Scottish banks. But on turning to the evidence given |
before the parliamentary committees of 1826, we find
the usual value of the small notes in circulation esti-
mated by Mr Paul of the Commercial Bank, and Mr
Blair of the British Linen Company, at £1,800,000,
which is increased by a third at particular seasons,
and when trade is brisk. The committee estimate the
paper money of all kinds in circulation in 1826 at
£3,309,082. But in the year of great speculation,
1825, they estimate the highest amount of notes in cir-
culation at £4,683,000, the lowest at £3,434,000. By
the law of 1844 (subsequently noticed) the maximum
authorised issue is £3,087,209.

The following is a return of the joint-stock banks existing in Scotland at 5th January 1839, with the dates of their establishment :

shares, but for the shares of all the others; and the whole of their property may be seized to make up deficiencies. Although many of the shareholders are certainly not men of opulence, a number are so; and as their fortunes are good for the paper issued, the public runs no risk of injury. To strengthen this liability of shareholders, by the law of Scotland all heritable property, lands and houses, may be seized in satisfaction for their debts. As this is not the case in England, where personal or movable property can alone be taken by creditors, it would not be possible to establish banks in the south part of the island on the principle of the Scottish banks till the law touching heritable property underwent alteration.

Other causes, not of a legal nature, conspire to render the system of Scottish banking perfect. By reason of The Bank of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1695; the Royal the circumscribed limits of Scotland, and the character Bank of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1727; the British Linen of the people, a ramification of intelligence is created Company, Edinburgh, 1746; the Commercial Bank of and preserved throughout the whole of society, altoScotland, Edinburgh, 1810; the National Bank of Scot-gether unknown in England, whereby the character, land, Edinburgh, 1825; the Aberdeen Bank, Aberdeen, the wealthiness, and the conduct of the partners or 1825; the Ayr Bank, Ayr, 1825; the Dundee Bank- directors of each bank, are made fully known to the ing Company, Dundee, 1825; the Dundee Union Bank, rest. All seek, and all find, a knowledge of the maDundee, 1825; the Dundee New Bank, Dundee, 1825; nagement of each other. All are mutually on the the Glasgow Bank Company, Glasgow, 1825; the watch; and symptoms of over-issues or other improGreenock Bank, Greenock, 1825; the Leith Bank, prieties are spread with an amazing celerity, and have Leith, 1825; the Paisley Bank, Paisley, 1825; the their immediate effect with the public. Perth Banking Company, Perth, 1825; the Renfrewshire Banking Company, Greenock, 1825; the Paisley Union Bank, Paisley, 1809; the Aberdeen Town and County Bank, Aberdeen, 1825; the Arbroath Bank, Arbroath, 1825; the Dundee Commercial Bank, Dundee, 1825; the Glasgow Union Banking Company, Glasgow, 1830; the Ayrshire Banking Company, Ayr, 1831; the Western Bank of Scotland, Glasgow, 1832; the Central Bank of Scotland, Perth, 1834; the North of Scotland Banking Company, Aberdeen, 1836; the Clydesdale Banking Company, Glasgow, 1837; the Southern Bank of Scotland, Dumfries, 1837; the Eastern Bank of Scotland, Dundee, 1838; Edinburgh and Leith Bank, Edinburgh, 1838; being twenty-nine in all. Of the above list, several have been dissolved, or united with others, so that the number of Banks in Scotland empowered to issue notes by the law of 1844 is now only nineteen.

The business done by the Scottish banking-houses is prodigiously increased by the institution of their branches in the provincial and country towns. From those banks already noticed, which are situated in Edinburgh, and from two or three of the chief provincial banks, there were altogether deputed, not long since, about 360 branches, and this number is undergoing a regular increase. These subsidiary establishments are to be found in every town of any note, from the Borders to the most northern point of Scotland. They are conducted by resident wealthy or responsible merchants and others, who give securities for intromissions, and are subjected to a very rigorous supervision by inspectors, who are continually travelling about for this purpose.

In comparing Scottish banking institutions with those in England, and considering the different manner in which paper money has been employed by the two nations, the uniform security of the former appears almost miraculous. From the first issue of the banknotes in 1704, till the year 1830, a single panic or general run did not occur in Scotland, although, during at least two-thirds of the intervening period, paper money had been used to the almost total exclusion of a gold currency. Partial and very temporary runs have assuredly been felt, from the effects of short-lived slander or mistaken notions, which have invariably been readily quashed; but in the course of a hundred and twentysix years, there have only been two or three cases of banks failing to pay 20s. a pound (they paid 10s.), and four in which, after a short suspension of payments, all demands were liquidated. Their failure or stoppage, with the exceptions we mention, did not put the public to any loss; but this was to the injury of the shareholders, many of whom were reduced from affluence to poverty.

