The only organisation which I can imagine to be effectual is that which exists in the antagonistic establishments.  The great private banks will have, I believe, to appoint in some form or other, and under some name or other, some species of general manager who will watch, contrive, and arrange the detail for them.  The precise shape of the organisation is immaterial; each bank may have its own shape, but the man must be there.  The true business of the private partners in such a bank is much that of the directors in a joint stock bank.  They should form a permanent committee to consult with their general manager, to watch him, and to attend to large loans and points of principle.  They should not themselves be responsible for detail; if they do there will be two evils at once:  the detail will be done badly, and the minds of those who ought to decide principal things will be distracted from those principal things.  There will be a continual worry in the bank, and in a worry bad loans are apt to be made and money is apt to be lost.

A subsidiary advantage of this organisation is that it would render the transition from private banking to joint stock banking easier, if that transition should be necessary.  The one might merge in the other as convenience suggested and as events required.  There is nothing intrusive in discussing this subject.  The organisation of the private is just like that of the joint stock banks; all the public are interested that it should be good.  The want of a good organisation may cause the failure of one or more of these banks; and such failure of such banks may intensify a panic, even if it should not cause one.

CHAPTER XI.

The Bill-Brokers.

Under every system of banking, whether that in which the reserve is kept in many banks, or one in which it is kept in a single bank only, there will always be a class of persons who examine more carefully than busy bankers can the nature of different securities; and who, by attending only to one class, come to be particularly well acquainted with that class.  And as these specially qualified dealers can for the most part lend much more than their own capital, they will always be ready to borrow largely from bankers and others, and to deposit the securities which they know to be good as a pledge for the loan.  They act thus as intermediaries between the borrowing public and the less qualified capitalist; knowing better than the ordinary capitalist which loans are better and which are worse, they borrow from him, and gain a profit by charging to the public more than they pay to him.