A very great failure has occurred. On Wednesday the City
of Glas- gow Bank closed its doors, with liabilities variously estimated at from ten to fourteen millions sterling, and assets of, it is feared, four mil- lions less, much even of the property available being locked up for years. Nearly six millions sterling is believed to have been lent to four or five firms in the India and Colonial trade, and the man- agement generally is stated to have been of the most unsafe de- scription. The last dividend, for example, was twelve per cent., and the £100 shares on the day of failure stood at 236. From the few facts hitherto known, we should judge that the out-turn would be decidedly bad. The depositors will all be paid, of course, by the slow ruin of the shareholders, among whom there is actually a Bank ; but the failure scatters misery over the West of Scotland. The City Editors are doing their best, perhaps rightly, to prevent panic, but there can be no doubt that the blow to commerce will be most severe, that the India trade in particular will be terribly hit, and that we may next week be in the midst of a monetary crisis. So much capital has been drained away from many trades, that if another similar revelation is made, we shall see great firms bringing each other down like a house of cards. Panic is most unwise, but a little more caution and a little less deliberate lying would tend very much to public confidence. Some of the statements made to reassure the public about this bank were most discreditable.
