Page:International Library of Technology, Volume 89.djvu/22

§1 No interference with Scotch banking took place until 1845, when Sir Robert Peel determined to regulate the banks of Scotland and Ireland as well as the Bank of England. The principal provisions of the act introduced at this time fixed a limit to the issue of notes by the Scotland banks to an amount equal to the coin held by them above their authorized issue. It is said that the Scotch system of banks of issue comes nearer to the ideal of successful free banking than that of any other country. Conant, in his "History of Modern Banks of Issue," states that absolute freedom in note issues existed for over 100 years in Scotland, and during 80 years of that period general distrust of the banking system never occurred. Small notes became the every-day medium of exchange among the people and the banks absorbed almost the entire savings of rich and poor and brought within the circle of active producing capital the entire accumulations of the country.

8. As early as 1695, an effort was made by the principal merchants of Dublin to establish a joint-stock bank. The movement was doubtless due to the formation of the Bank of England the year previous. A petition was presented to the Irish House of Commons, but no action appears to have been taken. The matter was again agitated in 1720, and although the king authorized the lord lieutenant to grant the necessary charter, the matter seems to have advanced no further than consideration by the House of Commons. In 1782, another effort was made which proved successful, and the Bank of Ireland opened for business in June, 1783. It was known as The Governor and Company of the Bank of Ireland and was granted a charter until January 1, 1794. The capital of the bank was fixed at £600,000, and if it made loans over and above its capital, the subscribers to the said capital were personally liable for the excess amount. The bank enjoyed practically a monopoly of the issue of notes, a clause in its charter forbidding the issue of notes by a body consisting of more than six persons. Some years later, however, this clause was modified, with the result that other banks were established.