vision is a security to all other banks against the effects of sudden runs upon them for gold. It is ordained by Act of Parliament, that "upon one year's notice, given six months after the expiring of ten years, from 1st August 1834, and upon repayment by Parliament of all sums that may be due from the public to the Bank, at the time of the expiration of such notice, the exclusive privileges of banking granted by this Act shall cease and determine at the expiration of such notice." Hence, in the present year (1844), there necessarily comes a renewal of these peculiar privileges. A pamphlet on the subject of the Bank Charter is just now engaging public attention, to which we refer those of our readers who desire to know more of the constitution of the original and the most powerful of all Joint-Stock Banks.

It would occupy overmuch of our space to pursue the statistics of Joint-Stock monopolies through their ramifications. Suffice it, that, with the exception of the Assurance Companies, the banks have originated all the rest; albeit, it would be unfair to cast all the guilt upon the axle and main-wheel of the speculating machine. The greatest abuses have sprung out of the speculations that have cunningly assimilated the power of Plutus. Here, then, we fix our point d'appui in this Essay; with the Joint-Stock Banks and the Companies that have been spirited into existence by the El Dorado promises, offered by the successful operations of the former, we weigh the philosophy of our theme.

The laws of the material world are uniform and immutable. The laws of society are in perfect accordance, unless they are distorted by the craft and schemes of man. The 19th century ushered in, and has continued to foster, a powerful evil, which has already considerably disarranged the social scale, and is now destroying the firm principles of commerce. That evil consists in the prevalent gambling excitement produced by the modern invention of a process of unlimited borrowing and lending of money at interest.

Joint-Stock Associations are the latest offspring of that tricksy spirit," that flashing of commerce, whose being is " a thing of life,' exuberant and dancing with the quickest vitality; but whose soul is one entirety of self. The political economist tells us that in commerce there is, strictly speaking, no friendship; its ruling power is self-interest; its purest motive cupidity. No one of the progeny of Commerce is remarkable for much amiability of character, but the last-born is a Siamese twin, decidedly more vicious, though not half so healthy and springy as the rest of the family. Indeed, the last child can be no favourite with its father, upon the axiom of commerce, that business is much better conducted by single individuals, for their own behoof, than by companies of any kind; and Master Joint-Stock, though a florid and growing infant, will turn out the most expensive of all in its keep, and the weakest of all in its constitution, which is naturally corrupt.

We are quite aware that Joint-Stock Banking is in high and general favour with the commercial class; that it is the steam-power in the propagation of wealth; that, alike to shareholder and depositor, it is an

engine that works admirably in turning money after such a fashion that every coin submitted to its rapidly impinging process, shall actually appear to grow in weight and value, and come out of the ordeal worth something more than when it went in. Mr. Crosse, the Electrician, has been known, we have heard, to generate animalculæ, by experimentalising with his electrical machine upon common flint. The Joint-Stock Bankers have also an equally extraordinary mode of "increasing and multiplying," by their experiments upon the circulating medium. They can agitate a piece of coin-a sovereign for instance-so that it shall spin upon its axis with the utmost velocity, and perform an orbit erratic as that of a comet, and after a while it will return to the owner so much improved by its voyage of discovery, as to prove of double the value of the same amount of idle money.

But for all this in philosophy, the machine is a vicious one; in the nomenclature of political economy, an unnatural agent, and is creative of quite as much human distress as benefit. The code of political economy decrees that morality-using the word in its most extended sense-is of the greatest importance to success in exchanges as well as production. It is this that Sir H. Parnell and Mr. G. M. Bell have always contended for. One of these authors says, "As nations become vicious, unjust, or oppressive, such moral deterioration must interrupt all kinds of industry. Success in exchange, as well as success in production, depends much upon the intellectual and moral character of a people."

We have, then, proof and opinion alike that a radical evil affects the constitution of all Joint-Stock Associations; the seat of the evil is in the parent body-the banks; but the exhibition of the disease, the eruptions, takes place in the weaker parts, which we designate the Cemetery, Railway, Mining, Building, Gas, and other Trading Companies. What we see in Nature we may reasonably apply to Art, and conclude that if the begetter be corrupt in blood, the infant must necessarily be so, and from being the weaker vessel it will betray the disease soonest.

