we find it is the fault of new men with little money of their own,
created by bank 'discounts.' These men want business at once, and
they produce an inferior article to get it. They rely on cheapness,
and rely successfully.

But these defects and others in the democratic structure of commerce
are compensated by one great excellence. No country of great
hereditary trade, no European country at least, was ever so little
'sleepy,' to use the only fit word, as England; no other was ever so
prompt at once to seize new advantages. A country dependent mainly
on great 'merchant princes' will never be so prompt; their commerce
perpetually slips more and more into a commerce of routine. A man of
large wealth, however intelligent, always thinks, more or less 'I
have a great income, and I want to keep it. If things go on as they
are I shall certainly keep it; but if they change I may not keep
it.' Consequently he considers every change of circumstance a
'bore,' and thinks of such changes as little as he can. But a new
man, who has his way to make in the world, knows that such changes
are his opportunities; he is always on the look-out for them, and
always heeds them when he finds them. The rough and vulgar structure
of English commerce is the secret of its life; for it contains 'the
propensity to variation,' which, in the social as in the animal
kingdom, is the principle of progress.

In this constant and chronic borrowing, Lombard Street is the great
go-between. It is a sort of standing broker between quiet saving
districts of the country and the active employing districts. Why
particular trades settled in particular places it is often difficult
to say; but one thing is certain, that when a trade has settled in
any one spot, it is very difficult for another to oust it--impossible