1493- _ 6 stagnation in busine/s.. 209 
the forbidding the circulation of premifsary notes 
under 51. value, would subject the whole of the 
private banker’s circulation to the stamp tax, it 
would atleast circumscribe their businefs so far as 
to prevent a few failures amongst them putting a. 
stop to the trade of the nation again. The trading 
part of the nation wants a supply of real stock to 
carry on their trade with, instead of the fictitious 
stock furnifhed them by the. private banks, which» 
is now evanifhed all at once; and it is only the stock- 
holders or public creditors that can furnifh them with 
this ; for amongst the landed men at an average, 
there are as many borrowers as lenders, and stich of 
them as are in condition to lend, commonly prefer 
Janded security t2 a merchant’s bond ; but the public 
creditors have the stock to lend, and certainly may 
do it greatly to their own advantage, for they cer- 
tainly would make rather better than 5 per cent, for the 
stock that now only yields them four, and as to any 
tise in the stocks, it is more than probable, that 
the bank stocks would rise much faster than the 
four per cents. The greatest hazard is that they fhould 
tize too suddenly above the real value, like the 
South Sea, for which reason I propose forbidding the 
transferring them for a twelyemonth, by which time 
the real value may be better ascertained than it can 
be by any preceding calculation; and fhould only 
twenty millions of the four per cents be taken in that 
way, it would be a saving 209,000]. a year to go- 
vernment, in reducing the interest one per cent, on 
so much of the public debt, and I am persuaded the 
YoL. xv ll. DD t 
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