Now, returning to the Suffolk System, I want to assert there is not a question that can be asked by anyone, nor a point that can be made by anyone in favor of a banking system, that the Suffolk System does not answer and illustrate and exemplify. Let me outline the situation: 1. It covered six different states. 2. It covered a large territory. 3. The facilities for communication were bad. Some parts of New England were as far from Boston then as San Francisco is now. 4. There were 500 individual, independent banks. 5. There was no branch banking. 6. The permissive note issue to all intents and purposes was unlimited. The possible amount of issue was $131,000,000, but the maximum amount of notes out at any time did not reach 50 per cent of this total, while the average amount did not exceed 33 per cent of it. 7. The Bank Notes of the Suffolk System were universally accepted at par throughout New England. 8. They were redeemed every day at Boston, in coin by the Suffolk Bank. 9. They were accepted in all commercial centers of the West, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Louis at a premium of from 1 to 5 per cent, because redeemed at Boston _in coin._ The Suffolk Bank was the clearing house for all the bank notes of New England, and they were accepted at par, and redeemed in coin if demanded. Horace White says: "It was the underlying principle of the Suffolk Bank system that any bank issuing circulation should keep itself at all times in a condition to be able to redeem it; that it should measure the amount by its ability so to do; and that the exercise at any time of the right to demand specie of a bank for its bills was something of which the issuing bank had no right to complain.... "Under the Suffolk System of Bank Note redemption specie was seldom asked for, but it was always paid when demanded; _the metallic reserve was the touchstone of the whole business_." The following is Mr. White's description of the operation of the bank: "In 1824 two clerks could do all the work. In 1855 seventy were required, and the redemptions reached $400,000,000 per year. As the circulation of the New England banks at that time was about $40,000,000, the whole amount was redeemed ten times each year, or about once in five weeks.