It is the right of the people to complain. It is the business of the statesman to devise remedies. It is no more reasonable to demand of the people that they shall define the correct remedies for their troubles, than it would be for a physician to demand of his patients that they shall dictate his prescriptions. Every real states¬man is a physician; and a professed statesman, who waits for his constituents to tell him precisely what remedies he shall apply to. social ills, is no better than a quack.

Somewhat of the same criticism applies to all who undertake to lead and to form public opinion or who sit in judgment upon a popular demand.

Nothing is more absurdly unjust or inappropriate than the haughty demand, frequently made by critics of a popular movement, that those who complain of anything alleged to be wrong in society or government should themselves frame a bill for its correction. This is not the duty of the injured classes. It is not possible for them to do it or safe for society that they should attempt it.

Let us apply these plain principles to the immensely important questions of currency and banking, which have at last forced themselves upon the attention of the American people, and which can no longer be evaded or postponed.

For more than a quarter of a century, there has been a constantly recurring demand from vast numbers of the people for "more money."

Sometimes it has been for the issue of greenbacks, sometimes for fiat money, sometimes for unlimited silver. In substance, it is always the same; and no sooner is it defeated in one form than it revives in another. It has been resisted by denunciation, by sarcasm, and by solid argument; yet it has survived them all, and has extorted from timid politicians three separate compromises, each tending to bring about the disaster which has finally befallen the country from a debased and doubted currency. A popular demand, so widespread and persistent, is not the mere insanity or fraud which many advocates of a sound currency imagine it to be. Neither fraud nor insanity can maintain itself so long. There must be, there is, some real and legitimate want, lying underneath anything showing so much vitality. What is it?

We may rest assured that what the people really need is not precisely that which they think they need. It is as improbable that they should see at once the true remedy for their troubles, as it is that a sick child should call for quinine or aconite, just when it ought to be administered. We should pay the closest attention to the people's complaints, but very little to the people's prescriptions.

Leaving out of account a few eccentric theorists in the cities, the complaints come exclusively from rural districts, and mainly from the South and Southwest. Do the farmers and planters really want money for its own sake? Not at all. They want it solely as a means of exchange, and as the only means of exchange with which they are acquainted. They have no conception of any other method of selling their crops than in one of two ways: first, by selling for "cash," by which they understand nothing but coin or bills; second, by trading their produce on credit at some country store. The vast majority are compelled to use the latter method, and to be content with a credit entered upon the store books, settled by the gradual delivery of store goods, at prices nominally agreed upon, but practically dictated by a combination of petty storekeepers. Of course, all such traffic is conducted at a great disadvantage to the farmer, who inevitably asks for credit at the store, and is thus obliged to accept goods at the merchant's prices, and to make payment in his own produce at the merchant's estimate. There may be some chaffering; but in the end, the farmer is forced to accept the best terms that he can get from one man, for that year. His only remedy, if he thinks himself unfairly treated, is to trade with another store the next year. It is needless to say that this vast class of producers are fully convinced that they would obtain far better prices for what they sell, and would pay much lower prices for what they buy, if they could be supplied with money, as a medium of exchange, instead of depending upon store-trading. The cry for relief from the entire agricultural class is thus practically unanimous; and in substance, though not in form, it is well founded. Yet what is it that they actually want? Not money, but the best medium of exchange.

Contrast the situation of these classes with that of business men in cities and large towns. "Cash" means in the town something entirely different from "cash" in the country. No wholesale dealer thinks of either paying or receiving any large amount in coin or paper money.

"Cash," to his mind, means a bank check. So thoroughly accustomed is he to this method, that it hardly occurs to him that there is any difference between the two methods; and yet the difference is really tremendous. He gets every conceivable advantage attending cash transactions, without inconveniencing anybody or putting any strain upon the finances of the country. The wish of the farmer and planter cannot be literally complied with, except at the cost of a general financial convulsion. Indeed, it cannot be complied with at all. If we could draw every ounce of gold and silver from every country under heaven, and distribute it at harvest time among the farmers of this country, it would not suffice to carry through their transactions upon a strictly "cash" basis.

