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the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Secretary of the Treasury may dispose of such bonds at any time, at the market value thereof, for coin or coin certificates, or mixed.

SEC. 31. That any banking association or clearing-house association may be designated by the Secretary of the Treasury as a depository of public money and may be required by the Secretary to keep on hand, on account of such deposits, such reserve fund as he may deem expedient; but no part of such deposits by the Secretary shall be counted in computing the reserve required by law.

SEC. 32. That whenever, in the opinion of the Comptroller of the Currency, the complete redemption and retirement of the reserve notes issued to and retained by any association under section ten of this act is then necessary for the protection of the holders of such notes, the Comptroller may take possession of all the assets of such association, which assets shall be held to include the liability to assessment of all stockholders, and create and deliver to the Treasurer of the United States a fund equal in amount to such notes; and the Comptroller, after completing such fund, or as much thereof as can be realized from the assets, and not before, shall deliver the remaining assets, if there be any, to the association.

SEC. 33. That the ten per centum redemption fund, provided for in sections twelve and twenty-seven, of an insolvent association shall be free moneys in the Treasury upon its insolvency.

SEC. 34. That the greenback and reserve notes of the insolvent association shall be immediately redeemed and canceled by the Treasurer of the United States out of any moneys in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated.

SEC. 35. That the Comptroller of the Currency is hereby authorized to sell the whole or any part of the property of the association or to pledge the whole or any part of its property or assets, at any time, as security for any loan he may elect to make in order to create the fund mentioned in section thirty-two.

SEC. 36. That from and after thirty days from the setting aside by the Treasurer of the United States of the gold mentioned in section thirteen, the cash reserve required by law to be kept by each national banking association shall be in coin, or in coin certificates, or in greenbacks issued to other associations under section six of this act, or mixed.

SEC. 37. That when the daily total reserve of any national banking association averages less for any month than the amount required to be kept by it at all times, it shall pay into the Treasury of the United States a duty for that month equivalent to interest, at the rate fixed by law in the State where the association is located, on the amount of the average deficiency in such reserve for that month.

SEC. 38. That every national banking association shall pay into the Treasury of the United States a duty on that part of its average daily cash reserve required by law that is averaged to be kept, in any month, in greenbacks at the rate of two per centum per annum.

SEC. 39. That whenever any national banking association fails to pay in coin or coin certificates on demand the greenbacks and reserve notes or other notes signed by its officers and issued by it, such association shall pay an additional duty, at the rate of four per centum per annum, on a sum equal to the whole amount of the sum of the lawful reserve it is required at all times to have on hand until such coin payment is resumed.

SEC. 40. That nothing in the preceding section, and no action taken by any banking association under this act, shall bar any action taken, or proposed to be taken, by the Comptroller of the Currency under sections thirty-two, thirty-three, thirtyfour, and thirty-five of this act.

SEC. 41. That in addition to all other taxes or duties provided for in this act each association organized under it shall pay into the Treasury of the United States a tax equivalent to one-fifth of one per centum per annum on the average amount of reserve notes issued to and put in circulation by it under section ten of this act, for the purpose of anticipating the redemption and destruction, in certain cases, of the reserve notes issued to associations under section ten of this act.

SEC. 42. That all moneys received under any section of this act shall be covered into the Treasury as a miscellaneous receipt. The Treasurer of the United States shall keep an account of all moneys paid into the Treasury or paid out by him under each of the several sections of this act and include a statement of the same in his annual report.

SEC. 43. That the Comptroller may at all times know the condition of each national banking association, however organized, each national banking association shall make such record at the close of each day as the Comptroller shall request, in a book kept for that purpose, which record shall show the total amount of its reserve notes paid out and in circulation, and its total deposit account, and its total reserve account, as shown by its books at the close of each business day, and of what the reserve consisted, which daily record of deposits, reserve, and reserve notes, and other matter requested by the Comptroller, shall be made up for each

month, and a copy or report thereof transmitted to the Comptroller of the Currency on or before the tenth day of the following month.

SEC. 44. That the duty upon the averages of the kinds of money which made up the reserve during each month, and all taxes and duties imposed by this act shall be due and payable semiannually on the first day of April and the first day of October in each year.

SEC. 45. That the records and reports provided for in the preceding sections, and any other facts and data he may request, of banking or clearing-house associations shall be in such form as the Comptroller shall direct.

SEC. 46. That national-bank examiners shall be held to be employees in the office of the Comptroller of the Currency while examining associations organized under this act, and their fees shall be paid out of the appropriation for the Bureau of the Currency.

