“No position could be stronger than this; but the difficulty will arise in the fact that even were the annual revenues and expenditures of the government equalized, the working of the Sub-Treasury Act in dealing with such large sums as now constitute the financial transactions of the government might seriously interfere with the money market at times. Under present conditions it is becoming apparent that it is impossible for the government to adjust its transactions to the ordinary conditions of the money market; it is also impossible for the government to perform the functions of a bank of issue; the tension is now very great, and the conditions cannot possibly be continued for any length of time. The issue of certificates of deposit of gold or silver would not meet the varying conditions of supply and demand for instruments of exchange or circulating notes, and there will soon be no government bonds available as securities for bank notes. There is a volume of other securities in existence--Railroad, State and City bonds--which would form an absolute security for a circulating medium covered in part only by a reserve of actual coin. Can the arrangements be made and the authority established for a selection among these securities of those which ought to be made available to secure the notes which might serve as instruments of exchange? Can a central bureau, bank or other form of administration be established by a permissive act, with branches in different parts of the country, to supply an elastic, safe and suitable paper currency convertible into coin on demand, on a separate foundation and under a separate administration from that under which banks of deposit and discount may continue to be organized?” The New York banks are naturally the richest and most powerful in the country, and New York, no doubt, always will be the monetary centre of this country. But her absolute dominancy of the rest of the country, which she held for so many years, is passing away. The severest blow to New York’s banking supremacy perhaps was the passage of the law permitting the importation of foreign goods in bond direct to interior points. Formerly the grain from western fields was consigned to New York, and the contract for its shipment abroad made there. The New York banks were drawn upon for funds, and earned a commission upon every bushel of wheat that went out through the Narrows. In like manner, all goods brought from abroad found a resting-place there, and the duties were paid in New York, and it was New York capital which forwarded them to their destination.