It is physically impossible to carry on the commerce of the civilized
world by the aid of a _purely_ metallic currency--no, not though our
gold and silver coins were every tenth year debased to a tenth! Why,
in London alone, five millions of money are daily exchanged at the
Clearing-house, in the course of a few hours. We should like to
see the attempt made to bring this infinity of transactions to a
settlement in coined money. Credit money, in some shape or other,
always has, and must have, performed the part of a circulating
medium to a very considerable extent. And (by one of those wonderful
compensatory processes which so frequently claim the admiration of
every investigator of civil, as well as of physical economy) there
is in the nature of credit an elasticity which causes it, when left
unshackled by law, to adapt itself to the necessities of commerce, and
the legitimate demands of the market. Well may the productive classes
exclaim to those who persist in legislating on the subject, and are
not content without determining who may, and who may not, give credit
to another, what kind of monied obligations shall, or shall not, be
allowed to circulate--that is, to be taken in exchange for goods at
the option of the parties--well might they exclaim, as the merchants
of Paris did to the minister of Louis, when he asked what his master
could do for them--"Laissez nous faire,"--"Leave us alone, to surround
ourselves with those precautions which experience will suggest and the
instinct of self-preservation put in execution."--_Ibid_.
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