A History Of Modern Banks Of Issue

Excerpt from A History of Modern Banks of Issue The past twelve years have contributed much to strictly monetary as well as to banking history. Questions whose solution was doubtful and disputed have been settled to the satisfaction of intelligent men. The gold standard, which was described twelve years ago as a conspiracy against the human race, has been adopted in succession within that time by the United States, Russia, Austria - Hungary, Japan, and Mexico. Practically the only country remaining upon the silver standard is China, which is without a national monetary system, and even as these pages go to press despatches from China indicate that the government is planning such a national system to be based ultimately upon gold. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 edition. Excerpt: ...government currency system of the United States. One of the essential errors of early banking in the United States was the undue expansion of credit upon slender resources. It is an error common in a new country and one from which the United States and Australia, in more recent years and under other systems of note issue, have not been exempt. The impression has been assiduously cultivated by the opponents of a banking currency that the early American banks issued a volume of circulating notes enormously in excess of the legitimate demands of business. This impression is absolutely unfounded and the proof is afforded by the figures. Some of the State banking currencies were over.issued in the sense that every dollar which is not kept at par with the metallic standard is improperly issued, but the aggregate banking currency of the country was at no time over-issued in the sense that an equal volume of good money was not capable of ready and healthy absorption by the legitimate demands of business. The circulation of all forms of money in the United States between 1880 and 1895 has ranged between $21.71 and $24.44 an has OI1l' recently been regarded, with the slackening of business activity, as beyond the volume required by business needs. It is only necessary to compare such figures with those of the circulation prior to the Civil War to show lrov erroneous is the assertion that the currency was unduly inflated in volume during the years of State banking. The following table shows the circulation of both bank-notes and specie at various dates, including the years of largest circulation, --the difference between the bank-note circulation and the total money in circulation representing the specie: YEAR.ESTIMATED BANE-NOTES OUTSTANDING.TOTAL..