Under the system proposed, all these things would be done away. The West and the South, that are now relied on to pay all these extortions, would manufacture for themselves. Their lands and railroads would enable them to supply all the manufacturing capital that could be used. And they could supply it at one half, or one third, the rates now required by the "National" banks. Of course, Massachusetts could not—under the "National" system—manufacture a dollar's worth for the South and West. She could not keep her manufacturing laborers. They would all go where they could get cheap capital, cheap supplies, and good markets. And then the manufacturing industry of Massachusetts, and with it the value of her real estate, will have perished from the natural and legitimate effect of her meanness, extortion, and tyranny.
Looking to the future, then, there is no State in the Union—certainly none outside of New England—that has a greater interest in supplying her mechanics with the greatest possible amount of capital; or in supplying it at the lowest possible rates of interest. And this can be done only by using her real estate as banking capital.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE TRUE CHARACTER OF THE "NATIONAL" SYSTEM.
Section 1.
Under the "National" system there are less than 2,000 banks. But let us call them 2,000.
Calling the population of the country forty millions, there is but one bank to 20,000 people.
And this one bank is, in law, a person; and only a single person. In lending money, it acts, and can act, only as a unit. Its several stockholders cannot act separately, as so many individuals, in lending money.