THE POLITICS OF LOMBARD-STREET.

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 81, 24 July 1852, Page 8

THE POLITICS OF LOMBARD-STREET.

[From the Economist.]

It is not for us who have more than once recorded the satisfaction experienced in the City at the success of Louis Napoleon, to deny that he was a favourite in the money market, now that this fact is urged against Lombard-street as a reproach; but we may undertake to mention the circumstances from which the satisfaction arose.

The fortunes, not only of Lombard-street, but of every money market of Europe—the hoarded wealth of bankers, the credit that feeds trade and manufactures by discount—consists, in a great measure, of public securities. Every nation in Europe has a large debt as well as England, and not merely thousands of persons scattered through various countries depend for their means of subsistence on the annuities paid them out of taxes annually levied, but the whole system of banking and commercial advances is interwoven with them, and rests on these annuities for the ultimate redemption of obligations.

Every quarter of a year somewhere about £6,000,000 is transferred from the public deposits in the bank to the private deposits, or to individuals, a great part of which serves, as every person is aware who attends to the subject, to repay advances made to commerce, or to extinguish debts contracted to carry it on. Something similar occurs periodically in France, Prussia, Austria, Holland, &c, &c." It would be out of place now either to defend or impugn national debts; the fact is that the whole system of credit in' Europe is bound up with them. Without credit—from the great natural principle that commodities are not produced in equal times and of exactly equal values, and cannot therefore be bartered for each other—exchange, commerce, and manufactures can scarcely exist; consequently the whole social, not merely the political, but the whole social system of Europe is intimately bound up with its national debts. In no one point can these be threatened, without carrying alarm through the sensitive whole. The fears of Lombard-street are personal and individual, but they exist in conjunction with great power over political movements. They are timely, warnings against a terrible convulsion, and they are a powerful means of preventing it. Neither socially nor individually, as they might affect the whole, or as they are merely the alarms for private fortunes can those fears be lightly regarded.

For the last four years, however, Lombardstreet—using the phrase to designate the monied interest, the nominal or real holders of national debts, and the recipients of a very large part of every national revenue —has been, in regard to all the foreign Governments of Europe, in a state of continual alarm. Socialist doctrines have everywhere been preached; in many places they have been acted on ; and even here they have been very much talked of, written about, patronised, and carried into effect. They involve not only the overthrow of private property, but the extinction of public obligations, and a complete convulsion of the present system of Europe. In the most conspicuous nations of the Continent, revolutions have in that period taken place, based in a great measure on Socialist doctrines, and intended, at least by a large part of those who have promoted them, to make Socialism the principle of government. It must be admitted, therefore, that for great fears in Lombard -street the events of the last four years have supplied a very solid and ample foundation.

Few reflecting persons but are aware that our social system is closely connected, as we have just shown, with national debts, and that also with these the system of private property is now interwoven. Growing as these debts do from the action of Government, to its action do all men look for the preservation or just liquidation of them, and for the protection of private property. Both national debts and private property being assailed by certain parties and principles, all public writers of the least authority, including the writers of the Times and the Spectator, who now mock at the fears and hopes ot monied men, have earnestly taught the public and have taught Lombard-street to look forprotection and security only to a strong Government. Prior to December 2, the Government of France was in a state of distraction. We have no occasion to inquire into the causes; they were quite beyond the control of Lombard-street; but the fact was that for months, two almost

co-equal authorities had been in conflict, and the Government was threatened with dissolution For months it was seen and dreaded that the' sole existing means of keeping Socialists and Revolutionists in check was likely, to come to an end, letting loose on society all the elements of a great convulsion. We speak of known facts without any reference to any arts of exa^o-era! tion by which the alarm for sinister purposes was increased. Three months ago there was an apprehension that the authority of Government in France would be annihilated, and not only France but all Europe thrown into disorder.

