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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 208.: THE BANK CHARTER BILL [1] EXAMINER, 30 JUNE, 1833, P. 409 - The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II

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Subject Area: Political Theory
Collection: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill

208.: THE BANK CHARTER BILL [1] EXAMINER, 30 JUNE, 1833, P. 409 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II [1831]

Edition used:

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II, ed. Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson, Introduction by Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986).

Part of: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.

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208.

THE BANK CHARTER BILL [1]

EXAMINER, 30 JUNE, 1833, P. 409

This is one of three items on the renewal of the Bank of England’s Charter (see also Nos. 209 and 212). The Bank had been established in 1694 (5 & 6 William and Mary, c. 20); its most recent Charter, that of 39 & 40 George III, c. 28 (1800), was due to expire on 1 Aug., 1833. The Bank’s original monopoly had been curtailed by the allowing of joint-stock banks (i.e., banks with more than six partners) of deposit and issue, located farther than sixty-five miles from London, by 7 George IV, c. 46 (1826); the main question now was whether the Bank’s partial monopoly was to be prolonged. Mill here refers to the “Resolutions proposed by Lord Viscount Althorp, in the Committee on the Bank Charter” (31 May, 1833), PP, 1833, XXIII, 299-300, and to Althorp’s outline of the ministry’s further plans. The debate, in which Colonel Torrens moved that consideration of renewal be postponed until the next session, began on 28 June, and continued on 1 and 3 July (PD, 3rd ser., Vol. 18, cols. 1306-53, 1361-1408, and Vol. 19, cols. 82-110). The brief unheaded note is described in Mill’s bibliography as “A paragraph on the Bank Charter Bill, in the Examiner of 30th June 1833” (MacMinn, p. 32). In the Somerville College set of the Examiner, it is listed as “Paragraph on the Bank Question” and enclosed in square brackets.

the scheme of the ministers with respect to the renewal of the Bank Charter is full of crudities, and rests on no rational basis of principle.1 As there is nothing in the nature of the question which presses for a speedy decision, it would be wise in Ministers to pass a temporary Act for continuing the existing system one year longer, and employ part of that time in a reconsideration of the subject, with the advantage of the discussions which their plan now, when promulgated, cannot fail to engender.—We shall return to this topic next week.

[1 ]The scheme’s main provisions, apart from the geographical limitation on joint-stock banks, were to allow new joint-stock banks only by charter, to make Bank of England notes legal tender and induce country banks to use them, to require the Bank to publicize quarterly the amount of bullion and number of notes in circulation, and to exempt the Bank from the 5% interest limit, in respect of bills of less than three months.