There can be little doubt of the truth of the assertion, that, when companies are constructed of real capitalists, their enterprises are likely to prove, and do prove useful, in a commercial sense, to the country in which they are undertaken; but still we are at war with such companies, and purely on the basis of their morality. Plausible, successful, commercially beneficial, though they be, they are, nevertheless, in their very originality, opposed to moral law.

One of the keenest of living satirists relates, in an incomparable vein of allegory, the fable of a sinful denizen of the other world, who, when asked by his spiritual dominie-to whom he stood in the relation of a school-boy, not in the flesh, but in the spirit—to spell the monosyllable good, was still so incarnated and stupefied with the earthly leaven, that he could not be brought to orthographise the word otherwise than as g-o-1-d. The fable is purely meant to shew the perverting influence of worldly wealth. The Joint-Stock Association is the foundationschool of defiled and guilty dunces of this description. All mercantile

gambling inflames the passion for lucre, and thus endangers moral principle in the most alarming form that can be assumed by any one of the category of human vices. It is a truism to exclaim, that the lust of pelf is the arch-fiend which betrays mankind, step by step, to ultimate perdition.

The participator in Joint-Stock speculations must necessarily, from his position, be tainted more or less; he cannot help lending himself to deceit, at all events; he is feeding the guilty passion for gold; and with the growth of that passion he is liable to lose all Christian prudence; in short, to degrade himself to the blackest dishonesty.

It is but too well known that there exist numerous companies which have been formed, with very little expectation, if any, on the part of the originators, of ultimate success; we may go further, and declare that some have been formed with the sole purpose of gulling a too-confiding public. The "Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Company” of Boz, with its swindler-sec., quack-doctor, sneaking touter, grasping capitalist, and liveried hall-porter, is no mere conceit of the novelist's brain, but a thoroughly truthful satire. There are establishments actually thriving in the heart of this metropolis, which are sheer counterparts of the Anglo-Bengalee Company; there are plenty of swindlers, too, in London, of the Tigg-Montagu family; like him, having jumped suddenly from greasy suits into elegant attire, a dashing cab, a showy office in the city, and a splendid drawing-room at the west-end; there are amongst us also more than one such ugly customer as Jonas Chuzzlewit, gulling and being gulled; goaded to desperation by overreaching, and actually contemplating murder as the direful retaliation for cheating and robbery.

Beings like these belong to the dregs of the Joint-Stock class; but we shall by a little examination find dishonesty enough higher up in the scale. To begin with the Bank of England itself. It is matter of history that its first capital, 1,200,000l. was subscribed for the purpose of being lent at interest to the government of William and Mary, "at the time in a state of embarrassment. At its very outset, therefore, it was a mere engine of Government-a sort of pawnbroker's shop-a succour which royalty could not have recourse to without degrading itself to the encouragement of the vice of usury. In 1797, when the bank found itself unable to meet a run made upon it for gold for its notes, the Government of that day summarily protected it from bankruptcy by issuing an order that Bank of England notes should be considered a legal tender; consequently the holders of notes at the time were by force of law refused their value in cash, and this extraordinary state of affairs lasted, with various modifications, till 1821, when cash payments were resumed.” Was this honest? The majesty of England blowing bubbles, and forced to keep the game up by taking possession of other people's soap. What was the consequence of such a state of things? "The notes of the bank, from not being representatives of specie, were considerably depreciated in nominal value; so great was the depreciation at one time, that four-pound

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notes would have been given in exchange for three guineas. In the History and Principles of Banking," it is acutely noticed, as a serious hardship, that debts contracted during this prevalence of a depreciated currency, have had to be paid in a currency of full value; for by this means the creditor receives, perhaps, a third more money than the actual value of the original sum owing."

The issues of the Joint-Stock Banks, when contrasted with the magnitude of the establishments, are deemed exceedingly small; a circumstance that naturally excites suspicion, and suspicion and honesty are seldom found together; though dishonesty is always trailed after by the former. According to the last return (1839), the notes in circulation of all the Joint-Stock Banks were in value 4,665,1107. This divided by the number of banks (108), gives an average circulation of only 43,2001. for each; or, if we include the branches, the average for each office or establishment is only 70007. Supposing the money to be employed in discounting at 5 per cent., the annual profit on 4,665,000l. would be only 230,000l., or no more than 350l. to each establishment. It is evident therefore, that their profit must be principally derived from deposits, which they can employ at 5 per cent., while we believe they give only two.

