The present dreadful crisis under which the nation is labouring, therefore, is not owing to a want of capital for all its undertakings, nor to any present deficiency in our native supply of food. It is in vain that Sir R. Peel, to throw the blame off the Bank Charter Act, says it is all owing to a deficiency of capital to carry on our undertakings. Has the Right Hon. Baronet forgotten that, so recently as _March last_, the Chancellor of the Exchequer borrowed £8,000,000 for the destitute Irish at £3, 7s. 6d. _per cent._? Was this like a nation, the capital of which was exhausted? Has he forgotten that, till within these few months, the funds were from 88 to 90, and interest generally at 3 or 3½ _per cent._? What has come of all this capital since August last? Has it vanished before the genial showers and bright sun which gave us so fine a harvest? But if deficient capital has been the cause of our disasters, how has it happened that Lord John Russell's letter of 25th October, authorising the Bank to make advances beyond what the Act allowed, has already had a sensible effect in arresting the disorder, at least in the metropolis? Can it be said that that letter added one pound to the realised capital of the country? It might as well be affirmed that it added a cubit to every man's stature in it, or a quarter to the produce of every field it contained. Then how has it to some degree arrested the panic in London, raised the 3 _per cents._ from 79 to 86, and lowered the interest of money from 8 or 9 to 6 or 7 _per cent._? Evidently by its effect upon CREDIT; because it begat a hope--not likely, we fear, to be realised--that government had at last become sensible of the ruinous effect of the Bank Charter Act, and would speedily restore the circulation of the country to that amount, which the magnitude of its population and transactions imperatively required. To illustrate the terrible and all-powerful operation of this deplorable Act on the best interests of the country, let it be supposed for a moment that the _whole_ currency of the country, without any change in its laws as affecting debtor and creditor, were to be withdrawn. What would be the result? Evidently that every man and woman it contained, from Queen Victoria and the Chancellor of the Exchequer downwards, would become bankrupt. A nation possessing real property, as the income-tax and poor-rate returns show, of the value of £3,000,000,000 sterling, and moveable property of £2,000,000,000 more, would, without the exception of a single living creature in it, become bankrupt because £70,000,000 or £80,000,000 was withdrawn from its circulation, while its laws remained unchanged. By these laws, every debtor must discharge his liabilities _in money_; and therefore, if the whole money was withdrawn, no debt could be discharged at all, and universal bankruptcy would ensue.