for it is impracticable to realize all dead and remote securities. The shock created by the failure of a weak rival is not recovered for a considerable time; while the prosperity of all banks depends on the weather-cock of public opinion. An ungenerous conduct in a moment of alarm is always resented too by the public, and retaliated on other occasions.

XVIII.

The failure of creditable and solvent country banks might be rendered impracticable, if they were to make their notes payable either in London, or, the country; and if, in London, there existed one general depôt for paying them, which might operate in averaging the resources of country banks, just as they themselves operate in regard to the traders in their own vicinity; that is, if in London there existed, with reference to small notes, one focus of all the country banks, in which each should lodge real securities for occasional advances from the common stock of currency.

XIX.

It is the vast accumulations of capital, more or less in 1000 banks, which, when poured forth by the seductive advantages of a small per centage and government security,

enables the minister of England to raise annual loans of twenty or thirty millions by various competition, to the astonishment of other nations; while, as the whole returns into immediate circulation, the operation is capable of being repeated an indefinite number of times, without sensible effect on the elasticity and energy of the system.

XX.

As long as the banking system continues, as long as bankers are enabled by their balances and their confidence to discount commercial securities at not more than five per cent., England will continue what it has been during the last half century; but, whenever the banking system is destroyed by want of general confidence, and whenever commercial bills and securities cease to be discountable at a rate of interest which accords with the profits of trade, then the revenue of England will fail, her social improvements will be arrested, and she will sink to the level of other nations, or by acceleration even below them.

XXI.

The minister or the economist, who, ignorant of the practical operation of the banking

P

system, is ignorant of the multiplication of wealth by means of credit, is unfit to influence the fortunes of such a country as England; and, whenever it is the fate of the English people to have their public fortunes in such incapable or unprincipled hands, universal misery, general insolvency, and social disorganization, must be the consequence.

XXII.

As long as a national debt calls for an annual interest of twenty or thirty millions, and as the public exchequer finds it necessary to issue vast amounts of accommodation-bills, an artificial credit and circulation must subsist in British society, and commercial credit becomes in consequence the foundation of public credit. The former cannot continue to exist without the latter, because a great revenue cannot be raised without corresponding circulation, and great circulation depends on banking and commercial credit.

XXIII.

Commercial credit multiplies currency ten-fold, in its practical effect; and the same amount of currency may maintain an effectual commercial currency of ten times the amount.

Hence wealth is as credit, and, whenever credit is destroyed, currency rises proportionately in value, and prospective or time engagements in nominal wealth, inevitably ruin all by the change of value. Practically considered, a currency of forty millions may maintain a commercial credit of four hundred millions; but if the latter, owing to the ignorance or imbecility of the government, is destroyed, then all prospective engagements fall from 20s. to 2s. in the pound; and he who pays in a higher ratio must soon become insolvent.

XXIV.

In fine, it is the banking system, and its able and public-spirited practice, which make Britain what it is, in trade, enterprise, and prosperity, and, by contrast, the continental nations what they are: it is the useful pride which every Englishman feels, that he has a good balance and good credit at his banker's, opposed to the useless pride which the inhabitants of the Continent feel, that they have a few rouleaux locked up in their bureau. This small difference of social practice constitutes the Samson's hair of England, and is the fulcrum of her power, and the talisman of her financial strength.

GOLDEN RULES FOR YOUNG SHOP

KEEPERS.

I.

CHOOSE a good and commanding situation, even at a higher rate or premium; for no money is so well laid out as for situation, providing good use be made of it.

II.

Take your shop-door off the hinges at seven o'clock every morning, that no obstruction may be opposed to your customers.

III.

Clean and set out your windows before seven o'clock; and do this with your own hands, that you may expose for sale the articles which are most saleable, and which you most want to sell.

IV.

Sweep before your house; and, if required, open a footway from the opposite side of the