ost needed. Finally, the methods and agencies for
making domestic exchange of funds were, compared with other countries,
imperfect and uneconomical even in normal times and could not "prevent
disastrous disruption of all such exchanges in times of serious
trouble."

Sec. 9. #Lack of provision for foreign financial operations.# Not without
its influence on public opinion was the consideration that we had "no
American banking institutions in foreign countries." Many bankers and
business men felt, as did the commission, that the time had come when
the organization of such banks was "necessary for the development of
our foreign trade." Foreign banks in South America and the Orient,
handling American trade, were believed to favor their own countrymen
rather than the interests of American merchants. In contrast with the
European nations with their centralized control of banking, we had "no
instrumentality that" could "deal effectively with the broad questions
which, from an international standpoint, affect the credit and status
of the United States as one of the great financial powers of the
world. In times of threatened trouble or of actual panic these
questions, which involve the course of foreign exchange and the
international movements of gold, are even more important to us from a
national than from an international standpoint."

Sec. 10. #The "Aldrich plan."# The National Monetary Commission submitted
with its report a plan which was known by the name of the commission's
chairman, Senator Aldrich. This plan was embodied in a bill for
a National Reserve Association, a bank for banks which bore some
likeness to the great central banks of Europe. In the many details
of the plan an effort has been made to remedy every one of the
difficulties above described and to supply all the needs indicated.
The plan was favored pretty generally by bankers, but called forth
many adverse opinions. In the year of a presidential election,
however, Congress took no action in the matter. All parties were
pledged to some kind of banking reform, but particular proposals were
not discussed in the campaign.

[Footnote 1: Whichever was the smaller. In 1900 this was changed so
that notes could be issued to the full amount of the denomination of
the bonds.]

[Footnote 2: In recent years this has been one half of 1 per cent when
2 per cent bonds, and 1 per cent when bonds bearing a higher interest,
were deposited.]

[Footnote 3: In reserve c