CHAPTER II.
Before and After the Act of 1844.
We have seen that part of the Bank of England's monopoly was annulled in 1826, and that in 1833 a clause was inserted in the charter to the effect that joint stock banks of unlimited liability could open in London, provided they did not issue notes; and though the state of the law still allowed the Bank to harass and annoy the new companies, its power was thoroughly broken, and its monopoly of joint stock banking gone—fortunately for ever.
The country enjoyed a period of prosperity from 1833 to 1836, but the speculative fever soon began to develop, and by the end of 1835 it was burning fiercely, for men and women possessed an extraordinary faith in those much advertised short cuts to wealth in the early thirties. No path, if it were sufficiently short, was too precipitous. Hope was boundless, credit was unlimited, and companies in profusion were formed by the philanthropists and dreamers of those times.
Then came the crisis of 1837, when the Bank's policy rose almost to the verge of madness. Just at a critical moment, when it was imperative that no untoward incident should occur to disturb the already depressed state of credit, the Bank of England refused, and persisted in its refusal, to discount bills bearing the endorsement of the joint stock banks.
The action of the Bank added to the confusion, and, as speculation in America had been rampant, it dealt a final blow to the houses engaged in the American trade by issuing instructions that their bills also should not be discounted. Then, as might have been expected, the fury of the storm beat against the Bank itself; and by the end of February, 1837, its bullion was reduced to £4,077,000. In 1839 another crisis occurred, and the bullion declined to £2,522,000. Upon this occasion £2,500,000 was borrowed from the Bank of France, and the discount rate of the Bank of England was gradually advanced to six per cent.
These constantly recurring panics thoroughly alarmed the Government, which, having stripped the Bank of England of its monopoly of joint stock banking, now turned its attention to the currency, and by the Bank Act of 1844 secured the convertibility of the note. In fact, the chief aim of the Act was to reduce the issues of the country bankers, who, by forcing large numbers of their one pound notes into circulation and neglecting to maintain a sufficient proportion of cash in hand to meet them on presentation, helped to finance the gamble of 1824. Some of the banks paid the penalty in the year following, and disappeared from the scene.