The peculiar character of Scottish banking was much infringed upon by an act of parliament passed in the year 1844, which limits the number of banks issuing notes to the number then existing; and obliges every bank of issue to keep a stock of sovereigns, according to a prescribed standard, which may be said to be at the rate of one sovereign for every two pound-notes issued. About a million of sovereigns thus lie locked up in the Scottish banks, for they are not seen in the circulation of Scotland. The loss of interest incurred by this arrangement amounts to about £50,000 annually. So serious a deduction from the profits of banking has had the effect of greatly limiting the extension of cash accounts and other accommodations. The number of the banks empowered to issue notes by this act is 19; their branches, 363; their capital, £11,240,000; and their authorised circulation, £3,088,209.

The prudent and enterprising manner in which the business of banking is conducted in Scotland, has often been the subject of remark and commendation. Several reasons may be assigned for the remarkable stability of the Scotch banks. Each bank, before gaining credit with its neighbours, must show that it possesses a suffi- The common practice of making deposits of small cient paid-up capital, with a reserve fund in London, sums in the banks, has further assisted in giving on which orders for balances may be given. It is also strength to the institutions. Each bank receives deposits the custom of the banks to exchange the notes of each of any sum above £10, for which a regular interest is other once or twice a week, by which means the notes given; and on this account the banks may be said to are sent very speedily back to the issuers, and thus an be the custodiers and traders upon all the spare capital over-issue on the part of any single establishment is of the country. Besides employing capital in discountprevented. There can only be an over-issue by all the ing bills, lending money on heritable security, &c. the banks in the country becoming equally reckless-a Scottish banks grant loans of fluctuating amount, called thing not likely to occur to any serious extent. A third cash accounts. By a cash account is signified a procause of the stability of the institutions, is the liability cess, whereby an individual, on entering into an arof shareholders for the debts of the establishment. rangement with a bank, is entitled to draw out sums Excepting in the case of the three old-established banks as required, to a stipulated amount, and by an implied above specified, all the shareholders in the various condition, to make deposits at his convenience towards banks are liable not only for the amount of their own | the liquidation of the same.

Since 1729, cash credits have increased to an amazing extent. In 1826, it was computed that there were TEN THOUSAND in Scotland, varying in amount from £100 to £5000 each, but averaging from £200 to £500. Though originally designed for mercantile persons, they are now operated upon by farmers, manufacturers, house-builders, miners, lawyers, and all classes of traders and shopkeepers. During the last twenty years, it is extremely probable that, instead of decreas-stitutions may lodge funds to the amount of £100 in a ing, they have increased a thousand or two more.

POPULATION-POOR-LAWS-LIFE-ASSURANCE.

POPULATION.

THE rate at which human beings naturally increase, the proportion which this increase bears to the means which exist for their subsistence, and the laws which operate to bring the increase and the means of sub-industry, intelligence, and activity, with which these sistence into conformity, were subjects scarcely reflected on by our ancestors, but have been matter of keen discussion and controversy during the first thirty years of the present century.

As far as population was at all thought of in former times, the prevalent doctrine was, that the greater the numbers of a nation, the stronger was the state, and the more likely was that country to be a scene of both agricultural and commercial industry. So useful were numbers considered for increasing the means of subsistence, and also of national defence, that in many countries it was thought proper to make laws for encouraging matrimony, and to put bounties on all families exceeding a certain number. So lately as the time of Louis XIV., pensions were awarded in France to individuals who had ten or more children.

Dr Adam Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, was perhaps the first to suggest anything like a law as regulating the increase of population. He remarked that 'the demand for men, like that for any other commodity, necessarily regulates the production of men; quickens it when it goes on too slowly, and stops it when it advances too fast. It is this demand,' says he, which regulates and determines the state of population in all the different countries of the world-in North America, in Europe, and in China; which renders it rapidly progressive in the first, slow and gradual in the second, and altogether stationary in the last.'

VIEWS OF MR MALTHUS.

The preceding hint, for it can be regarded as little else, is said to have been what suggested the celebrated essay of Mr Malthus, which first appeared in 1798, but was almost reconstructed in a second edition in 1803. There was something so startling in the views of this writer, and at the same time so much plausibility in his arguments, distressing as they were to natural feelings, that his work attracted general attention, and many of the ablest thinkers and writers of the day became converts to its main doctrines.

In the second place, it is a fact equally notorious, that the actual increase of the funds for the maintenance of labour does not depend upon the mere physical capacity of any particular country to produce food and other necessaries, but upon the degree of settled powers are at any particular time called forth. We observe countries possessing every requisite for producing the necessaries and conveniences of life in abundance, sunk in a state of ignorance, indolence, and apathy, from the vices of their governments, or the unfortunate constitution of their society, and slumbering on for ages with scarcely any increase in the means of subsistence, till some fortunate event introduces a better order of things; and then the industry of the nation being roused and permitted to exert itself with more freedom, more abundant funds for the maintenance of labour are immediately provided, and population is observed to make a sudden start forwards, at a rate altogether different from that at which it had previously proceeded.