Shall we then issue fiat money for the same purpose? It is only just to the Farmers' Alliance to say that its brightest men have fully recognized the fact that a permanent issue of so much nominal money would utterly destroy its value, and therefore that the remedy would be worse than the disease. It is precisely for this reason that they advocated the "sub-treasury" system, under which about seven billion dollars in paper were to be issued in September and rapidly called in after October. But we need spend no time in demonstrating that this plan would lead to precisely the same ruin that it is designed to avoid. Once more we ask: "What does the farmer really want?" And once more we answer: "Not money, but the best means of exchange." And what are the best means of exchange? Clearly, sound, safe banks of deposit, brought as close to his door as the country store or warehouse, which now furnishes to him his only medium of exchange, expensive, clumsy and dangerous.

What is a bank? The conception which prevailed almost universally throughout the United States, until a very recent period, was that a bank meant neither more nor less than a note-manufacturing machine. Its great office was to turn out as many bank-notes as possible, for use as money, passing from hand to hand; and all other services which it might render were considered as mere incidents of this. The widespread ruin, which was wrought by these note-manu¬facturing banks in the West and South, gave rise to a well-founded dislike of such banks and to an ill-founded prejudice against banks generally. This prejudice was intensified in many sections of our country by the practical working of the national banking law, which was used for several years chiefly as a note-issuing machine. Al¬though these notes were all punctually redeemed, yet their issue gave to the banks a very large and unjustifiable profit; and, the number of such banks being for years strictly limited, they possessed a monopoly. The monopoly has entirely passed away; and the profits on note circulation have been reduced to an extremely small figure; but the prejudice remains nevertheless.

A genuine bank, however, is not a note-issuing machine at all. Its business can be connected with issues of bank-notes; but a true banking business consists in receiving deposits, paying checks and making discounts. Of such banks, provided they are well conducted, there cannot be too many. The true nature of such banks was, so far as now appears, first fully explained by Professor Bonamy Price, in 1869, and by Mr. Edward Atkinson, in 1880. The proper office of a bank is to furnish, without the use of money, facilities by which goods of all kinds may be exchanged, between the most distant parts of the country. Not merely is it not true that a bank is a mere institution for dealing in money, it is, on the contrary, true that a bank conducted upon sound principles has for its object the reduction of the use of money to the lowest possible point. It is no more the proper business of a real bank to supply money or to extend the use of money, than it is the business of a steam engine to run its governor, or of a watch to run its balance wheel. The coin held by a genuine bank is kept as a balance wheel; or, to adopt another figure, it is the ballast in a ship, indispensable to steady the ship, but the last thing for the sake of which a ship is built or sailed.

By the use of bank checks, money can be dispensed with to an enormous extent. All wholesale dealers understand this, and carry on their business almost exclusively by means of checks. It is universally admitted that much more than 90 per cent of all wholesale transactions are conducted in this manner. From this fact, the inference has been drawn that 90 per cent of the entire business of the country is thus conducted without the use of actual money. But this is vehemently denied, not only by the representatives of farmers and planters, but also by some scientific men, of whom Professor F. A. Walker may be taken as a type. He asserts that substantially all retail transactions are conducted by the use of literal money, and that these constitute a more important share of real traffic than wholesale transactions do. It is said that the conduct of business, without the actual use of money, is confined to the cities and larger towns, while in the smaller towns and in all villages and rural districts all purchases are and must always be paid for in literal money. In confirmation of this view, it is correctly pointed out that few villages or small towns have banks of any kind whatever, and that a vast majority of the people have no dealings with banks, other than savings banks.

What are the facts? Speaking with great deference to the judgment of others, and subject to correction, but, as the result of much inquiry and impartial investigation, it seems an almost indisputable fact that the bulk of transactions in the rural districts, especially in the South and Southwest, are carried on with even less use of money than is usual in the great cities of the North and East.

In the cities and large towns, it is quite true that most retail transactions are settled by the use of actual money. But in strictly agricultural districts and mining regions, which together cover nine-tenths of the area of the United States, it seems to be universally conceded that very few transactions of any kind, whether wholesale or retail, are settled by immediate cash payments. Everybody keeps an account at the country store; and everything is done upon credit.

