashire." The amount of the actual failures does not, according to every con- temporary authority, and to all the information we have been able to procure, exceed one-half of the amount here stated ; and the still more mischievous predictions that accompany this exaggera- tion have been falsified by the event, not a single failure having occurred either in Glasgow or Lancashire since it was so foolishly hazarded. Besides, what can be more absurd than to pretend an undoubted authority for prophesying that a series of events will happen, which are obviously contingent on a vast variety of cir- cumstances, and which, so far from anybody seeking to bring them about, it is the labour of every one to avert, if possible ? But the writer's object was merely to attract notice to his paper, and fur- nish excitement to its readers. The timid and the credulous are a large class among mercantile men ; and a general panic, if his pen could have produced that calamity, might have established his cre- dit for ever. To import the plague from Gibraltar to St. Giles's; for the same worthy end, would be an experiment scarcely more pregnant with danger, and infinitely more novel and ingenious.

If the causes assigned for the present failures be sufficiently ex- travagant, there are remedies we find suggested that are tolerably foolish.

"People who embark," says the Glasgow Chronicle, "in the dreadful system of credit practised in Scotland, ought to make up their minds to pause whenever they have the least doubt of fulfil- ling their engagements."

This recommendation, as a means of diminishing the number of bankruptcies, is simply absurd ; but the writer is evidently not acquainted with the system of credit practised in other commercial towns. The fact is, however, we have also our authority for stat- ing, that for the same species of commodity, and to the same class of purchasers, the credit is not longer in Glasgow than in London. It is, besides, unjust and unwise to overlook the honourable mo- tive that makes many struggle against losses and difficulties which they consider temporary and hope to overcome. That the effort is sometimes unavailing, must be true ; but can the Glasgow Chronicle tell how often it has been successful—what fortunes it has retrieved-,what Dames it has saved from shame ? There is something extremely ludicrous in the solemn coxcombry with which advice is thus gratuitously offered to guide people in the conduct of their own affairs. He who is his own lawyer has, it is said, a fool for a client ; but a much more exquisite fool is he who extends the patronage of his goose-quill over a whole class of the community—who instructs the banker and the merchant in the care of their respective interests ; who dictates the employment of their capital, or directs the current of their industry. Commercial men have for the last two hundred years been exclaiming, "Let us alone ;" and for that whole space, and long before, they have been the unfortunate objects of a kindness that never wearied of doing harm. Before political economy was, they were persecuted ; and now that the science is taught in our schools, the insult of advice has been added to the injury of interference. Commerce is swathed and bandaged like a child that cannot walk alone ; she is fettered as though, were her hands at liberty, she would do herself a mischief; and when thus encumbered she makes a false step and stumbles, how profound the speculations of all the quacks on the cause of the accident ! " I knew it," cries one, " it is plethora ;" "it is wrong diet, and over-indulgence in the luxuries of the table," says another ; " it is only wind," exclaims a third—who forthwith proceeds to lecture the unhappy sufferer on the nature of crudities and the management of the intestines. We can fancy no imperti- nence beyond this. When the expiring Hod was assailed by the other beasts of the forest, he bore their insults with patience and in silence ; but when the ass came and kicked him, he could not help murmuring at the ineffable humiliation.