MR. LAWYER: This indifference, or non-interference with monetary laws, is not peculiar to ourselves, however. You find the same is true in England. There has been no change in the English Bank Act since it was adopted in 1844, although practically all the English banking economists during the past fifty years have agreed that it is most faulty in some respects, particularly in its currency provisions. The same is true of the Bank of France which was established in 1803 by Napoleon, who proved to be as great an economist as he was a general. The same was true during the first fifty years of our banking legislation. The same will always be true in every country, for nothing is ever done, affecting a financial system, until the situation becomes intolerable as it is in this country today, and as it is fast becoming in Germany. Of course, the reason is not far to seek; it arises out of the fact that there is a general fear that any change in the banking practices, or system of any country, will disturb the existing business conditions, or arrangements. Hence nothing is ever done, as long as the people will put up with it. It takes the terrors and wastes of business misfortune to bring any change however obviously needed; therefore, we must be very patient, and most thorough in our work of preparing a measure for the reformation of our present banking practices which have been correctly described as "archaic," "barbaric" and "the worst in the world." MR. MERCHANT: That is right, we must be both patient and thorough; and to be thorough I think we ought to know what the situation was in this country in 1860, at the breaking out of the war; because if there is one fact that has impressed me more than any other, it is this, that all the real progress we have made during the past fifty years or since the war, has been either without any law, or in actual defiance of law. Under these circumstances I think it is of the utmost importance that we find out if we can what progress, if any, this country had made up to 1860, which was certainly a breaking up point in banking, as well as in all other lines. MR. BANKER: I agree with Mr. Merchant, and ever since we began these discussions I have taken every opportunity to go back and investigate the banking situation, before 1860, hoping and expecting that our experience then would help us now. I have been literally amazed at what I have discovered in the way of sound banking in many of the states, and I have been profoundly impressed with the fact that then, too, as well as now, all that they had secured that was good was the outgrowth of experience.