fore been met by extending the bank's powers, nor is it obvious how any could be given except through the agency of the bank.
Extending the comparison between the English system and that of the United States, with the national-bank notes retired, the legal tenders, although much greater in volume, might be likened to the seventy-five million dollars that the Bank of England issues against its securities, while the bank's specie-secured issues would find their parallel in the gold and silver certificates. These now amount to something more than two hundred and fifty million dollars. They have not very far to go before they would equal the national-bank notes outstanding, and the expediency of largely increasing the issue is freely discussed.
But in the workings of the two systems here compared there would be an important difference.
When the act of 1844 was being urged, its advocates recognized that in extreme cases a rigid adherence to its provisions might be mischievous, and special governmental interference be found necessary. Experience has shown that such compelling emergencies do arise. Warned by this, Mr. Lowe, Chancellor of the Exchequer, introduced into the House of Commons in 1873 a bill providing for automatic suspension, so to speak. He proposed that the Government might lawfully suspend the bank act when certain conditions obtained, conditions presumed to be indicative of a panic; but the bill was not received with favor, and was withdrawn. What the effect of a strict adherence to the act in time of panic would be, it is difficult to predict—it has never been tried.
It is not easy to see how, even if it were made lawful, relief could be given in the case of a strictly governmental issue, consisting, for example, of specie certificates and legal tenders. If additional issues of the latter were authorized, how, in time of peace, would they be put afloat? Certainly few would be willing to have the Treasury Department take up the business of banking and make advances on miscellaneous securities. But the time would certainly come when the temporary relief given by clearing-house certificates would be found to be, or at least be thought to be, inadequate, and an increase of currency be demanded. Could there be any assurance that the power to make such increase resting in Government officials would be exercised with the caution shown by the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, who are restrained by considerations both of prudence and profit? An illustration of the course likely to be pursued was furnished in 1872-'73, when forty-four million dollars of legal tenders, which had been retired by Secretary McCulloch, were dubbed a reserve, the reissue of which was demanded and granted to the extent of twenty-six million dollars. There are ample grounds for the fear that any system under which the Government should furnish, in whatever form, the whole supply of the paper money of the country, would keep us constantly on the lee-shore of an inconvertible paper currency,
