COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL PHENOMENA.
" THE Money Market is quiet." The transactions in Foreign Stocks are limited, but the general tendency, is good." " In Lombard Street the demand for money is slack." " At the Bank the applications have been only to a moderate amount." Such are the terms in which the watchful City editors of the morning newspapers have lately been reporting the state of the Money Market. Like the politicians of Western Europe, with reference to Continental affairs, our great loan-mongers appear to have adopted the policy of expectation. Uncertain what may be• the issue of the Italian complication, and equally ignorant as to how the House of Hapsburg may seek to escape from its perilous pre- dicament as regards finance, they display no eagerness to bid for any foreign loan at the present moment, and it must be con- fessed that, so far as that of Russia was concerned, there was no great temptation. The subscriptions to the Russian Loan closed on Saturday last, and the announcement was that, while nearly one-third of the 12,000,000/. had been applied for, not more than 100,000/. has been taken by the Stock Exchange. Had the same strong feeling against the Czar prevailed in 1859 as in 1856, we might have sup-
posed that the disinclination of English capitalists to invest their money in Russian seourities arose from pure patriotism. The real cause, however, appears to be of a much more business com- plexion. Those men who are in the habit of lending money to foreign potentates found that the terms of the new transaction with the Russian Government were not liberal enough, and, there- fore, they declined dealing. Having a due regard to the abun- dance of capital in this country, and wishing, no doubt, to make a bargain which would strengthen the prestige of Russia, as com- pared with other despotisms, when they jostle each other in the Money Market, the agents of the Czar fixed a higher price for the new stock than was warranted by the actual state of affairs, and the result has not been satisfactory. With its Four-and-a- Half per Cents only a shade above 99, the Russian Govern- ment offered a new Three per Cent stock at 661, which left too narrow a margin for speculation, at a time when so" much uncertainty prevails everywhere regarding the
future of Continental politics. People who only take a cursory glance at such affairs are in the habit of quoting the steady price of Russian securities during the late war, in order to show the firmness of Russian national .credit. But that affords no fair criterion of what might take plaoe with the new 12,000,0001. loan, under the altered circumstances of Western Europe ; with a general war "looming in the distance." If we could rely upon the maintenance of peace for some years to come the case would be different. But who can answer for what may happen within the next few months ? And, if war should again break out, is it not plain that Austria will require a considerable loan, as well as Russia; and if so, may we not reasonably expect that she will come into the market with much more tempting terms to speculative capitalists than her more economical rival has thought proper to offer ?
A still more important query, also, may arise among those capitalists who look not merely to the immediate gain which they are able to make upon a large transaction in foreign stock, but to the political tendency of loans to foreign despots under special circumstances. The Quaker section of the moneyed interest, for example, may naturally feel inclined to ask itself whether the lending our surplus capital to Russia or Austria, at the present critical juncture in European affairs, may not have a much greater tendency to promote a general war than to prevent one ? At the very moment when we are called upon to add 5,000,0001. a year to our national burdens, to insure ourselves against an- ticipated invasion from some quarter or other, it must require a very cosmopolitan conscience to justify the lending money to any of those Powers against whose hostility, in some shape or other, we are called upon, at enormous expense, to strengthen our na- tional defences. Granting that we have a large amount of capital, for which no profitable use can be found at home, at pre- sent ; and that, as a general rule, men who live by lending money should have the right to invest it in any project without reference to the purpose which it is to serve, the question natu- rally arises whether the present political emergency does not pre- sent features of so special a character as to render it an excep- tional case, and whether our leading capitalists ought not to pause before entering into any large transaction with any foreign Power, by which the latter would be strengthened in its hostile designs against Great Britain and her allies ? Great praise was bestowed upon certain members of the Society of Friends for the self-devotion they displayed a few years ago, in travelling to St. Petersburg to convert the Czar to their peculiar views regarding war. Would it not be a more common sense mode of promoting the cause they have so much at heart were they to use all their influence with wealthy Quaker loan-mongers to prevent their lending English capital to foreign Governments, when they can- not help seeing that it will be used for warlike purposes ?
As regards the Indian loan, the feeling on the Stock Exchange appears to have been much more favourable than in the ease of the one to Russia. The total number of tenders sent in was about 800, representing an aggregate of 7,550,000/., which was 50 per cent in excess of the sum asked. The minimum or re- served price was 97 per cent, and, out of the 7,550,0004 sub- scribed, no less than 5,824,750/., nearly a million in excess of the sum required, was either at or above the reserved price. This readiness to subscribe for the Indian loan may be accepted as a proof that the moneyed interest has a better opinion of that mode of investment than it had when the former loan was brought out, as a considerable balance was left unsubscribed for on that occa- sion. Considering how much has been said, in Parliament and in the press, to present Indian affairs in the gloomiest aspect, it is gratifying to find that the most thoroughly practical class in this country is more than ever disposed to aid in promoting the welfare and in developing the resources of that valuable part of the British empire.
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