Aus:
The Economist, 2. Juni 1866. S. 641/642.
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The Money Market.

Extraordinary  Zusammenfassender Kommentar von Marx.
Schließen (foolish durch die Dummheit einiger Direktoren, die aus Panic, ohne allen Grund, auf ihre eigne Faust die Thüren dem Publikum schlossen) failure of the „Consolidated Bank“ (current deposits and other accounts 3,037,435l. und acceptances 780,530l. 14 days since)

One of the first effects of general discredit in any country is, that even a very high rate of interest will not tempt foreign capitalists to send their money there, halten die high rate offered inconsistent with security. Hence slight drain of bullion after the rate of discount raised to 10%,  Kommentar von Marx. Marx schrieb darüber auch in „How Mr. Gladstone’s Bank Letter of 1866 Procured a Loan of Six Millions for Russia“ (MEGA² I/21. S. 102.10–13).
Schließen (In der That rief der Peel’s Act dießmal European „run on England[“] hervor.) withdrawing of foreign investments, instead of attracting them. Secondary effect (which has begun to act during the present week): Great discredit in any country discourages those who have to remit to that country from buying bills upon it even at a rate highly favourable to themselves. It is not worth their while to risk the value of the bill itself for the sake of any gain they may make by the purchase of the bill as compared with the cost of remitting specie. It happens not unfrequently that the value of bills will fall considerably below the specie level if there is any uneasiness as to their acceptance in the discredited country; so that the sellers even of good bills will have to offer a very great advantage as the equivalent of they the risk supposed to be run. Besonders in  The Economist: credit crisis
Schließen banking crisis. Where banks have begun to fail, foreigners naturally feel that the men on whom they draw may, by no fault whatever of their own, be unable to meet their engagements. Hence the distrust of bills on a country in such a position. Thus we may now look for considerable remittances of specie from the very same cause which led at first to our loosing specie. Daher remittance of specie during this last week.

Aus:
The Economist, 2. Juni 1866. S. 645/646.
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Feudalism and deer forests.

Amongst the item items of news in a Scotch newspaper last week: „One of the finest sheep farm farms in Sutherlandshire, for which a rent of 1200£ a year was recently offered, on the expiry of the existing lease this year, is to be converted into a deer forest.“ Diese feudal instincts operate as at the time when the Norman conqueror destroyed 36 villages to create the New Forest. „In Yorkshire the whole country between the Tyne and the Humber was laid so desolate, that for 9 years afterwards there was not an inhabited village, and hardly an inhabitant left … Ebenso im New Forest … He afforested several other tracts. These favourite demesnes protected by the cruel forest laws.“ (Hallam) „Not content with these large forests which former kings possessed in all parts of England, he resolved to make a new forest near Winchester, the usual place of his residence, and for that purpose he laid waste the country in Hampshire for an extent of 30 miles, expelled the inhabitants from their houses, seized their property, and made the sufferers no compensation for the injury.“

Mr. A. Robertson lately read a paper at the Guildhall, Perth, on „Game Laws (diese moderne Ausgabe der Normännischen Forest Laws) and Deer Forests“. Cruel effects on the peasant population; detrimental effects on Agriculture. In reference to the Scotch Highlands he said: „The legalised protection to wild animals in the Highlands was most severely felt in reference to the peculiar products of that country. Two millions of acres had been laid totally waste, embracing within their area the most fertile lands of Scotland. The natural grass of Glen Tilt were among the most nutritive in the county of Perth. The deer forest of Ben Aulder was by far the best grazing ground in the wide district of Badenoch; a part of the Black Mount forest was the best pasture for blackfaced sheep in Scotland. Some idea may be formed of the ground laid waste for merely sporting purposes in Scotland from the fact that it embraced an area larger than the whole county of Perth. The resources of the forest of Ben Aulder might give some idea of the loss sustained by the country from these forced desolations. The ground would pasture 15,000 sheep, and as it was not more than 1/30 of the whole forest ground in Scotland, it might be roughly guessed that the country was deprived by the forests of 1/2 million of sheep. All that forest land was totally unproductive, never having repaid the money spent upon it. It might thus as well have been submerged under the waters of the German Ocean. With a rapidly augmenting population, it was nothing short of madness to continue |68 adding to these desolations, and thereby diminishing the supply of those commodities indispensable for the sustenance of the people. … Such extemporised wildernesses or deserts ought to be put down by the decided interference of the Legislature. The vulgar notion of grouse shooting and deer slaughtering being advantageous to the Highlands was now almost exploded. People had begun to see that the visit of a few sportsmen for a month in the year could not make up for 11 months forced idleness.“

Aus:
The Economist, 2. Juni 1866. S. 646/647.
Schließen

French Correspondent.