Generally speaking, a farmer or planter opens a credit at the nearest store, upon the faith of which he draws, not money, but ploughs, tools, seed, provisions, clothing, and everything which he needs. Against this, he deposits no money but, when his crop is gathered, he delivers the crop itself to the storekeeper, or sells it to some travelling agent, who pays its price to the storekeeper. In this manner, it is believed, nine-tenths of the small farmers conduct their business; and their retail transactions, quite as much as their wholesale trans¬actions, are conducted upon book accounts, without the use of money. Even farm laborers, it is said, receive by far the greater part of their wages in the same way. The farmer advances to them the things which they want, which he in turn obtains from the store¬keeper; or else the farmer guarantees an account, which the laborer keeps at the store. In one way or other, the entire business of the agricultural districts, we are assured, centres in the country stores, and is conducted with less literal money than the business of cities and towns.

That this must be so, would seem to follow inevitably from the well-known fact that the great bulk of money is always to be found in the cities and towns, and from the never-ending complaints of the lack of money in all agricultural districts. Farmers would not complain so bitterly of the absence of money, if there were in circula¬tion among them an amount at all corresponding with that which is in circulation in the cities. The proof seems conclusive that in reality a smaller proportion of business is done upon a cash basis in the country than in the cities. If the facts are as here stated, does it not follow that nine-tenths of all our commercial transactions, whether in city or country, are conducted through banking operations? Are not the small farmers of the South and West actually more dependent upon bankers than even the merchants of the East? True, the storekeepers of the rural districts are not called bankers; but names do not change the nature of things. Their business is as truly a banking business as is the business of any national bank on Wall Street. But their methods are clumsy and inconvenient, and their charges are enormous. They maintain a permanent suspension of specie payment, and properly enough, because they never receive actual money on deposit, and therefore never ought to be asked for it. They unite the business of banking with the business of merchandizing, and they do not perform either function well or cheaply.

Inquiry among gentlemen familiar with such matters in the South leads to the conclusion that the charge of the country storekeeper for the banking accommodation which he thus furnishes is never less than 15 per cent, in addition to the ordinary rate of profit upon his goods. Indeed, every resident of Southern agricultural districts puts the figure much higher. Let us, however, leave it at this low rate. Does it not follow that the Southern and Western fanners lose at the very least 15 per cent of their whole earnings, simply for want of good, sound banks in their communities, doing a strict banking business, and thus enabling the farmers to buy and sell for cash, wherever they can do so to the best advantage? Incidentally, it may be noted that these facts explain the general clamor against middlemen, which is so common in the West. The middlemen, with whom farmers directly deal, make an enormous nominal profit on each transaction; and the farmers naturally suppose that the much more wealthy middlemen of the Eastern cities do likewise. As a matter of fact, this is not at all the case, and Eastern merchants make far larger aggregate profits out of a commission of from two to five per cent than any country storekeeper can ever make out of commissions of 15, 25 or 30 per cent. The small middleman has to conduct business on such an unsafe basis, that he is not so well off in the end as he would be under a system of small profits, quick returns and absolute security. The whole system is vicious, expensive, and disastrous, alike to the farmers and to the storekeepers.

Do not these facts at once account for the farmers' complaints and indicate the true remedy? Is not the only real relief to be found in the extension, to every town and village in the land, of safe and sound banking agencies, with which farmers can do business on precisely the same terms as New York merchants? Every farmer should learn to use bank checks, instead of bank notes, precisely as merchants and manufacturers use them. These checks should pass through central clearing-houses, precisely as they do in New York, Boston and Philadelphia. The use of actual moneys in coin or paper, should be reduced to as narrow limits in the country as in the cities. Farmers and planters should be made to understand that their prejudices against banks are founded upon an entire miscon¬ception of the office and purpose of banks, and that, so far from seeking to reduce the number of banks, they should insist upon an enormous extension of genuine banking facilities, as more valuable to them than all the "money" of all the world.

