The amount of business transacted at the Clearing-House varies very much
with the seasons of the year, the busiest time being when dividends are
paid and stock exchange settlements are made, but the volume of
transactions averages roughly from 200 to 300 millions sterling a week,
and the yearly clearances amount to something like L12,000,000,000.
There are provincial clearing-houses at Manchester, Liverpool,
Birmingham, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Leeds, Sheffield, Leicester and Bristol.
There are also clearing-houses in most of the large towns of Scotland
and Ireland. In New York and the other large cities of the United States
there are clearing-houses providing accommodation for the various
banking institutions (see BANKS AND BANKING).

The progress of banking on the continent of Europe has been slow in
comparison with that of the United Kingdom, and the use of cheques is
not so general, consequently the need for clearing-houses is not so
great. In France, too, the greater proportion of the banking business
is carried on through three banks only, the Banque de France, the
Societe Generale and the Credit Lyonnais, and a great part of their
transactions are settled at their own head offices. But at the same time
large sums pass through the Paris Chambre de Compensation (the
clearing-house), established in 1872.

There are clearing-houses also in Berlin, Hamburg and many other
European cities.

_Railways._--The British Railway Clearing-House was established in 1842,
its purpose, as defined by the Railway Clearing-House Act of 1850, being
"to settle and adjust the receipts arising from railway traffic within,
or partly within, the United Kingdom, and passing over more than one
railway within the United Kingdom, booked or invoiced at throughout
rates or fares." It is an independent body, governed by a committee
which is composed of delegates (usually the chairman or one of the
directors) from each of the railways that belong to it. Any railway
company may be admitted a party to the clearing-system with the assent
of the committee, may cease to be a member at a month's notice, and may
be expelled if such expulsion be voted for by two-thirds of the
delegates present at a specially convened meeting. The cost of
maintaining it is defrayed by contributions from the companies
proportional to the volume of business passed through it by each. It has
two main functions. (1) When passengers or goods are booked through
between stations