Aus:
The Economist, 2. Juni 1866. S. 647.
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Fraud in Cognac.

In a recent sitting in the senate, the declaration made by by Marquis de Lagrange, that in the Charentes – the department in which Cognac brandy is chiefly fabricate fabricated – „immense frauds“ are committed in that article, 100,000,000 litres more being obtained than ought to be. The consequence is, he added, „that prices have fallen for the real as well as for the adulterated brandy, and that honest dealers are injured. Another consequence is that England, a large purchaser, last year took about 2,000,000 galons gallons less than is her usual quantity.“

Aus:
The Economist, 2. Juni 1866. S. 648/649.
Schließen

Geo. Guthrie schreibt dem Economist on the Banking Question.

 Guthrie legte mit „Bank Monopoly the Cause of Commercial Crises“ (Edinburgh, London 1866) ein Buch zu diesem Thema vor, dessen Titel Marx in „Heft 3. 1868“ der „Hefte zur Agrikultur“ (MEGA² IV/18. S. 587.18), in einem Exzerptheft 1878 (IISG, Marx-Engels-Nachlass, Sign. B 148) und im Notizbuch 1878/1879 (IISG, Marx-Engels-Nachlass, Sign. B 152) notierte.
Schließen The monopoly of the B.o.E. has been the cause of commercial crises, by inducing an excessive expansion of credit, the facilities of which are afforded not by the Bank itself, but by the hybrid discount banks and finance cos. to which that monopoly has given birth. These institutions are at present freed from the obligation of holding metallic money as the basis of their transactions, while they have, by their bills and advances, an infinitely more important influence on prices and the value of money than the Gvt. Bk. Hence there is a separation of the power of affecting prices, and the responsibility of maintaining a proper supply of metallic money, which has led to the futile attempt to control the movement of bullion by the rate of interest or hire … The breach of the law was therefore required to save London from universal insolvency.

Aus:
The Economist, 2. Juni 1866. S. 649.
Schließen

The Act of 1844 (by another correspondent).

The fact that the reserve in the banking department was reduced to 730,830l. shows the necessity of change. Why, one man, the late Dickie Thornton might have walked into the bank and put his cheque across the counter for 800,000l. As long as our present system continues, interested parties will endeavour to make the reserve of the B.o.E., the reserve of all the banks in England.

Aus:
The Economist, 2. Juni 1866. S. 650–652.
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Money Market Movement.

B.o.E. 30 May: Circulation increase of 2,397,057l. in private securities. Increase of 20,989l. in coin and bullion, of 1,676,163l. to the private deposits. (Leztres shows continuance of precautions against pressure.) Decrease of Reserve: £528,236.

Discount and Money Market. Stoppage of the Consolidated Bank, on Monday morning last. Improvement in Exchanges.

Bullion: 218,000l. sent (in gold) to the B.o.E.

Bankrates: Paris 4%, Vienna 5, Berlin 9 (bills), 91/2 (advances), Frankfort 7, Amsterdam 61/2, Turin 8. Brussels 6 (bills) 61/2 (advances), St. Petersburg 51/2.

Railways: Slight reaction from the firmer prices quoted. The change chiefly owing to the decline in Consols on the receipt of lower prices from Paris, where the settlement is heavy.

Bankshares: general prices firmer; in a few cases, a decline to be noted.

Financial Shares: London Financial rather firmer; General Credit improved slightly; International Financial are held firm; and Credit Mobilier and Foncier, under continuous purchases, advanced to 21/4 to 2 disc.

Aus:
The Economist, 2. Juni 1866. S. 657.
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Cotton Trade. Liverpool. May 31.

After a long period of depression, assumed a much stronger position, and during the last 3 days large business done at advancing prices.

Aus:
The Economist, 2. Juni 1866. S. 658.
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Manchester. May 31.

In Folge of The strong accounts respecting cotton from the states, on Wednesday quite an active demand set in for both cloth and |69 yarn at the low rates lately quoted. To-day the improvement not maintained, being regarded as too sudden under the circumstances. Fabrics made from the better classes of cotton maintain firmly their value.

Cardiff. The steam coal proprietors of the district are well off for orders and fresh ones are coming in freely. Brisk demand from the foreign markets, especially from Italy, France, Austria, Prussia. Freights to those countries have advanced considerably. Inquiry for pig iron slackened; the tin-plate works have to depend on old orders to be kept going.

Birmingham. Orders on account of the Home Trade have fallen off.

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Aus:
The Economist, 20. April 1867. S. 437–439.
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Report of the Directors of the Bureau of Statistics on Shipbuilding in the Un. States.

