5. The Government being precluded from any interference with the bank, is a guarantee for its independence. In considering the effects produced by the operation of a bank constituted like that at Hamburg, the first and most essential benefits is stated to be the easy and perfectly secure state of circulation. Secondly, that Hamburg money, both currency and banco, must, as is evident, become, from the unchangeable character, a normal value. And thirdly, that the regulations of the bank offer the surest preventives against any deficiency or excess in the circulating medium. As the Bank of Hamburg foregoes all business operations of every description on its own account, and, therefore, has no occasion to resort to any artificial means to employ its credit, it is an inevitable consequence that, when the bullion in the bank is sufficient in amount to supply the wants of Hamburg commerce, the rates of discount will rise, and the course of the foreign exchanges will fall to such a point as to make it profitable to deposit silver in the bank. A deficiency in the circulating medium is, moreover, much more readily perceptible when the treasure of all the merchants is accumulated in one lot, than if it were divided among several private bankers. Again, in the event of an excess in the circulating medium, the stock of bullion in the bank is also in excess; and in this case discounts will fall so low, and the rates of the foreign exchanges will rise so high, that silver may be exported at a profit; the treasure in the bank will, therefore, be in like manner in excess. In whatever way mercantile speculation may operate, and whatever may be their ultimate effect, the importation and exportation of silver are never the result of any arbitrary proceedings on the part of the bank, but depend entirely upon the existing state of trade, and upon the amount of the circulating medium. An apparent scarcity of money may, however, exist at Hamburg as well as at other places, because a number of the depositors in the bank may, in anticipation of a commercial crisis, be prompted to allow their stock of bullion to remain in the bank undisturbed, and, therefore, useless. But if the substantial character of the banking system of Hamburg should be found to act in opposition to a fictitious state of credit, it follows, as a matter of course, that a rise in the rates of discount, and a fall in the course of the foreign exchanges, will soon be the means of bringing back into circulation the capitals which have been withheld, precisely because discounts and the exchanges are regulated without any spontaneous action on behalf of the bank. On this account, therefore, an apparent scarcity in the circulating medium is always but of a very transient character at Hamburg; while an apparent excess of the circulating medium is not readily perceptible, because all transactions of exchange there are resolved into bars of silver.-London Bankers' Magazine. AMERICAN CONTINENTAL CURRENCY. Various attempts have been made to redeem the continental money, but without success. The amount issued during the war was four hundred millions of dollars, but one-half was cancelled by collection. Congress paid it out at forty dollars for one specie. It afterwards fell to five hundred for one, and finally got as low as one thousand for one, when it lost all value. The whole public debt, including continental money, was a foreign debt to France and Holland, at 4 per cent, of $7,885,085, and a domestic debt, in loan office certificates, of $34,115,330, to which were added the claims of several States, amounting to $21,500,000. The whole debt was $94,000,000, which finally went to par. The campaign of 1778-9 cost $135,000,000 continental money, while the whole amount in the Treasury in specie was $151,665. Taking the reduction in value on continental money, it only amounted to a tax of about $5 per annum to each person. It was doubtless a great loss to our forefathers, but what a rich heritage have we not obtained for it, if we are wise enough to keep it. BRITISH SAVINGS BANKS AND FRIENDLY SOCIETIES. It appears from a Parliamentary paper just printed, that from the 6th August, 1817, when savings banks and friendly societies were commenced, to the 20th November, 1849, the gross amount received and credited, including interest, was £59,734,756 17s. 7d., of which £56,258,799 14. 