private firms doing very considerable business, more
than 80 joint-stock British banks working in the colonies with capitals
amounting to L48,000,000, deposits L360,000,000 and offices 3505. Outside
British territories there are 6 banks, principally in South America, with
nearly L4,000,000 capital, L36,000,000 deposits and about 60 offices. There
are 6 large banks doing business principally in the East with more than
L6,700,000 capitals, L77,000,000 deposits and 106 offices: and 7 other
banks, including Barings, with about L4,500,000 capitals and L22,000,000
deposits There are thus about 20 British banks doing business in foreign
countries with capitals amounting to L15,200,000, deposits L135,000,000 and
offices 173.

In this statement we have included only the more important banks, which
collectively wield about L63,000,000 capital and more than L495,000,000
deposits--in all about L560,000,000 of resources operating at about 3700
offices situated in places as different from each other and as widely
separated as California and Hong-Kong, Constantinople and New Zealand.

_France_.--In France the first bank of issue, originally called the _Banque
Generale_, was established in 1716 by John Law, the author of the
_Mississippi Scheme_ and the _Systeme_. Law's bank, which had been
converted into the _Banque Royale_ in 1718, and its notes guaranteed by the
king (Louis XV.), came to an end in 1721; an attempt at reconstruction was
made in 1767, but the bank thus established was suppressed in 1793. Other
banks, some issuing notes, then carried on operations with limited success,
but these never attained any real power. There were many negotiations on
the subject of the establishment of a bank in 1796. The financial
difficulties of the times prevented any immediate result, but the advice of
those engaged in this plan was of great assistance to Napoleon I., who,
aided by his minister Mollien, founded in 1800 the Bank of France, which
has remained from that time to the present by far the most powerful
financial institution in the country. The objects for which it was
established were to support the trade and industry of France and to supply
the use of loanable capital at a moderate charge. These functions it has
exercised ever since with great vigour and great judgment, extending itself
through its branches and towns attached to branches over the whole country.
At its establishment and for some time subsequently the operations of th