Nor is it only farmers who need to learn this lesson. Even city dwellers have not made one-fourth of the use of banks, which ought to be made and speedily must be made. All payments of $5 and over ought to be made in checks. Every man, able to keep $50 ahead of the world, ought to open an account in his wife's name, and let her pay for her purchases in her own checks. The banks do not enjoy such business; many of the best banks refuse it; but they must accept and encourage it, as a duty to their country and the best ultimate protection for themselves.

These opinions, although now first published, were privately expressed long ago to some of our leading statesmen. Since that time, the irresistible forces of natural law have not only illustrated and confirmed them, but have driven many banks and business men into acting upon them. The payment of small debts in certified checks is precisely what the writer urged upon both statesmen and bankers, before the panic of 1893, not as a mere temporary expedient under panic, but as a permanent relief to our overstrained currency. It should not merely be adopted during a period of pressure and stringency; it should be made universal and perpetual.

Nature is driving us forward to this policy, not merely by the brief stringency of 1893, but by the whole recent course of money. The failure of bimetallism is not produced by artificial causes or combinations. The substitution of gold for a mixed currency is a mighty advance of that oceanic tide, which is compelling us, whether we will or no, to adopt the modern methods of advanced civilization, of which the use of banks, instead of coin or notes, is one of the most important and beneficial.

If bimetallism were possible, and if we could keep in circulation, side by side, all the gold and silver which America can produce, allowing none of it to flow abroad, we should be just as far from giving relief to our farmers and planters as we are now. We are putting upon precious metals two inconsistent tasks — the maintenance of a standard and the furnishing of an adequate medium of exchange. Whether we want to do so or not, we shall be absolutely driven to give up this hopeless struggle against an evolutionary force, as resistless as the flow of the Amazon. Gold will in a very short time be kept in bank vaults as a standard and security only. Indeed, that has practically come to pass already. But the only coin or notes in circulation should be of small denomi¬nations, subsidiary to checks, and never used for any payment exceeding, at the utmost, $10. Certified checks must be accepted for railroad and steamboat fares, for store purchases and for all purposes, except where the most trifling sums are involved. Then, with this system brought home to the door of every farmer, at least as near as a telegraph station, the currency problem will be solved forever.

Here we turn aside, to meet an anticipated objection, which may proceed from one holding the soundest general views upon currency. It will be said: "What is the difference between the issue of bank checks and bank notes, if checks are to be used on such a large scale and for small payments? Will not such a use of checks drive gold out of the country, and lead eventually to a suspension of specie payments, as effectually as would a similar issue of bank-notes?" No: it would not. The vice of the note-system is that notes are intended to remain in circulation for a long time, and would not be issued if it were believed that they would have to be redeemed the next day; and therefore they are either issued in such small quantities as to be insufficient for all the needs of exchange, or else in such large quantities as to lead to a practical suspension of specie pay¬ments, to inflate prices, drive out gold and bring about all the ruin which, sooner or later, invariably follows an irredeemable currency. Bank-checks, on the contrary, are not only theoretically redeemable promptly, but must be in point of law, and are in point of fact, presented and redeemed, without more than twenty-four hours' unneces¬sary delay. The holder of a bank-check is bound to put it in course of collection forthwith, under penalty of losing all claim against the person who gave it to him in case the bank should fail, and of losing all claim against the bank, in case the signer of the check should countermand it. Ninety-nine per cent of all checks, therefore, are presented to the bank for redemption, within two days after they are received by the payee. So long as this continues to be the law and the practice, any inflation of the currency by means of checks is impossible. Of course, this wholesome law must not be relaxed.

Certified checks would remain good against the bank; but the drawer would be released, if the bank failed. Such checks would, therefore, keep in circulation just long enough to suit the convenience of people living in solitary hamlets or isolated farms; but experience proves that they would not remain out many days. They could never be kept floating for so long a time as to produce, like bank-notes, any dangerous inflation of the currency.

The danger of forgery has been suggested. But the banks would simply have to prepare their own engraved checks, numbered upon a system of their own, instead of leaving each customer to prepare and number his own checks. The British banks do this already, and the advantages of the system are obvious. Certification would be made by a finely engraved stamp, forgery of which would be as expensive as the forgery of a bank-note. Our banks ought to do all this now, without waiting to be driven to it by further pressure.

