As a matter of fact, far from being put at a disadvantage by the banking methods that provide call loans to Stock Exchange houses, the merchant or manufacturer enjoys banking facilities which the Stock Exchange may never hope to enjoy. The merchant is able to secure banking accommodations upon his personal credit, that is, by discounting his own promissory notes or single-name paper unsecured by pledge of collateral. But the stockbroker, however ample his resources and his credit, can only obtain loans upon collateral securities. Any attempt to resort to his personal credit or his personal paper would be construed as a confession of weakness, and his good name at the banks would suffer accordingly. Persons who conjure nightmares over the practice of the banks in loaning surplus funds to stockbrokers are deceiving themselves. Instead of losing by this system, every merchant and manufacturer in the land profits by it in greater or less degree. The stockbroker deals in the bonds and shares of great railway and industrial companies, which, in order to succeed, must be able to sell their certificates to the public and so raise the money necessary to provide the extensions and new construction that are constantly demanded by the public. If fresh capital could not be enlisted in this way, additions and improvements would cease. The merchant who requires the railroads to ship his goods, and the manufacturer whose demands for new side-tracks, cars, and other equipment are unceasing, are therefore directly interested in the maintenance of a broad and stable speculative market for securities at all times, because in that way only are funds to be raised for the requirements of trade and industry. There would have been no railroads in this country had there not been speculators to build them, nor could the money have been raised had there not been other speculators to buy the shares with the aid of the banks. Prevent the banks from lending money to facilitate stock-market operations and business ceases; interfere with it or hamper it and confidence is impaired, and when these things happen the industrial system collapses in terror. Such has been the experience of modern times. Until a system is devised whereby large undertakings may enlist public support in other ways than by offering securities in our great Exchanges and by maintaining a market for them there, it is useless to talk of interfering with that necessary relationship which exists between the banks and the stock market. On the one hand we have the cobwebs and windy sophistries of politicians and doctrinaires; on the other hand the test of proved effectiveness in the conduct of business. And the country’s business cannot stop; it must go ahead.