THE NATIONAL ALLIANCE. 129 



the demands on the bank, but the necessities, both public and private, 

 of every rank in society. It was essential to enable the manufacturers 

 to work, lest their workmen, driven to desperation, should fling them- 

 selves amongst the most violent enemies of public order. It was essen- 

 tial to provide money for the food of Paris, for the pay of troops, and 

 for the daily support of the industrial establishments of the nation. A 

 failure on any one point would have led to a fresh convulsion, but the 

 panic had been followed by so great a scarcity of the metallic currency, 

 that a few days later, out of a payment of 26,000,000 fallen due, only 

 47,000 francs could be recorded in silver. 



" In this extremity, when the bank alone retained any available sums of 

 money, the government came to the rescue, and on the night of the i5th 

 of March, the notes of the bank were, by a decree, made a legal tender, 

 the issue of these notes being limited in all to 350,000,000, but the 

 amount of the lowest of them reduced for the public convenience to 100 

 francs. One of the great difficulties mentioned in the report was to 

 print these loo-franc notes fast enough for the public consumption. In 

 ten days the amount issued in this form had reached 80,000,000 francs. 



"To enable the manufacturing interests to weather the storm at a 

 moment when all the sales were interrupted, a decree of the National 

 Assembly had directed warehouses to be opened for the reception of all 

 kinds of goods, and provided that the registered invoice of the goods so 

 deposited should be made negotiable by indorsement. The bank of 

 France discounted these receipts. In Havre alone eighteen millions 

 were thus advanced on colonial produce, and in Paris fourteen millions 

 on merchandise ; in all, sixty millions were made available for the pur- 

 poses of trade. Thus, the great institution had placed itself, as it were, 

 in direct contact with every interest of the community, from the minis- 

 ter of the Treasury down to the trader in a distant outport. Like a 

 huge hydraulic machine, it employed its colossal powers to pump a fresh 

 stream into the exhausted arteries of trade to sustain credit, and preserve 

 the circulation from complete collapse." From the Bank Charter Act, 

 and the Rate of Interest, London, 1873. 



This is proof positive, and a clear demonstration, in 1848, what this 

 system could accomplish when a necessity existed for resorting to it. 

 But since that time every conceivable change has tended toward render- 

 ing such a system easier managed and more necessary. The various 

 means of rapid transportation, and the facilities for the instantaneous 

 transmission of intelligence, make it no disadvantage for the produce of 

 a country to be stored at home until demanded for consumption, and 

 the great saving that will follow the abolition of local shipments shows 