11d. was on account of savings' banks, and £3,475,957 2s. 8d. on account of friendly societies. FINANCES OF THE HANOVERIAN GOVERNMENT. Letters from Hanover, of the 28th May, 1850, give a summary of the budget of that kingdom. The expenditure is calculated at 7,714,847 dollars, and the income of the year at 7,376,099 dollars; there is, consequently, a deficit of 338,747 dollars, which the Hanoverian government proposes to cover by means of an additional duty on coffee, tobacco, wine and brandy. COUNTERFEITS ON THE STATE BANK OF INDIANA. The counterfeit 7's on the State Bank of Indiana, with which some parts of the Western country are now flooded, the State Sentinel says, are well calculated to deceive. Still, attention will detect them. Letter B, for example, has a hill or bluff bank behind the steamboat on the right side of the vignette-the genuine has not. There is also a dot after the word Indianapolis, at the top of the counterfeit, which is not in the genuine. The portrait on the left is course and indistinct, and the scroll work surrounding it is much heavier and blacker than in the genuine. The appearance of the counterfeit is too dark and coarse. Letter C may be detected by noticing that the State House at the bottom has no windows on the side-the genuine one has; the top of the cupola in the counterfeit is directly under the first in the word dollars in the line above, while in the genuine it is between the o and l. RAILROAD, CANAL, AND STEAMBOAT STATISTICS. THE WHITNEY RAILROAD TO THE PACIFIC. We were among the first to recognize the peculiar character of Mr. Whitney's plan of a railroad to the Pacific, and therefore announce with pleasure its triumph, not only with the people in public assemblies, but with Legislatures of the States in their official action, and with committees of Congress, whenever it has been brought before them. It passes every ordeal of public and official scrutiny, only to come out victorious, and to enforce its own by the lights of comparison, as well as by its intrinsic recommendations. We have just received a report of the Committee of Roads and Canals, of the House of Representatives, of the present Congress, which is not only the most decided sanction, but the best exposition of the Whitney plan that has been presented. We proceed to give a brief analysis of this document. After giving Mr. Whitney credit for his protracted exertions, and great success in this field of investigation, and declaring their conclusion in favor of his plan, the committee proceed to specify some of the general objects of this enterprise, commercial, social, and political, which constitute a showing of great interest and importance. We only regret that we have not room for what they say under this head. On the merits of the plan, positive and comparative, they find that it surmounts constitutional difficulties, and questions of difference between the two great political parties of the country, and all sectional interests, thus running in safety by Scylla on the one side, and Charybdis on the other. The showing of the committee that this work cannot with prudence be undertaken, nor in any probability accomplished by the gov ernment, in any form whatever, will probably be regarded as satisfactory. The only alternative left is the Whitney plan, as an individual enterprise, to be controlled and supervised forever by the authorities of Congress, and of the national executive, so as to secure the faithful execution of the law, and prevent abuses of the powers conferred. The committee next proceed to a consideration of "plans without means," in the prosecution of which they clearly show that Mr. Whitney's is the only plan which makes a demonstration of adequate means, independent of the public treasury, which, it is assumed by the committee, cannot be relied upon, or legislatively tendered for this object. But the Whitney plan, as shown, furnishes means in itself, by its own operation. It relies solely on the increased value of the lands through which the road is to pass, as a capital created by its own progress, and a capital which would not otherwise exist. The evidence on this point is satisfactory and convincing. The means, therefore, without which the road could never be built, are provided by this plan, and could not possibly be found in any other, which would not contain the elements of failure in itself. The means are very properly construed by the committee as the sine qua non of questions. They show that all the other plans proposed are wanting in this particular, and therefore totally unreliable. The committee then proceed to show that certain scientific and physical laws, which cannot be overlooked in this enterprise, are in favor of Mr. Whitney's plan, and against all others. The route must necessarily be chosen where the great mass of the material for the road itself, for towns and villages on the line, can be found; and Mr. Whitney's plan is the only one for that. It must also be far enough north to escape the impediments of winter interference in those latitudes bordering upon, or lying within the re gions where the alternate dry and rainy reasons prevail, and where the falling weather being all in winter, the snows on the higher grounds are of insurmountable depth, and where also the want of water and fuel in the dry season will be another insuperable obstacle. On the Whitney route, the falling weather is distributed throughout the year, and