SEC. 47. That before making the record for the day, as provided in section fortythree, or required by the Comptroller, every transaction of that day pertaining thereto shall be duly entered in the books of the association.

SEC. 48. That from and after the thirty days mentioned in section thirty-six not less than fifty per centum of the cash reserve required by law shall be in gold coin or gold certificates, and fifty per centum may be in silver coin or silver certificates, and any excess of silver coin and silver certificates over gold coin and gold certificates shall be counted as though it was in greenbacks, issued under section six of this act.

SEC. 49. That each banking association may keep its coin and bonds in such places and under such circumstances as the Comptroller of the Currency may approve.

SEC. 50. That any national banking association that fails to keep, use, and pay out its silver coin, and gold coin, and currency notes so as to keep all three kinds of money at a parity each with all the others shall be deemed to have failed to pay in coin or coin certificates on demand the greenbacks and reserve notes or other notes signed and issued by its officers.

SEC. 51. That there is hereby constituted and appointed a board of advisers to the Comptroller of the Currency, consisting of seven experts, to consult and advise with the Comptroller upon changes desirable in and methods of executing existing law concerning banking, over which board the Comptroller of the Currency shall preside. SEC. 52. That the president of the chief redemption bank in San Francisco, New Orleans, and each of the other five chief redemption cities in the country, or such substitute as any one of them shall from time to time appoint, shall be a member of the board of advisers, which board shall meet once a year, or oftener, if the Comptroller of the Currency or a majority of the board so determines, and at such time and place as the Comptroller shall appoint.

SEC. 53. That the recommendations of the board of advisers, or a synopsis thereof, shall be entered in the records of the board, and the decision of the Secretary of the Treasury, from time to time, as to what person or persons are entitled to act under sections fifty-one and fifty-two shall be final.

SEC. 51. That from and after the passage of this act the duties due and payable on goods imported shall be paid in gold or in United States legal-tender notes issued prior to the passage of this act, until the setting aside of the gold in the Treasury mentioned in section thirteen of this act for the redemption of certain of the United States legal-tender notes.

SEC. 55. That after the setting aside of the gold in the Treasury mentioned in section thirteen of this act to redeem certain legal-tender notes, the duties due and payable on goods imported shall be paid in gold or in Treasury notes issued under the act of July fourteenth, eighteen hundred and ninety, so long as there shall be twenty million dollars or more in nominal value of such notes outstanding: Provided, however, That the Secretary of the Treasury may suspend, from time to time, so much of this section as requires that after the setting aside of certain gold in the Treasury for certain purposes, the duties due and payable on goods imported shall be paid in gold or in Treasury notes issued under the act of July fourteenth, eighteen hundred and ninety.

SEC. 56. That in order to enable the Secretary of the Treasury to carry into effect the provisions of the act of January fourteenth, eighteen hundred and seventy-five, entitled "An act to provide for the resumption of specie payments," and to provide for any deficiency in the revenues of the Treasury of the United States to meet the appropriations made by Congress and appropriations made by existing law, the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized to issue, from time to time, for the period of four years, bonds as described in the act of July fourteenth, eighteen hundred and seventy, entitled "An act to authorize the refunding of the national debt," such bonds to be payable at the pleasure of the United States after one year from the date of their issue and upon the expiration of three years, or bonds payable after three years and upon the expiration of seven years, or bonds due on a certain day

within three years from the date of such bonds, as the Secretary of the Treasury may elect. Such bonds to bear interest at a rate not exceeding three per centum per

annum.

SEC. 57. That any five or more national banking associations are hereby authorized to unite in forming a clearing-house association. By adopting a constitution and by-laws the banking associations certifying to the Comptroller of the Currency that fact shall in that act become a clearing-house association body corporate, upon such constitution and by-laws being approved in writing by the Comptroller of the Currency.

SEC. 58. That any changes in the constitution or by-laws of any such association, to become valid, must be approved in writing by the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Comptroller may annul any part of the same at any time after a hearing thereon, with the concurrence of a majority of all the board of advisers.

SEC 59. That clearing-house associations shall be subject to like examination by national bank examiners as national banking associations, and shall make such reports as the Comptroller of the Currency may request.

SEC. 60. That any incorporated banking association may be admitted to membership in any clearing-house association incorporated under this act; and the membership of any banking association may be terminated by any action of the clearing-house association approved by the Comptroller of the Currency.

