310 KEPOET — 1891. 



the Providence that sits in bank parlours — and I want to see 

 God's good Providence, as of old, turn the money-changers out 

 of His temple of justice and fair-play, which shall no longer 

 remain " a den of thieves." 



To learn how just my contention is, let any one refer to a 

 paper read by Mr. Matthew Macfie, on the llth November, 1888, 

 before the Bankers' Institute in Melbourne, when he stated 

 that the Bank of England adopted the policy of keeping its 

 supply of the currency inadequate that the bank might have 

 occasion to demand a famine price for accommodation to it& 

 customers ; that the bank had been known to force its official 

 minimum to 10 per cent., while French traders, at the very 

 time, were only paying S^ per cent. " It is time," Mr. Macfie 

 said, " to put an end to abuses whose maintenance for so long 

 a period is alone due to credulity and ignorance." If I have 

 succeeded in shaking this false confidence of " credulity " and 

 expelling this ignorance in any degree, I submit that I have, in 

 however humble a manner, aided in forwarding the objects of 

 this Association. 



To summarise briefly, my contention is — (1.) That a con- 

 dition essential to the currency of any country is that it must 

 be of such a character that, by regulation, its total numerary 

 volume may be adequate to the business requirements of the 

 community. (2.) That a so-called metallic basis for a currency 

 is a delusion and a snare, and only plays into the hands of 

 those who seek to avail themselves unduly of the results of 

 other people's labour. (3.) That for the social and political 

 welfare of any country it is indispensable that the emission of 

 its circulating medium, money, must be in the hands of one 

 party only, and that partj- must be the State. (4.) That, as 

 the power of capital at present is the only efficient bond of 

 co-operation, there must be substituted for it the united force 

 of organized labour, and of a State bank of issue, before 

 any permanent change for the better is possible. (5.) That, 

 while this change is being effected, the increase of knowledge 

 in social science afforded by the correlated facts of statistics 

 will hasten on, I hope peacefully, the revolution that I have 

 tried to briefly set forth in this paper. 



It will doubtless be conceded that the true province of 

 science is to utilise the lessons afforded by the study of the 

 past, whether in time nearer or more remote, in order that we 

 may profit both the present generation and the generation in 

 the nearer future ; while more gifted sjjirits will forecast the 

 achievements of human discovery when " all things shall work 

 together for good," because the fruits and fallible science of 

 man shall more nearly run co-ordinate with the infinite and 

 not fallible purpose of the Supreme Mind. This cannot be 

 while civilisation and science leave out of their calculation 



