Will anyone say that such a condition should continue for a day, or a year, or for ten years, or for a hundred years, or for a thousand perchance, because the general Government has no right or power to act in the matter for want of constitutional authority? Let me ask you, Mr. Lawyer, whether there is anything that will so certainly conserve the peace, the prosperity and the "general welfare" of the United States as a sound and uniform financial banking system extending over the whole country. MR. LAWYER: I certainly cannot conceive of anything of so much importance as a sound and uniform banking system for the whole country. If there is one single factor in our life that is distinctly national in its character and scope, it is this. During the past week, I devoted much time to that phase of this question, because, as we have gone along during the last two or three months, and this problem has been under discussion, I have become more and more impressed with its vast importance, and above all with its distinctly national character. I have not butted in tonight, as you will observe, as I was anxious to see how you gentlemen would treat this subject of Reserves, whether from a standpoint of individual banks, or from the standpoint of the community, the commercial center, or our country as a whole, or upon the broad proposition that gold today constitutes the world's banking reserves and that we are a very great part of that commercial world. For my own part, I had come to the conclusion that there could not be a system of reserves established that would be efficient and of the highest use, and really protective unless it were national in its extent, and universal in its application. Therefore, realizing the absolute necessity of some common power to control all reserves, in order to compel each bank to perform its part by carrying its share of the burden that commerce imposes, I have been unable to find any solution, except in a uniform national system; and why not? Certainly the National Government could compel every bank to carry certain specified reserves, and failing to do so to pay a tax of 10 or 20 per cent per annum upon all deposits not so protected; that is, upon all deposits in excess of the required reserve. This could be done under the taxing power of the Government, precisely as a tax of 10 per cent was put upon all bank notes. Would any patriotic banker refuse to coöperate with his fellow bankers in such a reform, unless he wanted some unfair advantage by compelling the other bankers to carry his load for him?