A rather lively currency debate took place in the House
on Tuesday night, in which the honours remained with Sir John Lubbock and Mr. Fowler (M.P. for Cambridge) ; but they had not a very formidable antagonist in Mr. Anderson (ALP. for Glasgow), who is evidently one of those many currency reformers who put the cart 'before the horse, and go in for reformations before they have mastered the constitution -which would haw - be reformed. Mr. Anderson's resolution assumed, to begin.wit.r, that the great number of recent variations-in the rate of discount were due to the Act of 1844, and would not have taken place but for the artificial requirements of the Act. He forgot to inquire what had happened in this respect in countries without-a Bank Act. Mr. Anderson complained of the fixed price of gold, but did not explain what he meant, —whether he meant that a pound should embody a variable weight of gold, in which case the pound would be always varying, and varying quite arbitrarily, in worth,—or- whether he meant that the Government should (we mean without taking into account the trifling charge for coining) sometimes pay more than an ounce of coined gold for an ounce of uncoined gold, and sometimes less, in which case he should have explained on what principle thatextraordinary practice should be regulated.-'Mr. Anderson held that panics were caused by our currency laws; and failures by panics. Sir John Lubbock and Mr. Fowler broth pointed out that it is not panics which cause failures, but ifailures which cause panics. ' We cannot, however, agree with Sir John Lubbock that banking is perfectly free in this country, in the sense in which it would be if there were no Govern- ment connection with -the Bank of England. Unquestionably the effect of that connection is to induce the other Banks to-rely on the Bank of England for keeping their reserres,,insbead-of keeping their reserves for themselves, and the result of that is that we have a far smaller reserve in proportion to the enormous banking liabilities of -this country than we ought to have. Mr_ Fowler evidently felt this, and is disposed to systematise the sus- pensive action of the Government, to give it legal power at critical moments to break-the present Bank Act. Indeed the only result of the discussion was that Mr. Lowe agreed to consider whether, instead of anthorising breaches of the law, the law itself might not be made to provide for critical occasions when interference is necessary.
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