MR. MANUFACTURER: Now, gentlemen, I want you to correct me if I don't state this credit question right, from beginning to end; for I'm not sure that I have followed all that has been said with sufficient care to understand it perfectly. I appreciate the fact that we must grasp this question of credit, and comprehend it very clearly, if we are going to prepare a banking bill in which credit must play a most important part. _First_: We have credit, which is the result of confidence and trust and gives us the right to demand payment. _Second_: If credit is granted for the purpose of producing and distributing consumable commodities, it should be for a short period, proportioned to the time involved to complete the transaction. _Third_: If credit is granted upon real estate, it should be for a long period, because the security is not readily convertible into cash. _Fourth_: Credit granted to a Government, by purchasing its bonds, should be for a long period, unless for some temporary purpose. _Fifth_: Neither real estate nor Government credit are a fit basis for currency, because neither is a fit security for a demand debt, nor cash credit, such as consumable commodities are. _Sixth_: Government credit should never be used in the form of legal tender money, because it must itself be redeemed in coin. It never has been, and never can be its own redeemer, and is always subject to unlimited abuse which must necessarily result sooner or later in repudiation. MR. BANKER: Mr. Manufacturer, you have summarized the discussion upon credit remarkably well, I think. MR. MERCHANT: So do I, and I am sure that we all understand what constitutes the difference between the right and wrong basis of demand obligation--convertibility or non-convertibility--quick assets or slow assets--the commercial fund and the investment fund. If we keep this thought steadily in view it will help us amazingly when we come to draw a banking bill demanding the recognition of this fundamental distinction. MR. LAWYER: Gentlemen, don't you see that the very nature of things forces the recognition of this fundamental distinction, because you can keep your currency, if of the right kind, and all your credit used in the production and distribution of consumable commodities convertible into gold coin. But you cannot keep all the railroad bonds, all the municipal bonds and all the real estate of the country convertible into coin, practically on demand. That is impossible, and has been proved times without number, as we have already seen.