JOURNAL OF BANKING, CURRENCY, AND FINANCE.

FLUCTUATIONS OF STOCKS IN THE BOSTON MARKET.

The Boston Commonwealth in its "money article," publishes from month to month carefully prepared tabular statements of the fluctuations in different stocks. Two of these tables we here subjoin :

FLUCTUATIONS FOR APRIL IN FORTY DIFFERENT STOCKS, SHOWING THEIR HIGHEST AND LOWEST POINTS, AND THE DATE, WITH THE PRESENT MARKET VALUE, GAIN OR LOSS FOR THE MONTH, AND NUMBER OF SHARES SOLD IN EACH.

Concord now sells dividend off ($2 per share) at 52; therefore there has been a small actual gain in price for the month. There have been no sales of Edgeworth since April 12, rather an unusual feature for that sprightly little fancy; and of Pittsburg Copper not a single sale for the whole month. The sales of Vermont Central are much smaller than last month, when more than 60,000 shares changed hands. This

stock touched 181-the lowest point yet reached-April 16, and afterwards rising to 20 on the 22d, but again falling off to 18 April 28, and now the ruling price is 19, with a fair prospect of an advance. The Central Mortgage Bonds have been in active demand throughout the month, and sales have reached nearly 240,000, with an advance of 3 per cent. The amount sold of the fancies has been smaller than last month, excepting Reading and Canton, while other stocks will average about the same.

MANUFACTURING SHARES IN BOSTON MARKETS.

Manufacturing Stocks have made some rapid strides upward in their market value, during the months of February and April, 1852, and are every day coming more into favor with capitalists. We understand that two new mills are to be built at Lawrence the present season. The particular description of fabric to be made at these new mills has not yet become public, though it is said to be something entirely new. We give below a table showing at a glance the change that has taken place in Manufacturing Company Stocks, which, until within a few months, have been almost without quotations in the market. The par of the stocks below is $1,000 per share except those otherwise named:

More Manufacturing Stocks have been sold at the Brokers' Board within two or three months, than during six months or a year previous, and the amount of money invested in them has been large.

REVENUE OF GREAT BRITAIN IN 1851 AND 1852.

AN ABSTRACT OF THE NET PRODUCE OF THE REVENUE OF GREAT BRITAIN IN THE YEARS ENDED 5TH OF APRIL, 1851, AND 5TH OF APRIL, 1852, SHOWING THE INCREASE OR

THE BANKS OF MASSACHUSETTS.

We are indebted to the Hon. AMASA WALKER for a copy of the first annual report of the Bank Commissioners appointed by an act of the Legislature of Massachusetts, May 8th, 1851, from which it appears that the Commissioners have, during the year, examined twenty-seven banks of discount and circulation, and the same number of institutions for savings or savings banks. The whole number of the former, now in operation in Massachusetts, is 137, and the whole number of savings banks is 49, in all 186 institutions. The present capital of banks paid in is by the thirty-two banks in Boston $24,460,000; and by one hundred and five country banks, or banks out of Boston, $18,360,000-making a total bank capital in Massachusetts of $42,820,000being a larger banking capital than that of any other State in the Union, if we except New York. The Commissioners report:

The "general conduct and condition" of the banks examined are such that we can confidently speak of them as safe for depositors and the public, and generally profitable to stockholders. In most essential particulars, they are so managed as to promote the objects of their creation, in furnishing a sound currency, facilitating the transactions of business, and affording opportunities for investment in their stock, by corporations and individuals, with a confident reliance in their ability to afford liberal dividends of profits.

OF BANKS BORROWING FROM EACH OTHER.-The practice of banks borrowing money from each other upon interest, to enable them to sustain a high loan to their customers, continues to some extent. We regard the practice as objectionable as a matter of policy, if not a violation of the statute. Banks should stand upon their own legitimate resources, and not upon artificial relief derived from a transfer of deposits from localities where, or from institutions by which, they would be more usefully dispensed for the public interest in the form of loans. The withdrawal of such deposits in peculiar exigencies, cripples the banks which had received them, and the deposits thus made, perhaps by the inducement of a liberal allowance of interest, are as likely to prove causes of weakness, as sources of strength.

BANKS DEALING IN EXCHANGE.-The profits of banking continue to be enhanced, in many of the institutions which have been examined, by dealing in exchange. By the fifty-ninth section of the thirty-sixth chapter of the Revised Statutes, banks are authorized, in discounting drafts or bills of exchange, in addition to the interest calculated according to the established rules of banking, to charge the "existing rate of exchange between the place where the draft or bill may be discounted and the place where it is payable." By the fourth section of the act of April 25, 1838, the privilege of taking the "existing rate of exchange," is extended so as to embrace notes of hand payable at any other places than where the banks are located.

