ART. V.-1. Observations on the Financial Position and Credit of such of the States of the North American Union, as have contracted Public Debts. By ALEXANDER TROTTER, Esq. London: December 26, 1839. 8vo. 8vo. pp. 455.

2. Remarks on the Currency of the United States, and present and future Prospects of the Country. By PUBLIUS. New York: 1840. Wiley and Putnam. 8vo. pp. 59.

WE have united the titles of the above two works, with the intention however of treating but of one; the proper time for action on the other has not yet come, perhaps not even for its discussion. When that time does arrive, our journal shall not be wanting in its efforts to place that great question of a national bank on its true foundation. In the mean time, we would willingly turn public attention towards it, as a matter of coming deliberation; and without pledging ourselves to either the plans or reasoning of the author, (an intelligent and experienced merchant, it is understood, in the city of New York,) still earnestly to recommend its perusal, as a sensible well written pamphlet, on sound principles, and an all important subject. Our present duty lies with the work first named, as bearing upon a question not less important, and of greater emergency-the maintenance of our foreign state credit. The two subjects, it is true, are intimately united, whether viewed in theory or practice. A well organized United States bank, if now in existence, would greatly facilitate the establishment of our foreign loans; and our foreign loans, rightly managed, will equally facilitate the establishment of a great national institution, without which we can have eventually neither a uniform unshaken credit abroad, nor a uniform well regulated currency at homesuch is the connexion of these questions in practice, while in theory and principle they may be said to be identical, so that he who mismanages the one, will mismanage the otherthe demagogue who reasons wrong about domestic currency, will reason wrong about foreign credits-and the party who have already ruined the currency at home, are but consistent reasoners when they go to undermine our national credit abroad.

The work before us, on this subject, is one as well timed

as it is well written. In truth, some such has for a considerable time been needed on both sides of the Atlantic-in England for information, in this country for instruction. The foreign capitalist wanted facts, that he might not be lending in the dark; while the American borrower stood equally in need of that knowledge, which in the long run is equally necessary, and which the present work goes far to furnishnamely, the feelings of the lender, and the principles of credit esteemed by him to be essential. Eighteen states of the American confederacy, in their sovereign capacity, entering into the European money market as borrowers, authorising loans to the extent of near two hundred millions of dollars, and actually negotiating them to the amount of near one hundred and fifty millions; this was both a new question for the European capitalist to decide, and a new business for the American legislatures to manage, so that no wonder what between ignorance and mismanagement on one side or both, some evil has ensued, and much disappointment. The present prostration of American state credit in Europe has been the necessary result, it may be said, of such mutual want of knowledge, the natural consequence, in short, of blind cupidity on the one side, and equally blind confidence on the other, making that to be, for the moment at least, to both countries a ruinous operation, which wisely conducted would have been equally profitable to both.

We repeat, therefore, that we deem this volume of Mr. Trotter peculiarly well timed, and coming as it does from a leading broker on the London Exchange, as likely to exercise an extensive and favorable influence on the future financial relations of England and the United States.

Of the ability with which it is executed, we may speak hereafter more at large; we would here only observe, that it is a work marked equally by knowledge, good sense, and candor, neither exaggerating nor diminishing the facts, or the difficulties of the case, or the conclusions of caution to be drawn from them. Mr. T. writes, in short, as a prudent capitalist would act, deliberating carefully on some great financial operation, putting down in detail the facts of the case, and the elements of his calculations, together with their various pro's and con's, and summing up the whole with a distinct memorandum of the fundamental principles on which alone he is willing to go into the transaction, and the hypothetic

contingencies that will even then make the balance incline to the one side or the other.

Such is the leading character of the work; and, leaving to the British reviewer what to the British public is most interesting, its geographical and statistic details,-we will confine our observations chiefly to what we on our part must learn from the other side; that is, the light in which the capitalists of the old world regard the recent financial proceedings of the new, and what are the elements of credit to which they will mainly look, in all their future operations with it. All will admit that this is a very great economical question; we say that it is more. It is the great economical question, bearing deeply on the interests not only of the United States or England, but on the world at large,-a question not only of nations, but of continents- we might almost say, of the fates and fortunes of the human race. This may sound, we are aware, very like rhetorical exaggeration; in our opinion it is not so, but plain fact and common sense. Among the fertile regions of the earth yet to be subdued by the labor of man, and made productive for the born or unborn millions whose numbers are limited but by the means of adequate nourishment, among these unsubdued and fertile wildernesses -those within the territory of the United States are the most magnificent in their extent, and the most unbounded in their fertility; and it is to the bringing of these within the sphere of human industry, by means of canals and rail-roads, that the loans in question have been both made and expended. Now the rapidity or the slowness with which this magnificent operation is to go on, first, of bringing them within the field of human labor, and secondly, of their progressive conversion into fruitful fields, for the abode and support of those who otherwise come into a world where there is neither room nor food for them; none can deny but that this is among the greatest questions of human interest, among the most determining causes of peace and quiet to the old world, by giving to its half fed millions more bread and better bread, as well as of boundless prosperity to the new, by making her the granary of nations, and substituting man, with all his capacities, art, science, and religion, for the silence and solitude of the wilderness and the prairie.

