CHAPTER V.
THE SYSTEM AS A CREDIT SYSTEM.
Section 1.
Perhaps the merits of the system, as a credit system, cannot be better illustrated than by comparing the amount of loanable capital it is capable of supplying, with the amount which the present "National" banks (so called) are capable of supplying.
If we thus compare the two systems, we shall find that the former is capable of supplying more than fifty times as much credit as the latter.
Thus the entire circulation authorized by all the "National" banks,[E] is but three hundred and fifty-four millions of dollars ($354,000,000).
But the real estate and railroads of the country are probably worth twenty thousand millions of dollars ($20,000,000,000). This latter sum is fifty-six times greater than the former; and is all capable of being loaned in the form of currency.
Calling the population of the country forty millions (40,000,000), the "National" system is capable of supplying not quite nine dollars ($9) of loanable capital to each individual of the whole population. The system proposed is capable of supplying five hundred dollars ($500) of loanable capital to each individual of the whole population.