It has been occasionally urged by writers in financial journals published in the United States, that banking in Canada is a monopoly, and, therefore, unsuited to the democratic principles of this country. These writers have overlooked the fact that the Province of Ontario, the center of thought and progress in the Dominion, is the most democratic community in the British Empire, and that the legislation of Canada, whether in form or not, is in reality as liberal as it can well be.

Banking in Canada is not in any sense a monopoly. Whether it can be said to be "free banking" as understood in the United States, depends on what is meant by that term. In the United States a certain number of individuals having complied with certain requirements - more numerous and complicated, by the way, than the Canadian requirements - become thereby an incorporated bank, if we regard the consent of the Comptroller of the Currency as a matter of form. In Canada, merely in order to follow the British parliamentary methods, when a certain number of individuals have complied with certain requirements, they are supposed to have applied for a charter, which parliament, theoretically, might refuse, but which, as a matter of fact, would not be refused unless doubt existed as to the bona-fide character of the proposed bank. Then, as in the United States, on complying with certain other requirements and obtaining consent of the Treasury Board (performing in this case the same function as the Comptroller of the Currency in the United States), the bank is ready for business.

The main difference in the matter of obtaining the privilege from the people to carry on the business of banking is that in Canada the subscribed capital must be $500,000, paid up to the extent of one-half, or $250,000, and this fact must be proved by the temporary deposit of the actual money with the Treasury Department. If it is contended that a monopolistic element is introduced by making the minimum paid-up capital $250,000, I have only to point to the varying minima of capital in the National banking system, based upon the population of the city or town where a bank is established. The minimum with us is placed so high because with the privilege to carry on the business of banking is attached the privilege to open branches and to issue a bank note currency not secured by special pledge with the government. In the opinion of many Canadians the minimum is too small.

So much for the statement that banking is less "free" in Canada than in the United States. I think the very term "free banking," about which so much was written in the antebellum days, is a misnomer. A little less of freedom in the ability to create a bank, and a little more knowledge on the part of the people regarding the true function of banking, and its high place in the world of commerce, would be for the public good. What we want is the most absolute evidence, when a bank is created, that its projectors are embarking in a bona-flde venture and have put at risk a sum considerable enough to ensure that fact.