The Clearing-House System,

a greater amount of business is transacted without the intervention of a single coin or note. In London business is completed daily to the amount of 20 millions sterling through page 11 the clearing house, which could not otherwise be done. If settled in coin the gold would weigh 157 tons, and require 80 horses for its conveyance. Indeed the prohibition of issue by private banks would actually be beneficial to them, as they would be saved the necessity of keeping a reserve of gold to protect their issue. Apart from these considerations there is another and more important reason for the State assuming the responsibility of the issue. The legal maxim salus populi suprema lex, (the safety or security of the public overrides all law) renders a change imperatively necessary. When we consider the risk incurred by the public generally, especially the wages-receiving portion of the public, in a currency issued by private parties, and not absolutely protected or guaranteed against loss, we may express our surprise that such an anomalous condition of things should exist for a single hour. A few months ago in Sydney £58,000 in notes became in a moment valueless through the stoppage of the Oriental Bank. Similar inconvenience was felt in Melbourne, and many of us in Dunedin can recollect how thankful we were to receive 15s in the £ for notes of the Commercial Bank in 1867. If any of us deal with a bank and deposit money in it, we can select our bank, and if it should fail we can blame no one, and only can lament our want of judgment. We are voluntary creditors of the bank. But if the notes of the bank circulate from hand to hand the holders become involuntary creditors of the defaulting bank. This is a position in which the state ought not to permit any citizen to be involved, and it is the result of the improper influence upon our Legislature exercised by moneyed men and moneyed institutions. I affirm unhesitatingly that there ought not to be the most remote possibility of loss to the public in the master of its currency. I daresay many think we are properly protected now. This is not the fact. In the event of the stoppage of a bank the holders of notes have