SOUTHERN BANK CONVENTION. crop of cotton will begin to come to market in October, At a convention of the banks of Georgia and South Carolina, held at the hall of the Bank of Charleston, on of business, the money must be raised on the bills of Wednesday, the 23d May, Col. Blanding, chairman of the merchant, drawn against the cotton at sixty or the committee of fifteen, submitted the following re-ninety days. Before these come to maturity, the bank port and resolution : The committee to whom was referred to consider and report as to the proper time for the banks of Georgia and South Carolina to resume specie payment, respectfully report, notes paid for them will have gone into circalation, and have found their way back to the bank to draw out their specie. If they discount to meet the demands and wants of the community, their circulation in November and December will be larger than at any other season of the year. With such a circulation, it would be suicidal to resume. If they should be required to do so at this season of the year, the banks have but one must retain their present means, do nothing for the country during the summer, and when the cotton crop comes to market in the autumn, they must leave the merchants with what funds they can obtain elsewhere, to purchase it. Whatever pressure such a course may bring upon the community, the banks must adopt it, if they are required to resume in November. The price of our great staple must thus be most materially af fected, and great embarrassments must attend both the planter and the merchant. That in considering this question they have directed their enquiries exclusively to two points, viz. the ability of the banks to begin and sustain such pay. ments, and the effects on the community, which a re-alternative which can promise them safety. They sumption on any given day may produce. In looking to the causes of the suspension, it will be found that the exigencies of the community, rather than the inability of the banks, induced that measure. The performance of their legal duties on the part of the latter, depended so certainly on a corresponding performance on the part of the former, that the incapacity of the debtors of the banks to meet their engagements, deprived these institutions of the means of redeeming their circulation at the moment. In a short time they might have collected their funds so as to have fulfilled But by adopting a period as late as the 1st of Januall their obligations, but in doing this, they must have ary, a very different state of things will be produced. exacted with great rigour the payment of the debts The money paid to the planter for his crop, in the preowing them, and have granted no new accommoda- ceding three months, will in part have found its way tions, however urgent the call for them might have into the banks in payment of debts owing there, whilst been: So conscious was the great mass of the com- the bills of exchange and notes given to procure it will munity that the suspension was indispensably neces. have been paid or will be daily maturing, and put the sary to protect their best interests, that it received every banks in funds to make new advances, or to procure where the countenance and support of our citizens. It specie, should the demand for it exceed the supply on has now been borne one year, and it is proper to en- hand. Resumption in November will leave the planter quire, how much longer it should continue. As far as without a market-resumption in January will find the banks are concerned, your committee have no hesi-him with half his crop sold, his debts to a large amount tation in deciding, that no advantage to them, however great, ought to induce them to continue the suspension a moment after they possess the ability to resume, and that they ought to make any sacrifice to enable them to begin and sustain such resumption. An adequate and justifiable motive for a longer suspension cannot be found in any supposed profit which the banks may expect to derive from it; but if tolerated any longer, it must be on the plea of absolute public necessity, and from a due regard to the public good. paid, and the merchant prepared to purchase the other half at a fair price. Your committee cannot hesitate in deciding between the two periods. But it may be asked why not resume at once, or in July? It must be recollected that the bank convention which met in New York last month, have decided in favour of 1st January: and we would ask whether it would be prudent for the banks of Georgia and South Carolina to open their vaults for six months to replenish those of all the other banks of the Union except those of New York, while not a dollar can be Your committee have examined the condition of the several banks of the two states, as exhibited in the re-drawn in exchange from them. Should this course be turns furnished them, from which the subjoined ab insisted on, the consequence must be, that our banks stracts are formed: and they have no hesitation in say must restrain the circulation, curtail their discounts, ing, that if no other interests were involved in the and urge payments from their debtors when they are question than theirs, they ought to resume at once. If least able to pay. The planter can pay but once a they do so, they must sustain themselves in it; they year, and January suits him best. The mercantile must not risk a failure: and to enable them to take this part of the community are better able to meet their enhigh ground, there must be produced a heavy pressure gagements at all periods. But it must be recollected on the community. Solvent as all the banks are, were that the community has, in the late fire in Charleston, a general resumption to take place in the two states at received one of the severest shocks ever felt by the any time before our other crops shall have come to south. Its immediate violence has fallen on the city, market, and before the banks in the adjoining states which has been the scene of this awful calamity; but shall have resumed, there must be much pecuniary its effects are gradually but generally