itain.
Clearing-houses exist in about 112 leading cities, and the aggregate
clearings for the year ending 30th September 1907 reached $154,662,515,258.
The New York Clearing-House inevitably does a large proportion of this
business; its clearings constituted in 1906 67.2% of the total clearings in
55 of the larger cities. The volume of clearings fluctuates greatly with
the volume of stock-exchange transactions and with the business prosperity
of the country. An indication of these fluctuations at New York is afforded
by the following table, taken from Conant's _Principles of Money and
Banking_, brought down to 1907.

[v.03 p.0349]

VARIATIONS IN CLEARINGS AT NEW YORK

+------+-------------+-------------+-----------------------------+
| | Average | Per cent | |
|Year. | Daily | Balances to | Remarks. |
| | Clearings. | Clearings. | |
+------+-------------+-------------+-----------------------------+
| 1870 | $90,274,479 | 3.72 | |
| 1873 | 115,885,794 | 4.15 | Great business activity. |
| 1874 | 74,692,574 | 5.62 | Industrial depression. |
| 1881 | 159,232,191 | 3.66 | Renewal of railway building.|
| 1885 | 82,789,480 | 5.12 | Results of bank panic. |
| 1890 | 123,074,139 | 4.65 | Business expansion. |
| 1894 | 79,704,426 | 6.54 | Depression following panic. |
| 1896 | 96,232,442 | 6.28 | Free silver panic. |
| 1899 | 189,961,029 | 5.37 | Renewed confidence and |
| | | | activity. |
| 1901 | 254,193,639 | 4.56 | Culmination of industrial |
| | | | flotations. |
| 1904 | 195,648,514 | 5.20 | Diminished stock-exchange |
| | | | and business activity. |
| 1906 | 342,422,773 | 3.69 | Stock-market activity. |
+------+-------------+-------------+-----------------------------+

The Clearing-House Committee of the New York Clearing-House exercises a
powerful influence over the banking situation through its ability to refuse
aid in emergencies to a bank which is unwisely conducted. This power was
used in the panic of 1907 to eliminate several important, but speculative,
financial interests from control o