[393] House Committee on "Money Trust." Feb. 28, 1913. Pp. 57, 78, 145.
[394] Cf. supra, and infra our discussion of the volume of trade, and infra, our discussion of credit, particularly the analysis of bank-loans.
[395] Vide the opinion expressed by an official of a New York trust company, quoted below, on p. 346.
[396] Cf. Horace White, Money and Banking, 5th ed., p. 364.
[397] Kirkbride and Sterret, The Modern Trust Co., New York, 1905, pp. 59-60; Cannon, Clearing Houses, Nat. Mon. Com. Report, p. 178; Conant, Principles of Money and Banking, II, p. 244.
[398] Inquiry was also made of Professor George E. Barnett, who had cited the figures given by the New York Supt. of Banks at p. 133 of his State Banks and Trust Companies. Professor Barnett writes, in part, as follows: "I made no independent inquiry at the time, and accepted the statement of the superintendent of banks without critical examination of its basis. From what you say, it appears highly probable that he was mistaken in his conclusions. The only question in which I was interested was whether the reserves of the trust companies could be reasonably lower than those of the national banks. I did not care so much about the exact ratio of clearings and only quoted that incidentally." For the purposes which both Professor Barnett and Mr. Williams had in view, the exact ratio was unimportant. The higher figures which I have given above would support the thesis in which both were interested, namely, that trust company accounts are less active than bank accounts, and so lower reserves may be safely held by trust companies than by national banks.
[399] Fisher, loc. cit., p. 444.
[400] P. 443. Other discussions of this investigation are in the Journal of the American Bankers' Association, Jan. 1914, p. 487; Ibid., Feb. 1915, p. 555; National Banker, March, 1915.
[401] None of the cities covered in the figures given in the Annalist were in New York State. Kinley's figures show that the percentage of checks received in deposits of March 16, 1909, in banks outside New York State was 91%. Loc. cit., p. 180.
[402] Multiplying the 408 millions of checks deposited outside New York on March 16, 1909 by 303, the assumed number of banking days, gives 123.6 billions. Probably, therefore, 124 billions is too small a figure. But we should be slow in modifying a figure based on 17 months' observations because of the figures from one day's observations.