There is no general rule observed in fixing the "existing rate of exchange." In some cases, the amount taken is made to depend upon the time the paper has to run; in others, it is not. An inflexible adherence to the rule of taking the same rate for short as for long paper, operates practically with great severity upon certain classes of borrowers, who have pressing necessities for applying for bank loans. It is true that the law makes no distinction between long and short paper. The "existing rates of exchange" will vary with the seasons of the year and the fluctuations of business, and of course with the remoteness of places of payment. They are made to depend quite as much upon the demand for money; until, not unfrequently, the elements of exchange are lost sight of, in the conventional rates which are arbitrarily assumed and applied.

We copy from the report the aggregates of twenty-six banks visited during 1851 by the Commissioners :

13 1-10 p. ct.

11 1-10 p ct.

7 per cent.

The Bank Commissioners have presented the following table, exhibiting a list of those banks whose capital was increased by the Legislature during the Session of

1851

LIST OF THE BANKS TO WHICH AN INCREASE OF THEIR CAPITAL WAS GRANTED BY THE
LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS, 1851.

The following table contains a list of the new banks incorporated at the last session

of the General Court, and the amount of capital paid in:

LIST OF NEW BANKS CHARTERED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF MASSACHUSETTS, 1851.

The aggregate of these tables, added to the previously existing bank capital of the Commonwealth, shows, as we have before stated, the present amount of bank capital in Massachusetts to be $42,820,000, and the number of banks to be 137.

"Upon inspection of the tables," say the Commissioners, "it will be seen that the aggregates of specie and of the loan Fave been increased by a per centage exceeding that of the increase of capital. The circulation, deposits, liabilities of direc tors, inmediate liabilities, and resources have not been increased in the same ratio. In fourteen of the banks, there has been an increase of the amount of the specie in their vaults, while in twelve there has been a decrease. Omit the Bank of Commerce in the statement, and there has been a decrease of the amount of specie, compared with the last year, in the remaining banks, in the sum of $9,438, while the amount of their capital has been increased to nearly a million of dollars. This is not only remarkable in the aggregate, but in particulars. For some of those very banks, whose capital has been largely increased, have less specie than they had last year. Nor have the immediate resources of all the banks examined been increased in proportion to their immediate liabilities. The result is, that both in specie and immediate resources, or substitutes for specie, in the aggregate, the banks do not appear so strong as they were at the examinations the last year. We think this should have been otherwise. With the great influx of gold into the country, it is desirable that banks should avail themselves of the facility for obtaining a larger amount of it than they have generally been inclined to do. The dangers of expansion should not be overlooked. The general paper circulation has been extended too far for the specie basis on which it rests. By dispensing too much with the use of gold and silver, the safety and stability of the currency will be affected. It would be a measure of prudence for banks whose capital has been increased, and whose loans have been extended to the very extreme limits of the law, to see that their available resources are increased in a resaonable proportion to the amount of their present liabilities."

SAVINGS BANKS IN MASSACHUSETTS.

It appears from the Report of the Bank Commissioners of Massachusetts, that the whole number of savings banks is forty-nine. The whole number incorporated, sixty. two; many of which have never been organized. The number of savings banks in operation, December 15, 1851, in Boston was 3; out of Boston 46-total 29 :—

From the returns made to the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, we learn that in forty-five institutions, the number of depositors was 86,537, and the amount of deposits, $15,554,088 58. The amount of dividends the last year exceeded half a million of dollars; and the expenses of managing the institutions were $43,707 36, being about fifty cents to each depositor, or two mills and eight-tenths of a mill on each dollar of the deposits.

We subjoin a tabular statement, showing the number of depositors in savings banks in Massachusetts, and the amount of their deposits in each year since 1834, when returns were first required by law:

It appears from the foregoing statement, that the amount of deposits has more than quadrupled since the date of the first returns, which were made in 1834, and gave the condition of savings banks in September of that year. The deposits now exceed in amount one-third of the aggregate capital of the banks of circulation.

It has been remarked that, in Great Britain, savings banks are voluntary associations, but regulated by acts of Parliament. In Massachusetts they are the creations of the Legislature, each institution having a special act of incorporation, yet all subject to certain general laws. The applications for these acts of incorporation proceeded from philanthropic and highly intelligent individuals in our several communities, who voluntarily undertook to manage them as a charity, for the benefit of the depositors. The