§ On the third reading of the Bank Token Bill,
§ Earl Stanhopemade several observation on the scarcity of gold, and suggested a remedy for the inconveniencies arising from the want of a legal tender, stated in the following Letter from his lordship to the Lord Chancellor, which the noble earl read as part of his speech:—
No. 49 Berner's-st. June 22, 1811."My Lord; agreeably to your lordship's desire, I have the honour to communicate the outline of my plan, in a few words; knowing that you will like that better than my doing it, at an unnecessary length. The subject is of the first importance." The want of Gold prevents bankers and others, who may have large payments to make, from making any legal tender.
"Bank notes cannot, by act of parliament, be made a legal tender, without the most manifest injustice; for a man who might be perfectly willing to accept a bank note for a debt due to him, may very fairly object to any individual note (especially if a worn note) from the impossibility of his being certain that it is not a forged one.
"My grand object, though not the only one, is, to establish a mode of making payments, which shall enable parliament, when they shall think fit, to enact a new species of legal tender.
"First, I propose that the bank of Eng-land shall, as is the case in Scotland, have many branches, in various parts of the country and of the metropolis.
"Secondly, That the bank shall cause books to be opened in all those places.
"Thirdly, That persons, possessed of bank notes, shall be intitled upon depositing such notes, to have a credit in the bank book, at the place where such deposit is made, equal to the value of the said notes.
741 "Fourthly, That every person having such credit, so entered to his account, in any one place, as aforesaid, shall be entitled to transfer the whole of such sum, or any part thereof, to his own account, or to that of any other person, at any place, where any such bank book is kept.
"Fifthly, As, under proper management such entries and transfers cannot ever be forged; there would be no injustice, if such a transfer were, by law, to be made a legal tender.
"The rapidity of such transfers with out any danger of loss, from the mail being robbed, or from insurrections, or other consequences of an invasion, must be felt by your lordship as a great additional recommendation of this plan. I have the honour to be with great respect, my lord, &c STANHOPE."
The Duke of Norfolkthought that the three shilling tokens being so near in value to half crowns would be scarcely distinguishable from them, and that some confusion would thence arise.
§ Earl Bathurststated, that these tokens were rendered wholly different in their appearance from half crowns, and might be easily distinguished from them.
§ The Bill was read a third time and passed.