SEC. 61. That each member of such clearing-house association shall share in its fees and other income, and in its assessments, expenses, and losses in the proportion that the sum of its capital, surplus, and undivided profits bear to the sum of all the capital, surplus, and undivided profits of all the associations composing the clearinghouse association as shown by the annual report of the Comptroller of the Currency last made previous to the apportionment of the same.

SEC. 62. That five or more clearing-house associations organized under this act may form a national clearing-house association upon the same terms and conditions as those governing in the case of clearing-house associations composed of banking associations: Provided, however, That national clearing-house associations may buy and sell such bonds as are necessary to the conduct of its legitimate business to any amount and of any kind approved of by the Comptroller of the Currency, and may provide for the coin redemption of currency notes of banking associations, and may take and issue, under the provisions of section seventeen of this act, the greenbacks described in section six, in denominations of not less than one thousand dollars.

SEC. 63. That any clearing-house association organized under this act may be designated by the Secretary of the Treasury as a depository of public money and may also be employed as financial agent of the Government.

SEC. 64. That each clearing-house association may make loans to or borrow from other clearing-house associations, and banking associations may make loans to or borrow from clearing-house associations. In all such loaning and borrowing clearinghouse and banking associations shall be exempt from the usury laws of the States in which they are located.

SEC. 65. That any clearing-house association organized under this act may establish a department for the clearing of currency notes of banking associations in the current redemption of such notes.

SEC. 66. That any clearing-house association organized under this act may deliver to the Treasurer of the United States or to any assistant treasurer of the United States, for safe-keeping, any kind of money or bonds, and receive such a statement of the fact of their being in the Treasury of the United States as the Secretary of the Treasury may approve.

SEC. 67. That any banking association may withdraw from any clearing-house association and any clearing-house association may withdraw from the national clearinghouse association upon such conditions as the Comptroller of the Currency may approve.

SEC. 68. That the capital of each national banking association shall at all times be held to be, and shall be, the sum of its nominal capital plus its surplus and undivided profits, as shown by the last published annual report of the Comptroller of the Currency; and each share of its nominal capital stock shall be held to be a certificate of ownership to the person owning it of so much of the total actual capital of the association as herein described as the nominal value of the share bears to its total nominal capital; but no solvent association shall be required to make up or to keep its capital at a sum greater than the sum of its nominal capital.

SEC. 69. That this act shall not affect existing national banking associations and currency notes issued to them, excepting as to the provisions of sections thirteen and fourteen, section twenty-one, sections thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty, and forty-three to sixty-eight, inclusive, which sections shall take effect immediately and apply to all national banking associations, however organized, and to currency notes issued by them.

Mr. Walker addressed the committee as follows:

GENTLEMEN OF THE COMMITTEE: The confidence of every class of people in the existing financial and banking system having been destroyed, settled business conditions and prosperous times can never return in any other way than by its thorough correction, in separating the financial and banking system of the country absolutely and forever from the United States Treasury.

The Government must from now on be relieved not from directly issuing but from putting in circulation or being in any way responsible for the "current redemption" of any form of paper money.

The country must immediately adopt the only system approved by financiers whose opinion is at all regarded, the system which prevails in England, France, Germany, and in every other country-that of having banks put in circulation and be responsible for the "current redemption" of every dollar of paper money in circulation, wholly relieving the United States Treasury from it.

There is no possible deliverance from present ills in any other course, as long as the people have determined that they will not issue

LOW-RATE-OF-INTEREST BONDS TO TAKE UP THE GREENBACKS

and Treasury notes. There can be no safe division of responsibility and duties between banks and the Government or any other power in the management of any part of the money of the country. The business of finance must be committed by the general government to the banks, in such form as to command the clearest-headed and most patriotic men and financiers in the country in their management-men to whom no exigency is a surprise, and who will rise to every emergency.

Exigencies in government, and especially in finance, will necessarily and constantly arise. They can not be foreseen and provided for in the text of any banking bill. A few boundaries only, wisely set to guide the unskilled and to make the selfish and unpatriotic banker take his fair share of the risk and expense and do his fair share of the work in a grand national banking system, is all that is safe for the body of the law to attempt.

This the banking bill (H. R. 171) now pending before the Banking and Currency Committee of the House effectually does, and to a very large profit to the banks and ultimately to a very great saving to the people, which I will show.

I have solicited interviews with business men and leading bankers and others, as chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency of the National House of Representatives, in order that the committee may have their assistance in the effort it is making to find

A SOLUTION FOR THE FINANCIAL AND BANKING ILLS

of the country, and to make the sober conviction and will of the people the law of the land. I am sure this solution of our difficulties can not

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