The Counting House.

Otago Witness, Issue 1243, 25 September 1875, Page 3

The Counting House.

THE STATE OF TRADE. The situation of affairs in England now that the extent of the recent commercial disasters is known and the feeling excited by them has had time to quiet down, is not different from what we anticipated when the suspensions were nrst announced. There has been no panic—not even a convulsion of the money market, though it is doubtful if so many great firms ever before suspended payment within so short a time without producing a crisis. So far is the business world of Great Britain from being distressed for money, that never durine its existence of 180 years has the Bank ot England held so much specie as it holds to-day. The rate of discount is three percent, and bids fair to fall to two before many weeka. It would be a great error to infer from such facts as we have stated any immediate or rapid revival of trade, either in England or in this country. The low rate of interest and the abundance of idle money are unerring signs of the dulness of trade, and the uniform experience of both countries is that the process of recovery from such a severe prostration as we have experi i enced is a slow one., It is to the interest lof the business world to know the truth

abuut the actual oondition of affairs. The tuture must always be open to speculation and doubt, but the present should oe viewed as it is without distortion. The losses by the English failures have been neavy, and will not soon be forgotten Already the London and Westminster' ■Hank, which ranks next to the Bank of England among British institutions of credit, haa reduced its semi-annual dividend one-half, and set aside the large sum of §2,000,000 from its surplus as a specxal fund to meet its share of the losses by the failures.- New York Tri-