Now, although we hold, that upon every principle of public expediency and justice, the legislature are bound to regard with particular tenderness the interests of a body of men, who, like the Scottish bankers, have not only established, but administered for such a long time, the monetary system of the country with stability, temperance, indulgence, and success, equally removed from weak facility and from grasping avidity of gain; we must, nevertheless, allow that the interests of the public are paramount to theirs, and that if it can be shown that the public will be gainers, although the bankers should be losers by the change, the sooner the metallic currency is established amongst us the better. Here is the true test of the clause in the Treaty of Union, providing that no alteration shall be made on laws which concern private right excepting for the evident utility of the subjects _within_ Scotland. There shall be no interference with private rights if that interference is not to benefit the public; if it does so, private right must of course give way, according to a rule universally adopted by every civilized nation. In speaking of the public, we, of course, restrict ourselves to Scotland; for although the Treaty of Union is not, strictly speaking, a federal one, and in the larger points of policy and general government is very clearly one of incorporation, it has yet this important ingredient of federality in its conception, that the laws of each country and their administration are left separate and entire, as also their customs and usages, so long as the same do not interfere with one another. It is a sore point with the supporters of a metallic currency, and a sad discouragement to their theories, that they have never been able in any way to shake the confidence of the Scottish public in the stability of their national bankers. It was no use drawing invidious comparisons between a weighty glittering guinea, fresh started from the mint of Mammon, and the homely unpretending well-thumbed issue of the North; it was no use hinting that a system which professed to dispense with bullion must of necessity be a mere illusion, which would go down with the first blast of misfortune, as easily as its fragile notes could be dispersed before a breeze of wind. The shrewd Scotsman knew, what apparently the economist had forgotten, that the piece of gold exhibited by the latter was in itself but a representative, and not the reality of property; that the gold to be acquired _must be bought_; that all representation of wealth within a country must be conventional in order to have any value; and further, that however fragile the despised paper might appear, that it was by convention and by law the representative of things more weighty and more solid than metal--of the manufactures of the country, of its agricultural produce, and, finally, OF THE LAND ITSELF; all which were mortgaged for its redemption. It was in vain to talk to him of the