ond bank should have kept, and still ought to keep, to the
legitimate business of banking transactions. It appeared to have for its
principal object the issue of paper money; even on its origin it
suggested that the States and the two banks should weekly make a mutual
exchange of their respective notes, each party paying interest for the
balance of notes remaining against it; in this way all the notes of the
States would have found themselves in the coffers of the Banks and
paying interest to them. Though this proposition was not accepted, the
States were not the less troubled with requests for cash in payment of
their notes, and these requests are daily--not only for the ordinary
household needs, as might have been expected, but for sending abroad,
for if there are drafts to be cashed by the bank for anyone who wishes
for money to send to France or to Jersey, the drafts are paid in States
Notes, in order that the money shall ultimately come from this last
named source. The Bank makes no secret of its pretensions: there are, it
says, three parties for issuing paper money; this issue cannot rise
above L90,000 since the circulation in the country does not allow for
more, the States ought to have only one-third of the issue, the two
banks the two remaining thirds. This is a fine way of making the
division, and very convenient certainly for the Commercial Bank. It
would even have some show of justice if the parties had equal rights,
and if the public had no interest in the matter; but the rights are not
equal--the bank has none to put forward, that of the States is
incontestable: they exercise it for the welfare and advantage of the
whole Island which they represent. Consequently the public has the
greatest interest in preserving for the States the power of issuing
paper-money without interruption. Let the bank reply to the questions
already put; let it say what inducement it can offer the public to drive
out of circulation the States Notes, the profit on which benefits all,
especially the productive classes, and substitute for it Bank notes, the
profit on which benefits only individuals of the unproductive classes?
Now is the time to ask the proprietors themselves and ascertain whether
in starting a bank they ever had the intention of letting it work to the
detriment of their country? The public Treasury is the heart of the
State--did they ever wish, do they to-day wish to strike it with a
dagger? I know that we live in a fi