A GOVERNMENT BANK.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 1822, 19 October 1866, Page 2

A GOVERNMENT BANK.

T0 THE EDITOR OP THE LTTTELTOX TIMES.

Sm,-The letter of your correspondent "A," which appears in jour issue of Saturday, closes with an assertion which, it strikes me, is somewhat reckless. In effect, lie says that the extraordinary success or prosperity of the Uunited States is due to their system of banking and currency—"pretty near" is the phrase lie uses. Now, I feel inclined to dispute this point; and I incline to the belief that "A," when he penned the words in which the assertion is made, forgot that America, or the States, has always produced, in enormous quantities, four staple articles of export, namely, cotton, tobacco, grain, and timber. In a small hook which I happen to have, the Statesman's Year Booh, ISGS, anil which is compiled by Mr. Frederick Martin, I find it set down that in the year 1861, the excess of imports over exports for the whole of the States was only X 17,980,274, and this too be it remembered, when the war was rasing. The deductions to be tan from this one fact are as obvious as they are important. It appears to me that in any country (no matter where, but more especially in a young colony), so long as there is a great disproportion between exports and imports, the latter being in excess, so long must there lie recurring periods of commercial depression, I don't believe in the scarcity of money in Canterbury at the present time, but I believe strongly that a huge monopoly exists. There is plenty of money, but it is in the hands of a few persons who will not circulate it unless at most exorbitant rates, or what is nearly the same thing, on the most approved security, or both together. By-and-by, perhaps, this monopoly, wkiohis certainly being made the most of in the meantime, will be broken up. There will he more competitors for public favour m the way of money-lending. Your obedient servant, Christchurch, Oct. 15.