especially
unfair to the younger banks, whose circulation is not yet established,
and whose progress has thus received a material check, from no fault
of their own, but from want of ministerial notice. With every system
where competition is the acknowledged principle, it is clearly
impolitic to interfere; nor can we avoid the painful conviction, that
this first measure, though comparatively light and generally
unimportant, was put out by way of _feeler_, in order to test the
temper of the Scottish people--to ascertain whether eighteen years of
prosperity might not have made them a little more supple and pliable,
and whether they were likely to oppose to innovation the same amount
of obstinate resistance as before. It is dangerous to permit the
smallest rent to be made in a wall, for, with dexterous management,
that rent may be so widened, as to bring down the whole
superstructure.

In the absence of any distinct charge against the Scottish banks,
which were so honourably acquitted in 1826, we shall confine our
further observations to the effects which must necessarily follow upon
a change in the established currency. In doing so, we shall conjure up
no phantoms of imaginary distress, but merely state the consequences
as they have already been explained to Parliament by men who are far
better able to judge than ourselves, and even--with deference be it
said--than our legislators, of the substitution in Scotland of a
metallic for a paper currency. That measure is to be considered, 1st,
as it will affect the banks; 2dly, as it will affect the public.

The general effect of the change would be to derange the whole of the
present system. The first result would probably be the abolition and
withdrawal of all the branch banks throughout the kingdom. These
offices are at present fed with notes which are payable at the office
of the parent bank, whither, accordingly, they invariably return.
These are supplied to them at no risk or expense, whereas the
transmission of gold would not only be dangerous, but so expensive as
entirely to swallow up the profits. Add to this, that the banks would
no longer be able to allow interest on deposit accounts; at all events
such interest would be merely fractional, and too insignificant to
induce the continuance of the saving habit which now so fortunately
prevails. In short, all the branch business would stagnate and die.
The consequence of the removal of the branch banks would be the ruin