THE BANK CHARTER. 527 



prospect of the loaves and fishes of the management, to reflect upon 

 the greater propriety of winding up the concern, and to secure the 

 remains of their property, before a repetition of another fourteen years 

 of mystery and deceit shall sweep the whole away together. They may 

 rest assured, that days of monopoly are now numbered in this country ; 

 that the future management of the revenue, if retained by the Bank, 

 will be a source of no profit to such an expensive institution ; that the 

 establishment is otherwise very many times too large for a profitable 

 concern ; and that the stock of the Bank of England may be invested 

 more advantageously in the many smaller establishments which will 

 arise upon its ruins. 



With regard to the expediency of establishing a National Bank, to be 

 directed by the government, it is certainly some slight reason for the 

 measure, that our monetary concerns are in future to be controlled by 

 the real representatives of the people. During the last century of 

 abuses, such an institution, in the hands of the boroughmongers, would 

 have brought forth more evils even than the Bank of England ; and it is 

 a singularity in their system, that so wide a field was neglected for the 

 creation of patronage and wallowing in the public money. There is 

 now undoubtedly less danger from the mismanagement of such an insti- 

 tution, and if it be found that the management of the national debt, 

 with the accounts of the customs and excise, post-office, and the naval 

 and military departments, can be conducted by government officers at a 

 less expence than a contract can be entered into with the private bankers 

 or the Bank of England, there is then no reason why motives of eco- 

 nomy should not induce to the establishment of a National Bank. In- 

 deed, the Treasury itself ought to be the National Bank, and not, as 

 appears from the Report of the Finance Committee, a place supported 

 at an expence of about 40,000/. per annum, where boroughmongering 

 gentlemen receive enormous salaries for reading the newspapers for one 

 or two hours in the day, whilst the real business of the revenue is 

 needlessly transacted by commission at the Bank of England. Un- 

 doubtedly, then, the expences of the Treasury ought either to be reduced 

 to the very trifling sum recommended as sufficient by the Committee of 

 Finance, or the duties of the department made real and effective, by the 

 true management of the revenue. 



This, however, ought to be the limit of the operations of the National 

 Bank, and the proposal to embark in the business of discounts, loans, 

 and the common transactions of the trade in money, can produce only 

 loss, confusion, and a waste of the public treasure. No trading establish- 

 ment can ever be conducted by the government, so well as by the self- 

 interest of private individuals ; and the trade in money, like the trade 

 in corn, coals, or cloth, should be left to the operations of all subjects in 

 equal competition, and ought not to be engrossed by the overwhelming 

 influence of government. Mismanagement, corrupt patronage, and loss 

 through all the channels of the institution, will be the inevitable result 

 of the establishment of a huge and complicated public bank ; and the 

 subdivision of the twenty millions of the capital of the Bank of Eng- 

 land, into twenty private banking houses, with a capital of one million 

 each, and scattered through the various quarters of this metropolis, 

 would produce a thousand times more real and effective assistance to the 

 commerce of the country, than one great accumulation of capital in a 

 single spot, whether under the denomination of the National Bank, the 