This seems to have been the case with many of the countries of Europe during some periods of their history; but is more particularly remarkable in Russia, the population of which, though very early inhabited, was so extremely low before the beginning of the last century, and has proceeded with such rapid steps since, particularly since the reign of Catherine II.

It is also a fact that has often attracted observation in a review of the history of different nations, that the waste of people occasioned by the great plagues, famines, and other devastations to which the human race has been occasionally subject, has been repaired in a much shorter time than it would have been if the population, after these devastations, had only proceeded at the same rate as before. From which it is apparent, that after the void thus occasioned, it must have increased much faster than usual; and the greater abundance of the funds for the maintenance of labour, which would be left to the survivors under such circumstances, indicates again the usual conjunction of a rapid increase of population with a rapid increase of the funds for its maintenance. In England, just after the great pestilence in the time of Edward III., a day's labour would purchase a bushel of wheat; while, immediately before, it would hardly have purchased a peck.

With regard to the minor variations in the different countries of Europe, it is an old and familiar observation, that wherever any new channels of industry and new sources of wealth are opened, so as to provide the means of supporting an additional number of labourers, there, almost immediately, a stimulus is given to the population; and it proceeds for a time with a vigour and celerity proportionate to the greatness and duration of the funds on which alone it can subsist.'

An abridgment of Mr Malthus's views, given in the Edinburgh Review' for August 1810, sets out by showing that the rate of population is by no means the same in all parts of the world.' The variations in the rate are universally preceded and accompanied by variations in the means of maintaining labourers. 'Where these funds are rapidly increasing, as in North America, the demand for an increasing number of labourers makes it easy to provide an ample subsistence for each; and the population of the country is observed to make rapid From these and other premises, Mr Malthus laid it advances. When these funds increase only at a moderate down as a proved fact, that population tends to increase rate, as in most of the countries of Europe, then the at the rate of a doubling every twenty-five years. He demand for labourers is moderate; the command of the at the same time endeavoured to show that, as man labourer over the means of subsistence is consequently begins to use the best lands first, or in other words, much diminished; and the population is observed to those of which he can reap the fruits with least labour, proceed at a moderate pace, varying in each country, and then has to go to worse and worse, it becomes always as nearly as may be, according to the variations in the more and more difficult to obtain the means of subsistfunds for its support. Where these funds are station-ence for increasing numbers. He concluded that, at the ary, as we are taught to believe is the case in China, and as has certainly been the case in Spain, Italy, and probably most of the countries of Europe during certain periods of their history, there the demand for labour being stationary, the command of the labourer over the means of subsistence is comparatively very scanty, and population is observed to make no perceptible progress, and sometimes to be even diminished.

No. 83.

utmost, the means of subsistence would be found, at the end of each successive quarter of a century, to have increased only at the rate of double for the first, triple for the second, quadruple for the third, and so on. Thus (said he) while population would go on increasing in a geometrical ratio-that is, as 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, &c.-food would increase only in an arithmetical ratiothat is, as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, &c.-and the consequence

513

of an unchecked increase of the one, with the utmost | try without peculiar advantages of situation, or pecupossible increase of the other, would be, that when the liar capability of increase, the registers indicate a compopulation of the globe had advanced to 500,000 mil-paratively small mortality, and the prevalence of the lions, there would be food for 10,000 millions only, or check from prudential habits above that from premabut a fiftieth part of the number! ture mortality, there we as constantly find security of property established, and some degree of intelligence and knowledge, with a taste for cleanliness and domestic comforts, pretty generally diffused.

Considering, then, that there is a power and a tendency in human beings to increase so rapidly, and that, in point of fact, it is only in a few favoured spots that they do increase at such a rate, Mr Malthus concluded that there must be some counteracting agencies, or checks, in constant operation, in almost all communities, to restrain population at a lower rate of increase, or keep it stationary. In looking about to discover these checks, he satisfied himself that they were of two orders: first, there was the mortality produced by the effects of deficient food and of wicked passions; these he called positive checks: then there was the check produced by a prudent forethought in human beings, leading them to avoid marriage, on account of the little prospect of being able to rear a family in comfort; this he called the preventive check.

