Aus:
The Money Market Review, 9. November 1867. S. 476/477.
Schließen

 Titel von Marx notiert in „Heft 3. 1868“ der „Hefte zur Agrikultur“ (MEGA² IV/18. S. 588.11), einem Exzerptheft 1878 (IISG, Marx-Engels-Nachlass, Sign. B 148) und im Notizbuch 1878/1879 (IISG, Marx-Engels-Nachlass, Sign. B 152) sowie exzerpiert im Heft Dezember 1878 bis Januar 1879 (IISG, Marx-Engels-Nachlass, Sign. B 151).
Schließen Gassiot: Monetary Panics and the Remedy (1867) (Dieser Gassiot merchant in City of long experience, and director of oldest and largest Jt. Stock Bank in London)

„At any time after 12 o’clock on 11 May 1866“ (says Gassiot, when it was confidently reported that Gladstone had declined to suspend or interfere mit dem Bank Act) [„]there was probably no price for which the B.o.E., or other banks or bankers, could have obtained B.o.E. Notes for any amount of Gvt. Stock.“ Hoarding had commenced, because of fear that no more banknotes could be obtained. Ohne die legal limitation des Note supply, nobody would have dreamt of hoarding. The suspension of Act produced immediate relief. „High rates of interest“ – so Gladstone’s 10% Mr.(?) Rate – „entail distress“, says Gassiot, „on the merchant, trader and manufacturer, but more particularly on those employers of labour who require large sums of money to pay weekly wages, and whose only safety from ruin, when money is raised to an exorbitant rate, too often rests on discharging large masses of the hardworking industrious mechanics employed in their extensive works.“ In proof and illustration of this, he refers to the record of the Mansion-house Committee, the closing of the workshops on Bank of Thames, and the multitudes throughout Kingdom even now without employment, and driven to the utmost privation.

Suspensions of the Bank Act, says Gassiot, „have ever resulted in obtaining enormous profits for every description of money-dealers, from the proprietors of B.o.E. Stock, and bankers of all descriptions, down to the petty usurer who discount discounts the bills of those whose necessities compel them in such times to obtain money at the rate of 20 and 30% p.a.“ Mentions that B.o.E. paid in October 1866 13% p.a. on Capital of £14,533,000, whilst in previous halfyear ending April 1866 nur 101/2 und in corresponding half year of 1865 10%.

The object of the Bank Directors was to avail themselves of the exorbitant rate of 10%, for their own benefit, without exceeding the limits of their fixed issues for the benefit of commerce. In case they exceeded the limits, the profits, nach Gladstone’s letter, of overissue went to Gvt; if not exceeded, the whole profit of the 10% rate went into their pockets. J. B. Smith stated in the H.o.C.: „They (the Bank of England) sent to their customers and borrowed banknotes from them, in order to prevent the infringement of the Act, and the Act was therefore not infringed.“ Frazer’s Magazine (August 1866) says: „The letter of the law was only saved by the London bankers responding to an appeal from the Bank o. E. Court to pay every night to the banking department all the notes which, under ordinary circumstances, would have remained in the tills of the bankers themselves.“ So the directors secured to their proprietors all the advantage of the high rate. With all these means, the credit of the Bank Act could not be saved. „On the 30th May“, says Gassiot, „its Reserve was reduced to £415,865, and at that time the Bank was entirely dependent upon the nightly assistance of the London bankers, and on the forbearance of its depositors, to avoid the use of the Gvt. letter.“ The principle of the Act as much violated by such reduction of Reserve, as if the limits of issue exceeded by millions.

The Times in leading Article of 13 Nov. 1857, on the panic of that year, said: „Yesterday the commercial public received the news that the Bk. Charter Act had been suspended. The commercial interests of the country should not be submitted to a system by which a law is obeyed so long as obedience is easy, and temporarily swept away as often as pressure or panic intervenes. The houses which in 1847 and 1857 have stopped payment before the relaxation of the law, may well complain that, whilst they have been crushed by the operation of the Bk. Charter Act, others not more solvent or of higher standing than themselves have been saved by the suspension of the Act … . The defenders of the present system will have to face the fact that the Act has been twice suspended in two successive Panics.“

Aus:
The Money Market Review, 9. November 1867. S. 477–479.
Schließen

Annual Losses of Fire Assurance. Incendiary Fires.

Extraordinary increase of fires of late in London und Counties, und other countries ausser England. Buildings now generally constructed of less combustible materials. In London 1840 number of fires 681, 1 to 2,800 inhabitants, und 1 to every 379 houses; 1850 868 fires, 1 to 2,673 inhabitants und 1 to every 347 houses. In 1860 number of fires 1,056, 1 to every 2,613 inhabitants und 1 to every 335 houses. In 1865 1502 fires, 1 to every 1900 inhabitants und 1 to every 250 houses. In 33 Jahren von 1833 to 1865 recorded fires in London 29,069 und Capt. Shaw has compiled a table showing the causes of those fires. Candles caused 11%, Curtains nearly 10%, Gas nearly 8%, Flues nearly 8%, Sparks from Pipes 41/2%, Children playing mit fire 11/2%, Lucifer matches 11/2%, Smoking Tobacco 11/2%, Stoves 11/2%, Spontaneous Ignition nearly 1%, und other known causes 191/2, while the unknown causes were 33%. But the proportion in London fires, of unknown causes has increased from 25% in 1850 to 41% in 1860 und 44% in 1860 1866. Of the 589 fires from unknown causes in London, 1866, no less than 480 were on property insured against loss or damage by fire in one or other of the insurance offices. The latter know not how many of them willfully caused, but more than 1 /3 of all the fires in London are regarded by the insurance offices und der fire brigade as involved in suspicion. … The idea that in any civilised  Zusatz von Marx.
Schließen (!) country there could be wretches so abandoned as to trade in fire, to contrive and design the letting loose of an agent so uncontrollable and so destructive in its ravages for the infamous purpose of making a profit by it, is a fearful idea to contemplate; yet considerable number of such wretches amongst us. Besides a number of employees who, having committed frauds und depredations upon the property of their employers, afterwards set fire to the premises to conceal their crimes, there are |279 organised gangs of fraudulent persons who get their living by incendiarism and frauds upon insurance offices. „Their stocks“, it is said, „consist principally of dummies or imitation goods made of plaster of Paris, of half tubs of butter, of rolls of cloth made up of straw of parcels filled with sawdust, of bottles of coloured water and the like.“ These being duly insured, are duly set fire to afterwards, and the insurance office is called upon to pay, not the real value of the property destroyed, but the highest value the felonious incendiary is able to put upon it. These losses did not enter into the calculations of the Cos. when they fixed their insurance premiums. Sie finden nun, daß daher considerable addition to their rates necessary. They do not like to prosecute; they do not like to object to pay; gets them bad name und Prosecution very hazardous thing. Difficult to get legal evidence. Numbers of these claims therefore are paid trotz moral conviction des Office.