was founded in 1763, and had become before its amalgamation, eight
or nine years since, a bank of considerable deposits. But for
twenty-five years from its foundation it had no deposits at all. It
subsisted mostly on its note issue, and a little on its remittance
business. Only in 1792, after nearly thirty years, it began to gain
deposits, but from that time they augmented very rapidly. The
banking history of England has been the same, though we have no
country bank accounts in detail which go back so far. But probably
up to 1830 in England, or thereabouts, the main profit of banks was
derived from the circulation, and for many years after that the
deposits were treated as very minor matters, and the whole of
so-called banking discussion turned on questions of circulation. We
are still living in the debris of that controversy, for, as I have
so often said, people can hardly think of the structure of Lombard
Street, except with reference to the paper currency and to the Act
of 1844, which regulates it now. The French are still in the same
epoch of the subject. The great enquete of 1865 is almost wholly
taken up with currency matters, and mere banking is treated as
subordinate. And the accounts of the Bank of France show why. The
last weekly statement before the German war showed that the
circulation of the Bank of France was as much as 59,244,000 L., and
that the private deposits were only 17,127,000 L. Now the private
deposits are about the same, and the circulation is 112,000,000 L.
So difficult is it in even a great country like France for the
deposit system of banking to take root, and establish itself with
the strength and vigour that it has in England.

The experience of Germany is the same. The accounts preceding the
war in North Germany showed the circulation of the issuing banks to
be 39,875,000 L., and the deposits to be 6,472,000 L. while the