MUTUAL BANKING. 33 



the time and place where the payment is to be made; the value to 

 be furnished in specie, in merchandise, in account, or in other form. 

 It is to the order of a third person, or to the order of the drawer 

 himself. If it is by 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc., it must be so stated.' 



"The bill of exchange supposes, therefore, exchange, provision 

 and acceptance; that is to say, a value created and delivered by 

 the drawer; the existence, in the hands of the drawee, of the funds 

 destined to acquit the bill, and the promise on the part of the 

 drawee, to acquit it. When the bill of exchange is clothed with all 

 these formalities; when it represents a real service actually ren- 

 dered, or merchandise delivered; when the drawer and drawee are 

 known and solvent; when, in a word, it is clothed with all the 

 conditions necessary to guarantee the accomplishment of the obli- 

 gation, the bill of exchange is considered good; it circulates in the 

 mercantile world like bank-paper, like specie. No one objects to 

 receiving it under pretext that a bill of exchange is nothing but 

 a piece of paper. Only — since, at the end of its circulation, the bill 

 of exchange, before being destroyed, must be exchanged for specie- 

 it pays to specie a sort of seigniorial duty, called discount. 



"That which, in general, renders the bill of exchange insecure, 

 is precisely this promise of final conversion into specie; and thus 

 the idea of metal, like a corrupting royalty, infects even the bill of 

 exchange and takes from it its certainty. 



"Now, the whole problem of the circulation consists in general- 

 izing the bill of exchange; that is to say, in making of it an anony- 

 mous title, exchangeable forever, and redeemable at sight, but only 

 in merchandise and services. 



"Or, to speak a language more comprehensible to financial 

 adepts, the problem of the circulation consists in basing bank- 

 paper, not upon specie, nor bullion, nor immovable property, which 

 can never produce anything but a miserable oscillation between 

 usury and bankruptcy, between the five-franc piece and the as- 

 signat; but by basing it upon phoducts. 



"I conceive this generalization of the bill of exchange as fol- 

 lows: 



"A hundred thousand manufacturers, miners, merchants, com- 

 missioners, public carriers, agriculturists, etc., throughout BYance, 

 unite with each other in obedience to the summons of the the gov- 

 ernment and by simple authentic declaration, inserted in the 'Mon- 

 iteur' newspaper, bind themselves respectively and reciprocally to 

 adhere to the statutes of the Bank of Exchange; which shall bi> 

 no other than the Bank of France itself, with its constitution and 

 attributes modified on the following basis: 



"1st. The Bank of France, become the Bank of Exchange, is 

 an institution of public interest. It is placed under the guardian- 

 ship of the state and is directed by delegates from all the branches 

 of industry. 



"2nd. Every subscriber shall have an account open at the 



