tled in the
metropolis. No proof can be desired better than the admission of the
adversary.

Nevertheless, we have been positively informed by the newspapers that
Ministers see no reason why any law adopted on this subject should not
be imperative over all his Majesty's dominions, including Scotland,
_for uniformity's sake_. In my opinion they might as well make a law
that the Scotsman, for uniformity's sake, should not eat oatmeal,
because it is found to give Englishmen the heartburn. If an ordinance
prohibiting the oatcake, can be accompanied with a regulation capable
of being enforced, that in future, for uniformity's sake, our moors
and uplands shall henceforth bear the purest wheat, I for one have no
objection to the regulation. But till Ben Nevis be level with
Norfolkshire, though the natural wants of the two nations may be the
same, the extent of these wants, natural or commercial, and the mode
of supplying them, must be widely different, let the rule of
uniformity be as absolute as it will. The nation which cannot raise
wheat, must be allowed to eat oat-bread; the nation which is too poor
to retain a circulating medium of the precious metals, must be
permitted to supply its place with paper credit; otherwise, they must
go without food, and without currency.

If I were called on, Mr. Journalist, I think I could give some reasons
why the system of banking which has been found well adapted for
Scotland is not proper for England, and why there is no reason for
inflicting upon us the intended remedy; in other words, why this
political balsam of Fierabras which is to relieve Don Quixote, may
have a great chance to poison Sancho. With this view, I will mention
briefly some strong points of distinction affecting the comparative
credit of the banks in England and in Scotland; and they seem to
furnish, to one inexperienced in political economies (upon the
transcendental doctrines of which so much stress is now laid), very
satisfactory reasons for the difference which is not denied to exist
betwixt the effects of the same general system in different countries.

In Scotland, almost all Banking Companies consist of a considerable
number of persons, many of them men of landed property, whose landed
estates, with the burthens legally affecting them, may be learned from
the records, for the expense of a few shillings; so that all the
world knows, or may know, the general basis on which their credit
rests, and the extent of