504 National Banks—English and American. [December,

The Bank of the United States, on the other hand, enjoys no monopoly either of circulation, or as it now evidently appears, of public deposits. Its charter is neither prohibitory nor exclu sive; nor has it any other privilege than that which is neces sarily involved in a government charter, viz. that its notes shall be received in payment of duties, and its banking operations free from state taxation, which might otherwise render nugatory the act of the general government in its establishment. The Bank of the United States therefore is merely “primus inter pares”— the first among many brethren. From the government, therefore, this bank receives no favour. Its chartered advantages were paid for at the time by an estimated equivalent—the public deposits have ever since been balanced by the uncharged services it ren dered in their multiplied transfers"—while the value of those deposits may be said to have been at all times diminished by holding them subject to an arbitrary discretion of removal. This long threatened blow has at length fallen upon the bank—and fallen harmless. This fact adds something, at least, to our ex perience of a National Bank. From an institution which is exposed to it, it removes all charge of monopoly; and from one that can bear it, all suspicion of unsoundness; it proves, as already said, that even a National Bank should have its roots in commercial confidence.

The dividends made by the two institutions sufficiently mark the distinction between them. In the Bank of England, while the current rate of interest was carried from two and a-half to five per cent, the dividends have fluctuated from four and a-half to ten, besides a surplus being accumulated equal to their whole capital, marking, most conclusively, monopoly profits. In the Bank of the United States, on the other hand, while the market rate of money has varied from five to eight per cent, the dividends of the bank do not average one; and the stockholders will not probably receive beyond their original investments, which shows, as con clusively, average, and not monopoly, profits.

2. Conneacion with Government.—In its open connexion with government there is nothing to censure in the Bank of En gland; it is its private connexion which is injurious alike to the bank and the public. Under the former head fall its manage ment of the debt and other public accounts—the collection and safe º of the revenue, &c. These constitute a mere matter of agency, for which it receives compensation, which neither has influence on the currency, nor is in itself exorbitant, inasmuch as the bank takes upon itself all losses arising from accident and

* By one of its published Reports, we learn the amount of bank transfers for the government to have amounted, in the year 1832, to sixteen millions one hundred thousand dollars.