There is nerve in Sir Stafford Northcote somewhere. Quite a
terrific deputation of Bankers waited on him on Tuesday, to com- plain that the Scotch Banks, with their special privileges of issue, were beginning to set up agencies in England. They considered this unfair, as the Scotch Banks enjoyed a legal monopoly in Scotland, which overweighted the English Bankers in any contest with them in England. Sir Stafford Northcote, however, told the deputation that he did not agree with them at all. The Scotch Banks were acting within the law, and he did not see that Government had a right to alter the law because English Bankers thought their profits would be lowered. If there were anomalies in existence, which he did not deny, the way to cure them was not to impose still further restrictions, but to carry Sir Robert Peel's principles still farther, and make banking really free by, as we understand his hint, reserving the right of issuing notes to the State alone. Then everybody would be on an equal footing in all three kingdoms. Legislation in that direction would, however, require care and time, and though he thought it necessary, he would not pledge himself to dates. At all events, he would not prepare any Bill to restrict the Scotch Banks. Right or wrong—and we think Sir Stafford, though right in his theory, wrong in his applica- tion of it—it is a, comfort to find a Minister who knows his own mind, and means to act on it, let " influential " deputations do their very worst.
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