We have it from the authority of a highly respectable merchant at the present time engaged in Stock affairs, that in many instances the Directors of public companies, who ought to qualify, as it is termed, for their position by the purchase or tenure of a fixed number of shares, never qualify until the speculation assumes a most favourable aspect-a very cunning, but indisputably disreputable, dishonest, and therefore immoral proceeding. Such was shewn lately on the failure of Hannay's Marylebone Bank, and indeed the trick is commonly played, as we know from numberless instances of exposures that have attracted public notice, from the days of the South Sea Bubble to the present. We have quoted the least invidious of those facts to confirm our statement.

The facility offered to persons of limited means to enter into hazardous speculations, through the small advances requisite to enable them to become proprietors, is an active cause of the ruin of thousands of dupes. In the Neapolitan Loan, contracted in this country, the original shareholders were sufferers to a ruinous extent, particularly the small shareholders; but the capitalists par excellence, N. M. Rothschild and the original contractors, came out scatheless, and, indeed with a handsome profit. After this illustration we hardly need speak of the South Sea Bubble, the circumstances of which live in every merchant's memory. Many of the mining speculations got up about the year 1824-5, ended in the ruin of the weakest parties, or shareholders, who, for want of means were obliged to make early sacrifice. And for an instance of mercantile deception belonging to the very hour at which we are writing, it is notorious that the extant high price of railway stock is fictitious and delusive; "Many a family," remarked a correspondent of the Times newspaper a few days ago, "is suffering privations owing

to the money it has invested in railways, of which alone the public have reaped the benefit." But we are anticipating.

If society reposed in its original and natural state, every industrious man would find his labours in the market ready to be purchased by others; but the law of progression is equally natural, and we discover that some men, by a more skilful application of their faculties, or the observance of a more rigid economy than others, gain an extra share of wealth; this reward of industry is to be seen every day: hence spring the capitalists, and these fortunate individuals continue to accumulate specie which is brought to bear against the fair manufacturer, who is, indeed, the spring and source of public wealth; who, in fact, furnishes those resources which enrich the treasury of the land. The inventive mind of a, perhaps, penniless adventurer, conceives a scheme whereby he imagines he will suddenly become rich. He gets up the framework of a Joint-Stock Company; he sounds the golden trumpet in the ear of the capitalist; a 10 or 15 per cent. profit will be the reward of money advanced for the working of the company. The shares are all taken up, and thousands of other capitalists are sighing for some new investment that will probably "put money in his purse" more rapidly than the ordinary funded interest; and soon again we see the announcement of a new scheme, which is as largely sought after. In this way monopoly is accomplished; the natural streams of wealth, both national and individual, are diverted; the merely industrious individual is incapacitated for competing with ingenious calculators-quick-minded theorists, the genera of modern times, who have effected his ruin. This is how the tributaries of national wealth have been broken up, and the empty coffers of the treasury have more than once shewn the statesman that the machine of commerce is defective.

The Benefit Societies and Loan Clubs, now swarming in London and other large towns, belong to the Joint-Stock species; and, though they appear harmless in themselves, they are a fraction of the national evil we have endeavoured to point out. The subscription lists of the Benefit Societies produce capital, and this capital draws the labouring class from their usefulness, frequently by creating a feeling of independence, impelling bodies of men to strikes, or defiance of the authority of employers.

The Life Assurance Companies must now engage a few moments' attention, as forming a branch of Joint-Stock operations, of consequence only secondary to the Banks. No scheme bearing the slightest analogy to the present system of Life Assurance is to be found on record until about the middle of the seventeenth century.

The first scheme of importance which seemed for the time to command the attention of thinking men, and which stands prominently forth as the foundation of Life Assurance itself, was the introduction of "Tontines;" invented, I believe, by a native of Italy, by name "Tonti,"

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or Tontino."

*Lawrence on "Life Assurance."