Under those circumstances, Louis Napoleon carried his coup d'etat, and established, as was supposed in France, a strong government. The means he employed were those politicians usually employ. France was as much governed by the army under the elder Bourbons as under the Emperor. On the army Louis Philippe relied as well as his cousins. He had a marshal for his prime minister; he kept a larger aamy on foot than Bonaparte ; and he surrounded Paris with forts as a means of keeping it in subjection. Guizot and Thiers equally relied, like their master, on the army, and carried out their own systems by its means. Cavaignac, the dictator, restored order, and put down Socialism by the army ; and except for the brief term that Lamertine's eloquence prevailed, though he, too, was glad to fall back on the troops, France has never been governed for upwards of a century by any other instruments than soldiers. The excesses of the first revolution were produced by the army ceasing to act under the feeble Louis XVI., and order was restored by the most successful general of France. Louis Napoleon employed the same instrument, and in the first instance very much in the same manner as his predecessors. He restored a strong Government, the idol equally of our contemporaries and Lombard-street, by means of the army. One of the many persons competing for power by the same means, he distanced his rivals, and served them as they would probably have served him had they succeeded. What wonder, then, is it that Lombard-street, more consistent than our contemporaries should regard Louis Napoleon with favaur ? He adopted a common, if not a universally approved means of attaining his end; he extinguished his apprehensions of Socialist predominance; he supplied in his own person and his associates a guarantee for the preservation of national obligations ; and he established, or was supposed to have established, a strong Government in France.

Grant that it is a despotism ; a strong Government can scarcely be anything else. A Government that depends on constituencies— which adopts its course from the changes in popular feeling, so that it is at one time lulled into supineness by eulogiums on the national tranquility and security, and at another whipped into froth and foam by writers who thrive only by agitation—cannot be a strong Government. It is not apparently in the nature of things that a Government can be at once strong, in the ordinary sense of carrying its own will into execution distinct from the will of the people, and popular and constitutional. The Government which Louis Napoleon put down, though called republican and constitutional, was as much a military Government, though the control of the army was for the moment disputed, at his Government ; and, during its existence, if there was not much positive violence, there was continual apprehension. The Government neither satisfied France nor Europe; and, as long as it lasted, the world seemed threatened with a convulsion.

The classes which the Usurper most affronted, injured, and outraged, where the politicians by trade—the persons who sought for power by speaking and writing —who were ambitious of the honours and emoluments of representatives, or of obtaining the influence and wealth which rewarded successful journalists. We have never breathed oue word in extenuation of his suppression of the journals, though in that he did but imitate his predecessors, c<ren the Republican Cavaignac, He carried out his plans indeed with more boldness and daring. But we take, probably, a professienal view, and we can well conceive that Lombard-street had and has no sympathy with a press which, as conducted in France, has been continually the promoter of Socialism, disturbance, and revolution. The organ of narrow cliques, of literary men and their views, or of sects of politicians and their ambitions, the press of France must have appeared in Lombard-street as the great instru-

ment of disorder. From its ascendency only confusion could be expected. It began the revolution of 1848. The worthless Constitution destroyed was emphatically the work of the Press. Whatever may be our opinion individually, therefore, of the folly and wickedness of putting an end to all liberty of speech and writing in France, we can conceive that Lom-bard-street, not further advanced in the principles of political toleration than the ordinary run of men, should hail it with satisfaction as a means of preventing future strife. Much more might be said in extenuation of the feelings of Lombard-street. They belong, it is plain, to classes of phenomena that are very general and very influential; and, however much they have been deceived—though the fears previous to the coup were probably exaggerated, and these hopes then formed have been already much abated—there was for their hopes, in the present condition of society and in the ordinary teaching of public writers, a broad and ample foundation. When journalists have established something like principles in politics —when they teach a uniform and consistent doctrine—when they are neither led astray themselves by hopes nor fears, neither exaggerate at one time nor extenuate at another, they maybe entitled to reproach Lombard-street with entertaining exaggerated fears and unfounded hopes.