64 MUTUAL BANKING. 



consequent high prices; if they fail, the loss falls on the community. 

 Under the existing system, there is little safety for the merchant. 

 The utmost degree of caution practicable in business has never 

 yet enabled a company or individual to proceed for any longtime 

 without incurring bad debts. 



The existing organization of credit is the daughter of hard 

 money, begotten upon it incestuously by that insufficiency of circu- 

 lating medium which results from laws making specie the sole legal 

 tender. The immediate consequences of confused credit are want 

 of confidence, loss of time, commercial frauds, fruitless and re- 

 peated applications for payment, complicated with irregular and 

 ruinous expenses. The ultimate consequences are compositions, 

 bad debts, expensive accommodation-loans, lawsuits, insolvency, 

 bankruptcy, separation of classes, hostility, hunger, extravagance, 

 distress, riots, civil war, and, finally, revolution. The natural con- 

 sequences of mutual banking are, first of all, the creation of order, 

 and the definite establishment of due organization in the social 

 body; and, ultimately, the cure of ail the evils which flow from the 

 present incoherence and disruption in the relations of production 

 and commerce. 



