Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 423, January 1851Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 423, January 1851
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
But by far the most important and beneficial effect of Californian gold
hitherto experienced has been in the extension of credit and increase
of accommodation at home. This effect is obvious and important. The
notes of the Bank of England in circulation, have risen in the last
year to L.20,000,000 or L.21,000,000 from L.16,500,000, which they had
fallen to during the panic. The circulation of every other bank has,
as a matter of course, been proportionably augmented. What produced
this great increase in the circulating medium? The influx of bullion
into the country, which augmented the treasure in the Bank of England
to above L.16,000,000. There is the secret of the whole thing; of the
activity in the manufacturing districts, and the general extension of
credit and rise of prices through the districts. It is Californian gold
which has done the whole; for it has at once filled to overflowing the
vaults of the Bank of England, and relieved its officers, and those of
all similar establishments, from all dread of a drain of specie setting
in. Gold was abundant; the banks no longer feared a collapse: therefore
notes were abundant also; the terrors of the holders of them were
abated. Prices rose, and credit was extended. We are far from thinking
that it is a wise and judicious system to make credit of every kind
entirely dependent on the amount of metallic treasure in the vaults of
the Bank of England: we only say, having done this by Sir R. Peel's
monetary system, we have to thank California for having put at least
_a temporary stop to the evils with which it was pregnant_. It is not
surprising that the addition of even so small a sum to the metallic
circulation of the commercial world should produce, in a single year,
so great a result. The discovery of two millions of bank-notes, in an
old chest of the Bank of England, stopped the panic of December 1825;
the mere issuing of Lord J. Russell's letter, announcing the temporary
repeal of the Bank Charter Act, put a period to the far severer crash
of 1847. The addition of five millions to the metallic treasure of this
country is quite sufficient to vivify every branch of industry, for it
will probably put fifty millions, in bank-notes and private bills, into
circulation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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