“Take the French assignats.--The French assignats were issued upon no principle at all, because no provision was made for their redemption.”[188] Against these witnesses was the testimony of a person perhaps the highest living authority on this question. I refer to Lord Overstone, known before his elevation to the peerage as Mr. Jones Loyd, the eminent banker, whose life makes him practically acquainted with this subject, while his liberal studies and various experience add to the solidity of his judgment. His testimony on this occasion, extending over almost three days, occupies nearly one hundred folio pages. Writers on finance have quoted it ever since, and practical men have accepted it as a guide. In reply to questions by the Committee, he declared himself strongly opposed to the issue of Government notes not payable in specie on demand. In his opinion “they would generate a state of utter confusion which could not be tolerated for three months.”[189] Then again:-- “It is quite clear that there would be a discount upon these notes in the first place; they would not answer the purpose of a circulating medium; it would throw everything into confusion in the very first stage of the process: that would be the first difficulty.”[190] Here are his answers to other questions. “Your Lordship was asked, on the last day, whether it would not be possible in a great degree to mitigate such difficulties as I have endeavored to portray, by having two sorts of notes, one of them payable in bullion, but the other, if I may use the expression, a sort of I O U note between the Government and the public; whether, inasmuch as the Government owes £6,000,000 or £7,000,000 every quarter, in the shape of dividends or expenses, and the country owes £6,000,000 or £7,000,000 of taxes, it would not be possible to arrange that there should be two sorts of currency afloat,--one the common banking note, payable in bullion, and applicable for all general purposes, and the other a note applicable in the more limited sense?--Our affairs would then go on very much in the way that a man would walk with one of his legs six inches shorter than the other. One set of notes would circulate at a depreciation, compared with the other set of notes; hence great inconvenience and confusion would arise.”[191] “Do you believe, that, if any person had notes which insured to him the payment of all the Government demands upon himself, though he had no demands upon him directly, he would not find numbers of persons who would exchange those notes for him at a premium or a discount?--Then you would have a certain proportion of the monetary system of the country circulating at a discount. I cannot conceive a greater state of monetary disorganization than that.”[192]