r. We have seen that for some of these operations the treasury bank
would be obliged to pay.

We do not mean to say that these various services of the bank are
gratuitous. On the contrary, it is fairly remunerated for them by the
privileges it enjoys, and by the public deposits; but still they are
valuable services, and in this way the government obtains a fair
equivalent for what it surrenders. Nor let it be supposed that as good a
bargain could be made with the state banks. The general government could
not be interested in their stock, nor could they afford to give as much
for the privileges, because they would be more local. Being connected
only by voluntary compacts, they could not do the business of the
government to the same advantage as a single corporation. They could not
circulate as much paper with the same safety, nor could they sell or buy
bills at as small a profit. The superior advantages which the Bank of
the United States enjoys in capital, in banking skill, and in the
greater credit and wider circulation of its notes, enables it to give a
liberal price for its charter, and the government would be false to the
people to surrender this benefit.

But it would not become the government to attempt to extort, or to be
illiberal, but to act on the principle of justice to the public and the
bank. The legislature should not furnish the bank with either the
temptation or excuse of an Irish middle man, who grinds his sub-tenants
in proportion as his landlord has pressed him. Upon these principles, we
think the government should, by way of bonus, charge the bank a moderate
interest on its deposits, and pay a small commission for the services of
the bank. An adjustment of these several claims, by some general
estimate, might leave to the nation the clear annual gain of perhaps
200,000 dollars, or a gross capital of four millions, instead of giving
it away for the improvement of the machinery of our political
wire-workers.

There is yet another mode by which the government might derive a profit
from the bank, and which has this further recommendation, that it would
not be at the expense of the stockholders, and it would be a value saved
to the nation that would be otherwise lost. It is now a favourite object
both with the people and the government to pay off the national debt;
and from the novelty of the phenomenon it will give great eclat to the
administration in which it takes place. It is known that upwards of