At the same time, it should be stated that the Scotch bankers are of opinion that our system of banking in England is chargeable with some portion of the blame. They say that as the English banks do not universally allow interest on deposits and current accounts, the people have not the same inducement as in Scotland for placing their money in a bank. And as many banks charge commission on the operations of a current account, it is the interest even of those who keep bankers to pay away the notes they receive to other parties, rather than to lodge them to their credit with their banker. On this subject I may quote the following extract from a second letter addressed to me by Mr. Bell:1 -

" In Scotland we have adopted every means to concentrate the resources of the country in the hands of the banker. We allow a liberal rate of interest on deposits, while we not only encourage small capitalists and traders to open accounts with us, but we induce our customers to make frequent operations on their accounts, and the result is that every superfluous bank note is rapidly returned upon the issuer. The very opposite course is pursued in England. You allow no interest on deposits, you give no encouragement to small depositors, while you put a barrier in the way of your customers' making frequent operations, by the charging a commission on the debit side of their accounts; the consequence of which is, that not only your paper, but your gold currency, stagnates in the hands of the public during times of prosperity, leaving the paper issues to be poured back upon the issuers in seasons of adversity, thus aggravating in no slight degree the severity of monetary pressures."

Even were the keeping of a banker as general in England as in Scotland, the same system of exchanges could not be adopted. The Scotch system requires,-an equality, or an approach to it, among the several banks; that the head offices of these banks, generally, should be in the capital; and that the banks should have numerous branches throughout the country. These circumstances do not exist in England. And, moreover, we have the Bank of England, whose notes are a legal tender. It is obvious there can be no exchange of notes in places where, as in London, there is only one bank of issue. But the exchanges-between English country banks are precisely upon the same principle as those in Scotland, and have similar effects-The differences are paid by drafts on London, payable on demand, and these drafts again pass through the clearing.

1 " A Letter to J. W. Gilbart, Esq., on the Regulation of the Currency by the Foreign Exchanges, and on the Appointment of the Bank of England to be the sole Bank of Issue throughout Great Britain." By Robert Bell.

Another advantage ascribed to the Scotch system of exchanges is, the surveillance which, by this means, the large banks at Edinburgh are able to exercise over the smaller banks in the provinces. That this surveillance exists in Scotland, and that it has been exercised beneficially, we entertain no doubt. It is equally true that such a surveillance does not exist in England. But the system of exchanges is not the cause of this surveillance, it is merely the instrument. In Scotland, the banks being few, and nearly all their head offices being at Edinburgh, they are able to confer together, and to fix on rules for their general government. With any inferior bank that refuses to comply with these rules they can refuse to exchange notes, and thus force it to compliance. In England, where the banks are numerous, and where their head offices are distant from each other, such a system cannot well be formed; and hence each bank is free from the control of other banks, and may pursue any course it pleases, however injurious to itself or to others, so long as it is able to make good its payments to the public. The banks at Edinburgh, too, by means of their numerous branches, have the earliest information of any irregular practice that may have been adopted by a local bank in the provinces;-but the large banks in London have comparatively but a very imperfect knowledge of the operations of either the private or the joint-stock banks that are scattered over the country.

From a want of this surveillance, banks in England have carried on business for years after they have been supposed to be insolvent. Hence they have gone on until their losses have not only absorbed the whole of their capital, but have required to replace them further demands to a large amount from their shareholders. In Scotland, these banks, if they could not be kept in the right path, would probably have been compelled to stop before they had wandered so widely. Banks, as we have seen, do sometimes fail in Scotland, but never under circumstances that shake the public confidence in the general banking institutions of the country.1

6. The confidence placed in the banks of Scotland by the public renders them less exposed to inconvenience during a season of pressure.

When a pressure takes place in England, the first objects of suspicion are the banks. People that have money in their banker's hands draw it out, and hoard it. The bankers, knowing that they are liable to these demands, draw in their funds, and make provision accordingly. Hence the capital of the country is rendered dormant at the time when it is most required to be in a state of activity. Banks that issue notes are more liable than others to these sudden demands. But no such feeling exists at present in Scotland. And should the Act of 1845 have the effect of inoculating the people with the love of gold, and by this means place the banks in the same position during a pressure as the banks of England, it must be regarded as a national calamity.

1 The failure of the City of Glasgow Bank will immediately occur to the mind of every reader. This institution was brought down by a long course of unsound banking, culminating in fraud. But such faith had the people of Scotland in the banking institutions of their country, that, when the report of the accountants deputed to investigate the state of affairs of the bank was published a week or two after the stoppage, and when the unparalleled nature and extent of the calamity, and the grossness of the mismanagement, were seen, public confidence in the other banks never for a moment wavered.

On this subject we again quote from the letter of Mr. Bell:-

"Nor are these benefits, great as they are, the only advantages which we have derived from our system of banking. Our one-pound notes connect and familiarize every artizan and labourer in the country with our banking establishments; and the implicit confidence in our paper currency thus created, and perpetuated by the general experience of the sufficiency of our banks, has on many occasions been remarkably illustrated. It is no exaggeration to say, that at this moment nine-tenths of the labouring classes of Scotland, if they had their choice, would prefer a one-pound note to a sovereign; and, as a consequence of this feeling of security, combined with a sense of the other advantages of the system, no one in Scotland can have forgotten the truly national stand, on behalf of our currency, which was made by rich and poor in the year 1825, when your English economists proposed to visit us with an injury similar to that which was in that year inflicted on England.

"With banking establishments thus pre-eminently possessed of national confidence, no mercantile convulsion has hitherto created any general run on our great joint-stock banks. It has been otherwise in England, where, in consequence of legislative enactments, the public have been taught to regard gold and silver as the only representatives of value. The bond of union between the banks and the mass of the people has thus been severed; and when a monetary crisis occurs, its consequences are incalculably more injurious. With us (though very rarely) runs have been occasionally made on particular banks, but it has been merely to withdraw a deposit from one bank to place it in another; or to exchange the notes of a suspected bank for the notes of one of our national joint-stock banks, the prevailing confidence in our paper currency remaining unshaken. In this way the disposable banking capital or resources remain in the aggregate unchanged; whereas with you the run is for gold; and the coin thus withdrawn from one bank is not redeposited in another, but hoarded till the panic is over, by which means the entire banking resources of the country are involved in the consequences of the temporary disaster; and this, too, at the very time when these resources are most needed."