Again, I want you to keep in mind the expense and trouble of shipping out the commercial paper, and looking after it throughout the year, and the interminable nuisance of buying just the right amount of currency every day, as compared with issuing your own notes, precisely as your customers want currency. You see, I will be getting back some of my notes every day through the Clearing House, as they will then be sent to the Clearing House with the checks and drafts, just as they are in Canada.
Mr. Merchant: Of course, if you can save $3,100 on your currency every year, and a large amount of additional expense, as well as an endless amount of trouble, you can afford to share your gain with us fellows.
Mr. Banker: Most certainly, and you may depend upon it, that all the extra expense that we incur will come out of our borrowers.
Mr. Manufacturer: As you say, there cannot be one bank in a hundred that would ever have what you call twenty-eight day paper. I know I would not want you, and I am sure that Mr. Merchant there would not want you, to take our paper to some local association and ask to have it guaranteed unless there was a panic and everybody was in the same boat. The whole scheme looks absurd and impractical.
Mr. Banker: Your opinion is confirmed by one of our most prominent country bankers, who said, "This proposition is impractical, unparalleled, and useless."
Mr. Merchant: Mr. Banker, if you should ask your city banker correspondent from whom you purchased the Central Bank notes, upon what he relied, when he gave you the notes, what would he say?
Mr. Banker: He would undoubtedly say that he relied upon the credit of my bank, and upon the paper I turned over to him in exchange for the Central Bank notes.
Mr. Merchant: Well, if your credit and the paper with your endorsement are good enough for that banker, why are they not good enough security for your own bank notes?
Mr. Banker: They certainly would be; especially since I would be under the supervision of the Board of Control, and my notes would be secured by being a first lien upon my whole assets; by a guarantee fund, and by the total amount of gold held by the American Reserve Bank.