Arriving at this point, Mr Malthus and his followers proceeded to show how their doctrines were applicable for the benefit of communities. It was held that there could be no choice between the two kinds of checks: it was clearly preferable that population should be restrained by the preventive check. It is observed,' says the Review already quoted, in most countries, that in years of scarcity and dearness the marriages are fewer than usual: and if, under all the great variations to which the increase of the means of subsistence is necessarily exposed from a variety of causes -from a plenty or scarcity of land, from a good or a bad government, from the general prevalence of intelligence and industry or of ignorance and indolence, from the opening of new channels of commerce or the closing of old ones, &c. &c.—the population were proportioned to the actual means of subsistence, more by the prudence of the labouring classes in delaying marriage, than by the misery which produces premature mortality among their children, it can hardly be doubted that the happiness of the mass of mankind would be decidedly improved.

Nor does experience seem to justify the fears of those who think that one vice at least will increase in proportion to the increase of the preventive check to population. Norway, Switzerland, England, and Scotland, which are most distinguished for the smallness of their mortality, and the operation of the prudential restraint on marriage, may be compared to advantage with other countries, not only with regard to the general moral worth and respectability of their inhabitants, but with regard to the virtues which relate to the intercourse of the sexes. We cannot,' as Mr Malthus justly observes, estimate with tolerable accuracy the degree in which chastity in the single state prevails: our general conclusions must be founded on general results; and these are clearly in our favour.

We appear, therefore, to be all along borne out by experience and observation, both in our premises and conclusions. From what we see and know, indeed, we cannot rationally expect that the passions of man will ever be so completely subjected to his reason, as to enable him to avoid all the moral and physical evils which depend upon his own conduct. But this is merely saying that perfect virtue is not to be expected on earth, an assertion by no means new, or peculiarly applicable to the present discussion. The differences observable in different nations, in the pressure of the evils resulting from the tendency of the human race to increase faster than the means of subsistence, entitle us fairly to conclude, that those which are in the best state are still susceptible of considerable improvement, and that the worst may at least be made equal to the best. This is surely sufficient both to animate and to direct our exertions in the cause of human happiness; and the direction which our efforts will receive, from thus turning our attention to the laws that relate to the increase and decrease of mankind, and seeing their effects exemplified in the state of the different nations around us, will not be into any new and suspicious path, but into the plain beaten track of morality. It will be our duty to exert ourselves to procure the establishment of just and equal laws, which protect and give respecta

It is further certain, that, under a given increase of the funds for the maintenance of labour, it is physically impossible to give to each labourer a larger share of these funds, or materially to improve his condition, without some increase of the preventive check; and consequently that all efforts to improve the condition of the poor, that have no tendency to produce a more favour-bility to the lowest subject, and secure to each member able proportion between the means of subsistence and the population which is to consume them, can only be partial or temporary, and however plausibly humane, must ultimately defeat their own object.

of the community the fruits of his industry; to extend the benefits of education as widely as possible, that to the long list of errors from passion, may not be added the still longer list of errors from ignorance; and, in general, to discourage indolence, improvidence, and a blind indulgence of appetite without regard to consequences; and to encourage industry, prudence, and the subjection of the passions to the dictates of reason. The only change, if change it can be called, which the study of the laws of population can make in our duties, is, that it will lead us to apply, more steadily than we have hitherto done, the great rules of morality to the case of marriage, and the direction of our charity; but the rules themselves, and the foundations on which they rest, of course remain exactly where they were before.

It follows, therefore, as a natural and necessary conclusion, that in order to improve the condition of the lower classes of society, to make them suffer less under any diminution of the funds for the maintenance of labour, and enjoy more under any actual state of these funds, it should be the great business to discourage helpless and improvident habits, and to raise them as much as possible to the condition of beings who "look before and after." The causes which principally tend to foster helpless, indolent, and improvident habits among the lower classes of society, seem to be despotism and ignorance, and every plan of conduct towards This must be considered as the mildest possible exthem which increases their dependence and weakens position of the application of Mr Malthus's doctrines; the motives to personal exertion. The causes, again, his theory almost necessarily led to some other pracwhich principally tend to promote habits of industry tical inferences, of a kind to which it is not so easy for and prudence, seem to be good government and good a humane mind to assent. It came to be held, for ineducation, and every circumstance which tends to in-stance, that where the preventive check had not opecrease their independence and respectability. Where- rated, it was quite legitimate to allow the positive to ever the registers of a country, under no particular come into operation. A human being, who had come disadvantages of situation, indicate a great mortality, into existence undemanded by the state of the funds and the general prevalence of the check arising from for subsistence, was to be told that the places at Nature's disease and death over the check arising from pru- table were all occupied, and there was no cover for him, dential habits, there we almost invariably find the To the man who married when there was a redundancy people debased by oppression and sunk in ignorance of population, all parish assistance,' said Mr Malthus, and indolence. Wherever, on the contrary, in a coun- should be most rigidly denied; and if the hand of