The difficulties of transfer and the aid heretofore rendered by banks have been less than is usually supposed.  The actual accounts show that by far the larger portion of payments is made within short or convenient distances from the places of collection; and the whole number of warrants issued at the Treasury in the year 1834—­a year the result of which will, it is believed, afford a safe test for the future—­fell short of 5,000, or an average of less than 1 daily for each State; in the city of New York they did not average more than 2 a day, and at the city of Washington only 4.

The difficulties heretofore existing are, moreover, daily lessened by an increase in the cheapness and facility of communication, and it may be asserted with confidence that the necessary transfers, as well as the safe-keeping and disbursements of the public moneys, can be with safety and convenience accomplished through the agencies of Treasury officers.  This opinion has been in some degree confirmed by actual experience since the discontinuance of the banks as fiscal agents in May last—­a period which from the embarrassments in commercial intercourse presented obstacles as great as any that may be hereafter apprehended.

The manner of keeping the public money since that period is fully stated in the report of the Secretary of the Treasury.  That officer also suggests the propriety of assigning by law certain additional duties to existing establishments and officers, which, with the modifications and safeguards referred to by him, will, he thinks, enable the Department to continue to perform this branch of the public service without any material addition either to their number or to the present expense.  The extent of the business to be transacted has already been stated; and in respect to the amount of money with which the officers employed would be intrusted at any one time, it appears that, assuming a balance of five millions to be at all times kept in the Treasury, and the whole of it left in the hands of the collectors and receivers, the proportion of each would not exceed an average of $30,000; but that, deducting one million for the use of the Mint and assuming the remaining four millions to be in the hands of one-half of the present number of officers—­a supposition deemed more likely to correspond with the fact—­the sum in the hands of each would still be less than the amount of most of the bonds now taken from the receivers of public money.  Every apprehension, however, on the subject, either in respect to the safety of the money or the faithful discharge of these fiscal transactions, may, it appears to me, be effectually removed by adding to the present means of the Treasury the establishment by law at a few important points of offices for the deposit and disbursement of such portions of the public revenue as can not with obvious safety and convenience be left in the possession of the collecting officers until paid over by them to the public creditors.  Neither