But again, this question of rapidity or slowness is but in other terms the practical question of high or low American

credit in Europe. By the capital of the old world alone can the wildernesses of the new be reduced: the question of their conversion is, therefore, the question of the loans by which such conversion is to be effected, which brings us back to our original position, namely, that American credit in Europe is the great financial question of the world, and that thorough knowledge as to facts, and a right understanding as to principles, in the financial intercourse between Europe and America, upon which it is evident the extent of such loans must eventually rest, is to be reckoned among the highest interests of humanity, and therefore to be entered upon with a due sense of the responsibility that awaits the decision of it. It is too late, indeed, for Europe to take up the general question, whether she will lend or not lend her surplus accumulations to the new world. Such surplus must come whether she wills it or not. With or without the owners of it it will come. Nature so rules it-self-interest demands it; and, however individuals may doubt, or governments oppose, the march of capital is still westward.

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Westward the course of empire takes its way."

The

The European mass is in motion, not only of population but of treasure; and if it flow not out upon us in a deep current from the coffers of bankers, it will yet come in what, without skill to guide the current, is perhaps its safer and more refreshing, though slower form-in the scattered rain-drops of petty individual savings, remitted for the sake of higher interest, or brought over by actual emigrants. That such process of transfer must go on, and increase with every advance of knowledge and facility of intercourse, so long as any difference remains in the rate of profit, it is easy to see. only question for either party to determine is, whether it shall go on, as it has heretofore done, so far as loans are concerned, blindly and rashly, in ignorance and distrust, or intelligently and safely, in knowledge and mutual well placed confidence. If henceforward in ignorance, it will be the fault of the European lender, for full sources of information are here brought before him; if, again, on insufficient principles of credit, it will be the fault of the American borrower, for he may here learn the conditions on which alone permanent European confidence can in future rest on transatlantic loans.

The extent, variety, minuteness, and exactness of information exhibited in the work before us, is highly creditable to our author, and for a foreigner, it may be added, truly wonderful. So far as financial statistics are concerned, it is true, the outline was furnished him, or rather might have been, for we do not see that he has quoted it, in a very accessible form-we allude, of course, to the report of 1839, made by the recent comptroller of the state of New York, A. C. Flagg, Esq., embodying the answers received by him from the financial officers of the different states, in answer to the circular addressed to them immediately after the passage of the general banking law of this state, in May, 1838. As that law made provision for the reception of the various state stocks as security for notes issued by the new institutions, it became necessary for the comptroller, to whom the issue of such countersigned notes was entrusted, to inform himself thoroughly of the amounts, dates, conditions, etc., of these various state stocks. But even with this in his hand, which we somewhat doubt of, Mr. Trotter had but an outline which he was to fill up and carry out by his own diligence and research, which, so far as we ourselves are masters of the subject, he has faithfully and fully done up to the date of its publication; of which, with a view we presume to give precision to his statemeuts, the very day is given, namely, the 26th of December, 1839. The more recent work of Tanner, on the canals and rail-roads of the United States, was of course not before him; though, from cursory examination, we do not think it would have added much to his facts-nothing, certainly, to his reasonings. His work may be considered, therefore, as fair authority with both parties, putting the European capitalist in full possession of the facts upon which rests the question of American responsibilities, and the American borrower, of the principles on which past loans should have been made and future ones must be. For these merits, entitling it to rank as an international work, transitory indeed, but all important for the present question, we know none other to place in competition with it, whether we look at amount of information, clear arrangement, or conclusive summing up.

A rapid summary will exhibit the nature of its contents, and bring before our readers its fundamental principles, which it will be our task rather to enforce than criticise. The work