All bank notes in their ultimate effects are frauds upon the people, and their continuation as a circulating medium is only possible because that part of the people who suffer from them have not yet risen into a proper understanding of the question. The time is, however, near at hand when those who have reveled in the result, of the wear and tear of the muscle, and the sweat of the brow, of the common laborer, will be compelled to produce honestly and equitably everything they would enjoy. The substitute for all kinds of bank notes as the money for the people should be a _purely people’s money_—a _national currency_ whose basis of value would be the accumulated wealth of the country, and also its capacity for regularly increasing such wealth. Is there any reliance to be placed in a currency issued by an individual or a number of individuals through an incorporated bank, based upon his or their wealth, which is at all times liable to pass into the hands of other individuals? Yes, there is a presumptive reliance—an indefinite security—but the security is not perfect. In comparison with this security place that of a currency issued by the government, based upon the _entire_ wealth of the _whole_ country, which, no matter how much it might be changed about among the different persons comprising the nation by various contingencies, could never depart from the country; which fact would render it safe under any and all contingencies that could possibly arise, excepting alone the entire destruction of the country and its government by a foreign power; which contingency is not sufficiently imminent to cause any present alarm. A national currency _thus_ based would have not only _all the gold_ of the country as a basis, but also _all other kinds of wealth_. Is it not perfectly plain that such a money would be just so much better than common bank notes, with a one-third gold basis, as the total amount of the wealth of the country is greater than such amount of gold? It would be in the most complete sense the people’s money. It would be a system of mutual banking wherein every individual of the country would have an interest, instead of there being a vast number of mutual banking institutions, such as has been proposed by a person of profound financial ideas. As before stated, my objection to all systems of individual banking is that the _basis_ of their issues is at all times _liable_ to pass from the possession of such individuals; whereas, in a national currency—the _money_ of the people, _themselves_ in the aggregate the basis and security—there could be _no such_ liability; since, if _parts_ of the security pass from original to secondary hands, it is _still_ the basis of the currency, and could never be transferred beyond the jurisdiction of security by the operations of designing or incapable persons. By no possibility could there ever a loss occur to the holder of such a currency, except it be destroyed in his hands.