A panic and a collapse of this
fictitious currency was as inevitable as the fall of a stone forced
against nature into the air."
"There _were_ a great many petty banks, Richard, and, of course,
plenty of bad paper. I believe you are right. The causes of things
were not studied in those days as they are now."
"All that we know now, sir, is to be found in books written long
before 1793."
"Books! books!"
"Yes, sir; a book is not dead paper except to sleepy minds. A book is
a man giving you his best thoughts in his very best words. It is only
the shallow reader that can't learn life from genuine books. I'll back
him who studies them against the man who skims his fellow-creatures,
and vice versa. A single page of Adam Smith, studied,
understood, and acted on by the statesmen of your day, would have
averted the panic of 1793. I have the paragraph in my note-book. He
was a great man, sir; oblige me, Mr. Skinner."
"Certainly, sir, certainly. 'Should the circulation of paper exceed
the value of the gold and silver of which it supplies the place, many
people would immediately perceive they had more of this paper than was
necessary for transacting their business at home; and, as they could
not send it abroad, bank paper only passing current where it is
issued, there would be a run upon the banks to the extent of this
superfluous paper.'"
Richard Hardie resumed. "We were never so overrun with rotten banks as
now. Shoemakers, cheesemongers, grocers, write up 'Bank' over one of
their windows, and deal their rotten paper by the foolscap ream.
Pages:
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237