Page:Principles of Political Economy Vol 2.djvu/234

214 creases the drain of the precious metals for exportation, which is a leading feature of this stage in the progress of a commercial crisis: the continuance of which drain at last endangering the power of the hanks to fulfil their engagement of paying their notes on demand, they are compelled to contract their credit more suddenly and severely than would have been necessary if they had been prevented from propping up speculation by increased advances, after the time when the recoil had become inevitable.

§ 3.To prevent this retardation of the recoil, and ultimate aggravation of its severity, is the object of the scheme for regulating the currency, of which Lord Overstone, Mr. Norman, and Colonel Torrens, were the first promulgators, and which has, in a slightly modified form, been enacted into law.

According to the scheme in its original purity, the issue of