In dem Report und in Evidence (inspection of) von McKay, dessen „once famous shipyard was entirely deserted“. Er sagt: „There was no sale for American vessels other than the small craft employed in the coasting trade. First-class ships he formerly built and equipped ready for sea for from 65 dollars to 70 dls per ton; now the same vessels would cost 110 dls p. ton; an investment which would afford no profit to the merchants who employed such vessels. The merchants could do better by investing in Gvt. Securities, which yield 6% in gold, on currency investments, and which are exempted from taxation. In the British provinces, the same class of vessels can now be built and equipped ready for sea for 40 dls to 50 dls gold per ton – about half. And this, too, after buying the oak timber in Maryland. If this state of affairs continues a few years longer, the nation would not own a vessel which could be used as a war transport in the event of war. All our cotton-carrying is done by foreign vessels. Our tonnage statistics for the main part comprise vessels engaged in coasting and inland navigation; very few sea-going ships. Ship-building at a standstill … The year 1854–5 was the best year of active shipbuilding in the U. St. From 1856, it declined somewhat during 1857, 1858, and 1859. Then it went up again, until 1861 it touched almost as high a point as in 1854–55. During 1862, it declined again, but not so much as it had during 1857, 1858, and 1859. In 1863, it recovered its former level once more, but soon afterwards sunk down much lower than it sunk in 1857 und 1859, and now in 1866 it was almost at an end.“ As a consequence the trade of America is beginning to be carried on in non-American ships.

Falling off der native tonnage by 1/2, foreign augmented by almost 2/3 … Much American shipping was (during the war) sold to foreigners, and the rest died out, and was not replaced. But nur ganz schwacher increase in American shipping since war. Ein Hauptgrund ist die unequal taxation, die 6% tax upon all the manufactured products of the country. It favours simple industries, and falls heavily on compound industries. A ship is a far more composite article than an umbrella. The frame of the ship may be cut out and put together in the building yard; but the iron, the yellow metal, the masts, the sails, the spars, the cordage, and much else must all be bought elsewhere; it is what Americans might call „an assembled article“. And upon every item so collected, two taxes, at least, are paid, one by the seller of whom the shipper buys, and another by the shipbuilder himself. The new taxation of America has, therefore, a most sure tendency to drive capital from a complex manufacture like shipbuilding to simple manufactures which are only charged once, and agriculture which is not charged at all. … In shipbuilding, America has only one advantage, cheap timber, and with the daily progress of iron shipbuilding, |127 this advantage täglich weniger werth, und America has an incurable disadvantage – the scarcity of skilled labour.

To some extent shipbuilding und ship-owning lately depressd (wenn auch nicht to the same degree as in U. St.) throughout the world. Shipowning is a trade in which a slight excess of supply produces a great depression of price. When a ship, with a crew on board, arrives in Bombay harbour, she must take what freight she can get; she cannot stay there, as the saying is, „eating her head off“, till freights get better. Accordingly, as soon as a greater number of ships come into port than there are pressing goods for, freights rapidly go down, and with them the profits of shipowning. If, on the other hand, there are but few ships in port, and there is an accumulation of goods on the wharf which the owners want to send on at once to a very profitable, but not, perhaps, very steady and lasting market, freights rise with wonderful rapidity, and then the shipowner gains enough to repay him for other seasons of bad demand and depression. Shipbuilding is a trade intended to supply shipowners with ships, and as the profits of the latter are intermittent, so also is their demand for new ships.

Aus:
The Economist, 20. April 1867. S. 443/444.
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Emigration from Ireland. (communicated by Leslie)

The mere number of emigrants, great as it is, does not give the real state of the case; it is the young and able-bodied who go, the old and infirm who remain, and a great part of the reduced population of Ireland is in its last generation. … The rise of wages is in a great measure nominal, and represents a fall in the value of money, not a rise in the value of labour; being accompanied by a rise in general prices, and being due to the importation of gold from the new world, not [to] the exportation to it of labour. Again, in the places in Ireland where wages are highest, as f.i. Belfast, immigration not emigration has taken places, so the latter cannot have occasioned the rise.

Aus:
The Economist, 20. April 1867. S. 456/457.
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Manufacturing Markets.

Bradford. Transactions in wool merely to supply the immediate wants of spinners. So small are the stocks of wool in their hands, that they only buy to cover new orders as they receive them.

Manchester, 18 April: Prices are steadily declining and, with one or two notable exceptions, almost total cessation of buying. Holders are now anxious sellers, and as the price of cotton has materially declined, they are now compelled to accept very reduced rates for their productions.

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