Economics -- Early works to 1800; Finance -- Great Britain; Great Britain -- Economic conditions -- 18th century
Under this head it will not be improper to consider that this method will
most effectually answer all the notions and proposals of county banks;
for by this office they would be all rendered useless and unprofitable,
since one bank of the magnitude I mention, with a branch of its office
set apart for that business, might with ease manage all the inland
exchange of the kingdom.
By which such a correspondence with all the trading towns in England
might be maintained, as that the whole kingdom should trade with the
bank. Under the direction of this office a public cashier should be
appointed in every county, to reside in the capital town as to trade (and
in some counties more), through whose hands all the cash of the revenue
of the gentry and of trade should be returned on the bank in London, and
from the bank again on their cashier in every respective county or town,
at the small exchange of 0.5 per cent., by which means all loss of money
carried upon the road, to the encouragement of robbers and ruining of the
country, who are sued for those robberies, would be more effectually
prevented than by all the statutes against highwaymen that are or can be
made.
As to public advancings of money to the Government, they may be left to
the directors in a body, as all other disputes and contingent cases are;
and whoever examines these heads of business apart, and has any judgment
in the particulars, will, I suppose, allow that a stock of ten millions
may find employment in them, though it be indeed a very great sum.
I could offer some very good reasons why this way of management by
particular offices for every particular sort of business is not only the
easiest, but the safest, way of executing an affair of such variety and
consequence; also I could state a method for the proceedings of those
private offices, their conjunction with and dependence on the general
court of the directors, and how the various accounts should centre in one
general capital account of stock, with regulations and appeals; but I
believe them to be needless—at least, in this place.
If it be objected here that it is impossible for one joint-stock to go
through the whole business of the kingdom, I answer, I believe it is not
either impossible or impracticable, particularly on this one account:
that almost all the country business would be managed by running bills,
and those the longest abroad of any, their distance keeping them out, to
the increasing the credit, and consequently the stock of the bank.
_Of the Multiplicity of Banks_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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