Seventeen Talks on the Banking Question: Between Uncle Sam and Mr. Farmer, Mr. Banker, Mr. Lawyer, Mr. Laboringman, Mr. Merchant, Mr. ManufacturerFowler, Charles N. (Charles Newell)
History
Seventeen Talks on the Banking Question: Between Uncle Sam and Mr. Farmer, Mr. Banker, Mr. Lawyer, Mr. Laboringman, Mr. Merchant, Mr. Manufacturer
Fowler, Charles N. (Charles Newell)
Banks and banking -- United States; Currency question -- United States
MR. LAWYER: There is not one man in a thousand that comprehends the
distinction that you have just called our attention to, and I include
the bankers when I say that, too. I did not appreciate it myself a
week ago, but it is fundamental and must not be overlooked. I want to
call your attention to one form of credit that does not grow out of
actual transactions in the production and distribution of consumable
commodity, and that is accommodation paper.
MR. LABORINGMAN: Accommodation paper? It strikes me as though that
was just the kind of paper I wanted. I certainly will take any
accommodation that Mr. Banker over there will give me.
MR. LAWYER: Speaking of accommodation paper, Mr. MacLeod says: "We now
come to a species of credit which will demand great attention, because
it is the curse and plague spot of commerce, and it has been the
great cause of those frightful commercial crises which seem to occur
periodically; and yet, though there can be no doubt that it is in many
cases essentially fraudulent, yet it is of so subtle a nature as to
defy all powers of legislation to cope with it."
The obvious distinction between accommodation paper and promissory
notes or bills of exchange here referred to, and all legitimate
commercial paper, is this: the accommodation paper represents a future
transaction, something to be done, while the true commercial paper
represents a past transaction, or something that has been done; for
example, goods that had been manufactured and are ready for sale or
have been sold and shipped.
MR. BANKER: Mr. Lawyer, will you allow me to illustrate that
distinction?
MR. LAWYER: Certainly.
MR. BANKER: If Mr. Manufacturer there should make ten different sales
of clothing of $5,000 each, and then send out ten drafts to his ten
customers, who accepted them and returned them, these ten drafts would
be called real bills of exchange, or let us call them true commercial
bills, because the ten men have purchased and agreed to pay for the
goods received by them. Should the ten men have sent their promissory
notes to Mr. Manufacturer, they would be identically the same thing as
the drafts which they had accepted, and answer identically the same
purpose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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