MR. LABORINGMAN: I see now that you bankers must keep the money you receive from us depositors, either in cash or in something you can instantly convert into money, and when you don't do that, you have tied it up, as you say; and if we happen to find it out we are apt to want our money; and if we all want it at the same time, you call it a run on your bank. Now when you say a banker is ready for a run, you mean, as I now understand it, that he has all his deposits on hand in cash, or has all his deposits invested in something that he can turn into cash: good notes that have been taken in the course of business, that is, in the production and transportation of consumable commodities, the necessaries of life. Of course, anybody must understand that if a bank bought a lot of farms or a lot of farm mortgages (and it might be worse off if it bought city mortgages with our deposits), he could not convert them or turn them into money on demand. I am on to this thing now; neither mortgages nor land can be considered what you described a minute ago as quick assets, or as liquid assets, because you cannot convert them into money practically on demand. MR. FARMER: I grasp that idea now myself. Do you know I have always thought, until within an hour, that we farmers ought to be able to get something to pay out in the shape of currency that represented our land, or in exchange for a mortgage, just because I knew a mortgage was good or worth its face; but I see now that a bank must not only have something that is good and worth its face, but it must be exchangeable for, and convertible into, real money or gold, at any time, or the bank must shut up. And you can't turn all our farms into some form of currency, and expect the banks to redeem it any more than you can sell a farm every hour. I have been trying to sell one farm for ten years. Now I see that would not make very good currency. Since I cannot sell it, the only way for me to convert that farm into cash capital is to take the net earnings, and lay them aside until they equal its value or what it cost me; that might not be within twenty years, as I might not be able to save for that purpose more than 3 per cent or 4 per cent a year which, at compound interest, would about make it. It is perfectly clear to me, now, that real estate is not a proper basis for a currency, which must be currently redeemed in gold. It cannot be done; that is a sure thing. MR. LAWYER: Mr. Farmer, you have reasoned out for yourself a thing that has fooled many a man, and the world has had many bitter experiences trying to do the very thing you now so clearly see cannot be done; that is, make currency out of real estate, or, rather, as you would say, make money out of real estate, when, as we have already seen, gold is the only money we have or can have, so long as gold is our standard of value.