the snows of winter are light and dry, and easily removed from a railroad track. It is also indispensable that the line of road from all the Atlantic ports should be unbroken by river or lake to the Pacific terminus; and Mr. Whitney's is the only line to accomplish that. To have the route broken at St. Louis, or by any river or water that cannot be bridged, would never do. Moreover, the distance from New York to the great South Pass of the Rocky Mountains, is full three hundred miles less by the Whitney route than by St. Louis; and by the lines of spherical trigonometry, it will be seen that the distance between any two given circles of longitude is always lessened in proportion as one's line of movement from one to the other of these circles is remote from the equator. Mr. Whitney's route, therefore, is a material saving of distance, as compared with others proposed. The objections to the Whitney plan are thoroughly dealt with by the committee, and scattered to the four winds. But the great reason in its favor, which prevails over all, and which, as we think, can never be dispensed with, is, that it asks no capital foreign to the lands awarded to it, to wit: a belt sixty miles wide, and, as a consequence, it will impose no toll to satisfy the interest of capital invested. This exemption from toll, for the object of dividends, as is customary, and, in ordinary cases, necessary, is regarded as the great principle which will forever make the Whitney railroad the greatest and most important work in the world. Instead of going to the public treasury, or to Wall street, or to London, for capital to build this road, and thus forever subjecting all transport thereon to a tax to satisfy the interest of the cost, the whole capital required on the Whitney plan, lies at this moment sleeping in the land through which the road is to pass. In abeyance to the passage of the bill now pending before Congress, and the instant that bill becomes a law, this immense amount of capital starts into being, for the sole benefit of trade and commerce in all time coming, the management of which will forever remain under the control of the Congress of the United States. In all history, there never was, and probably will never be again, such a gratuity to the public-first of the United States, and next of the world-a positive gratuity, operating in such a way, and on such a vast scale, the beneficial and cumulative effects of which will be felt by the whole world, and run down through all time. It requires some consideration to understand this principle, and when once distinctly apprehended, it will be seen to be one of infinite scope, and of inconceivable extent of purpose. The masses of the people of the United States do understand it, and unfortunately our statesmen seem to have been the last to appreciate it. It is enough to say that this cheap transport across the American continent, obtained in this way, and which can be obtained only on Mr. Whitney's plan, will, of a moral certainty, produce the most stupendous change ever known in the commerce of the world, by turning its great bulk on one line; first between the Atlantic and Pacific portions of the United States; next, between the United States and Asia; and lastly between Europe and Asia, bringing into intimate commercial contact the great industrial and producing portions of the human family around the entire globe. Had we space, we should say more of this report, so replete with argument, so pregnant with importance to our country, as we think it is. We have time only to express the earnest hope that Congress will not fail, at their present session, to pass the bill reported by this committee. DIVIDENDS OF RAILWAY STOCKS IN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. The dividends declared on ten of the principal lines of railway in England and Scotland, for the first half-year of 1849, have, as we learn from the London Railway Magazine, been as follows: Two others have earned 14 and 34 per cent per annum, but as yet no dividend has been declared upon them. Amiens to Boulogne... Andrezieux to Roanne. Avignon to Marseilles. STATISTICAL VIEW OF FRENCH RAILWAYS. We are indebted to the Paris correspondent of the American Railroad Journal for the subjoined tabular statement of twenty-one railroads in France :— Center Orleans to Bourges & 5 00 3 84 285 8 28 6 23 258 ..... ...... nere, Dizon to Chalons.... 165 62 Montereau to Froyes..... Total number of miles, 1,498.5; total cost, $155,748,175; average cost per mile, $128,240; average fare per mile for first-class passengers, 3.07 cents; average fare per mile for second-class passengers, 2.31 cents; average fare per mile for third-class passengers. 1.77 cents; average speed of ordinary passenger trains, miles per hour, 19; average speed of direct or express trains, miles per hour, 29. RECEIPTS AND EXPENSES OF THE BOSTON AND WORCESTER RAILROAD. |