extending, and distress and embarrassment produced by the demands in some degree it must be felt by the whole commerfor payments and by withholding further accommoda.cial community of the south. In this state of things, tions, which this measure would compel the banks to adopt. They, therefore, are of opinion, that an immediate resumption is forbidden by a due regard to the public interests; and three other periods have been mentioned as likely to meet public expectation, and to be advantageous to the community, viz. 1st July, 1st November, and 1st January next: and your committee have no doubt that either the earliest or the latest of the days should be adopted. A more unpropitious period than November could not be selected. The next would it be prudent for the banks of South Carolina and Georgia, by anticipating the resumption by our neighbouring states, to deprive themselves of the power of granting to the sufferers indulgence on the debts they now owe, or of giving accommodations to save them from the pressure of this unexpected calamity? Your committee have, therefore, unanimously agreed to recommend to this convention the adoption of the following resolution : Resolved, That the banks represented in this con. Capital stock 50,847,325 Due canal fund 2,802,313 4,847,890 8,363,762 Due state treasurer 14,940,898 19,957,615 12,866,499 Due United States treasurer, 3,052,588 2,894,225 2,374,910 Deposites Due canal fund, "State treas. 2,152,950 4,143,389 8,444 77,055 77,619 Dividends unpaid 172,037 "U. S. treas. Due city banks Ind. depost's. 14,516,813 14,441,554 15,519,137 Due other banks 6,329,726 8,253,636 8,029,698 Profits, The above statements show a diminution of loans and discounts for the last month of $887,474; an increase of specie of $3,515,872; an increased circulation of $1,908,884: a decrease of canal fund deposites of $519,315; an increase of individual deposites of $1,077,583; an increase of the state treasurer's depo. site of $69,175; and of the U. S. deposites $94,982. Aggregate statement of the condition of the banks of the state of New York, on the 1st day of May, 1838, taken from their reports made to the bank commissioners pursuant to law. Profits RESOURCES. Deposites on interest, Deposites not on interest, Lehigh Coal, 90 50 50 THE PHILADELPHIA BANKS. The United States Gazette says-" We learn, from enquiry, that the bank committee which met on Wednesday evening, 6th June, had not received replies to the letters sent to institutions in other states sufficient to allow them to recommend any specific course with regard to the resumption of specie payments. Several banks have replied to the circular sent out, but suffi. cient time has not elapsed for all to have acted upon and responded to the circular." The Baltimore Patriot says-"We understand that a meeting of the executive officers of the banks of Baltimore was held on Monday evening, at which it was determined to ask the banks in the eastern, southern, and western states, to meet in convention, either in Baltimore or Philadelphia in the course of the ensuing month, for the purpose of fixing on an early day for a general resumption of specie payments." June 16. 50 shares U. S. Bank, 123 485 200 46 Del. and Hudson Canal, 95 175 Mohawk Railroad, 50 59 200 66 N. J. Railroad & T. Co. Boston & Worcester R. R., 100 Stonington Railroad, Long Island Railroad, 581 6,000,000 Harlem Railroad, The present number completes the first volume of the Register. The second volume, as announced in our last, will commence on the 4th of July, from which day it will be published weekly at $5 per annum, instead of semi-monthly at $3 per annum. For an account of some of the proposed contents of the second volume, the reader is referred to the last number. The second volume will be sent to all subscribers who do not order a discontinuance. New subscribers can be supplied to a limited number with the first volume. The following is an extract from a letter from a member of congress to the publishers, dated Washington, June 8th, 1838. "The Financial Register,' after the adjournment of congress may be addressed to me, at —. “I am much gratified to see that this periodical, one that should be in the hands of every politician, is to be continued, and published weekly. It would be valuable to every man, who, either in the national or state governments belongs to the public councils, executive or legislative, as it is devoted to financial affairs, so important to the foreign and domestic commerce of the country. "I shall take much pleasure in trying to extend its circulation. Could you not profitably embrace internal improvements ?" [We are much obliged to the writer of the foregoing, who is to us personally a stranger, for his voluntary offer to assist in the circulation of the Register, and in reply to his question, will state, that it is our design to devote the second volume chiefly to subjects which relate to the principles upon which banks ought to be established and conducted, and that having accomplished that task, future volumes will be largely devoted to the statistics of internal improvements.] INDEX TO VOL. I. Act, to postpone the fourth instalment of the public de- 325. Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, receipts of in September, Bank Deposites, considered as currency, by an Ex. Banks, summary statement of the condition of all the Bank Convention, proposed by the New York banks, Banks, new established at the Island of Jamaica, 156; Bank Failures, Lumberman's, 255; American, Com- Bank of England, liabilities and assets on 27th June, on 14th Nov. 235; on 12th Dec. 251; on 9th Jan. Bank of France, annual report to the stockholders on Bank of the United States, loans of, in July, 1833, No- Bank Notes of different states, depreciation of, at New Beef, price of at New York in November, 1837, 154. Biddle N., his five letters to Mr. Adams, viz. of 10th Boston Banks, proceedings as to sending delegates to British Finances, for the year ending 30th June, 1837, 71. Canada Banks, some stop specie payments, 238, 315, Canals in the United States, extent of, 190. |