ey of an unreliable character?

In the consideration of this subject we should divest ourselves of all
selfish views of private profit and advantage. We should look only to
the public good, to stability in trade and commerce, and to the general
interests of the people at large as distinguished from those of a few
individuals. It is clearly then the province of government to establish
and to regulate the paper money of the nation, so that it shall possess
the following attributes:

I. To be uniform in value throughout all portions of the country.

II. To be perfectly reliable at all times as a medium for the payment of
debts.

III. To be issued in limited amounts, and under the control of the
Government only.

IV. To be convertible, at the pleasure of the holder, into gold or
silver.

It must be conceded that these requisites do not belong, and never can
belong, to paper issued by joint stock banks, which are governed with a
view to the largest profit, and which are but little known beyond their
own immediate localities.

Recent history assures us that abuses have been practised in reference
to the bank circulation of the country, which have led to violent
revulsions and severe loss. England experienced the same results between
the years 1790 and 1840, and to such an extent that in the year 1844 her
statesmen devised a system whereby no further expansion of paper money
should occur. The amount then existing was assumed to be a minimum of
the amount required for commercial transactions, and it was ordered that
all bank issues beyond that sum shall be represented by a deposit of
gold.

If the Bank of England had been governed by considerations of public
welfare, and not by those of private interest, it would not have reduced
the rate of interest to 2-1/2 per cent. in 1844-'5, thus producing
violent speculation, and leading to the revulsion of 1849. Nor would the
bank have established low rates of interest only in the year 1857, thus
leading this powerful institution to the verge of bankruptcy, and to the
clemency of the British Cabinet in November of that year.

England has checked the paper circulation of the country, but has not
withdrawn from the bank the power to promote speculation by extravagant
loans at a low rate of discount.

The Governments of France and England have both assumed control of the
paper currency of their respective countries. This is sound policy, and
it is one of the prerogatives that