If, then, this universal use of banks is the proper solution of the currency question, why is it not at once adopted? Partly for want of affirmatively good legislation, but still more because of bad legislation maintained by ignorance of economic laws. As the success of the whole plan depends upon making banks of deposit perfectly secure, provision should be made for more thorough inspection and greater publicity of bank management. Is it impossible to devise some method by which bank deposits shall be made as safe as national bank-notes? When this is done, the people will accept certi¬fied checks all over the country with as much confidence as they now accept bank-notes. We need not, however, wait for this, because the credit given to a check is at most a matter of a few days.

Par more serious is the question of taxation. So long as the mania for taxing all personal property is allowed to control, it will be impossible to maintain a sufficient number of sound and safe banks in the rural districts. With money worth only four per cent on perfectly safe securities, small country banks cannot pay taxes of any kind, without investing in securities which pay a higher rate of interest, and which, therefore, are not perfectly safe. Is not the very climax of absurdity reached, when the Farmers' Alliance demands in one breath the loan of money to them at two per cent and the taxation of the same money at two and a half per cent? But it is only a little less absurd to tax any necessary medium of exchange, whether money or banks. The profit upon a simple deposit and discount business is so small, and the expenses of a little country bank so heavy in proportion to such profits, that such a bank if prudently conducted cannot live under taxation. It is true that multitudes of small "banking concerns" do exist in places where they are taxed upon capital and even on cash on hand; but few of them are prudently conducted, and they are all ingenious in evading taxation.

Unfortunately the constitutions of so many States insist upon the taxation of all kinds of property that it would be hopeless to attempt a solution of the problem through the action of separate States. Con¬gress can be convinced of the necessities of the situation, with one-tenth of the effort required to convince the Legislatures of forty-four different States. If Congress cannot be persuaded no Legislature can be, and the country must be left to flounder in hopeless embar¬rassment and perpetual conflict. The only possible solution of the great currency problem must be found in the wide extension of small national banks or branches of such banks, authorized by Congress and exempted by it from all taxation.

While many of the advantages here contemplated might be secured by a great multiplication of small national banks, the whole system would be made vastly more sound and safe by permitting large banks to establish branches within their respective States. Little, isolated banks are relatively too expensive in administration to be quite safe; and they have none of the advantages which flow from knowledge of the intended movements of the larger institutions, the policy of which must necessarily have an immense influence upon them. Each little branch would have all the benefit of wide knowledge of affairs possessed by the central bank; its credit would always be as good as that of the parent institution; its management would be subject to supervision and wise control; its affairs would be constantly inspected by some one outside of its direct management, yet entirely friendly and anxious for its success; and its capital, usually small, could be increased to almost any extent at an hour's notice by calling upon the head office. Such branch banks, therefore, would command that local confidence which is essential to success, in far greater measure than could a purely local bank, since they would have all the merits of such local banks with the added credit attaching to the central bank. In short, the farmers and small dealers of every village could have all the facilities and all the security now given to the richest merchants in the largest cities.

The practicability and sufficiency of the remedy here proposed have been amply demonstrated by experience. Scotland has only-twelve banks, with more than 2,000 branches extending to every village and receiving deposits from the poor as well as from all other classes, just as our savings banks do. The results give universal satisfaction. There is no currency problem in Scotland; there have been only three or four bank failures in a century; and all the creditors in each case were paid in full. Every Scotchman is proud of his country's banks and attributes to them much of his country's prosperity. The amount of bank-notes in circulation is small and is not allowed to increase; but the smallest producer sells his produce for cash, at the highest market price, payable in bank checks, and buys what he needs at the lowest market price, payable in the same way.

The same thing is done in many parts of the United States; and, wherever this is the case, none but philosophers, outside of the silver mining States, ever took much interest in the controversy over bimetallism, until attention to it was forced by impending disaster. The wide extension of a similar banking system is the one thing indispensable to those sections of our country in which the want of currency is a subject of complaint. Is not this a sufficient remedy? Has any other practicable remedy ever been proposed? Can any other adequate remedy be proposed?