Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1874-04-22
NOT so MUCH INITIATION AS EXPECTED.

4 careful examination Of the full text of
the Senate bill providing for an increase of
the volume of our circulating medium,
which now awaits the Presidents approval
before becoming a law, shows that its effect
will not be to increase the money in actual
circulation as much rs we thought on
reading the Geographic abstract.
The amount of legal tender notes now
outstanding is S9S2, 900. The Senate
bill does not require the Secretary Of the
Treasury to issue the remaining SIS 900, 900
of the reserve, but simply provides that he
may tissue it. Should the revenu es
of the country he sufficient to meet the
current expenditures of the Government,
it is possible that the balance of that much
talked.of s44 600, 600 reserve would not be
issued.
In the section fixing the limit of national
bank notes at $500, 900, 900, it provides that
the extra sac, 600 to be issued shall be
given to netU banks to be hereafter organ
lied in the South and West. But as this
issue can only be made upon capital put
into the banking business, it is not by any
means certain that it will all be called
for.
There is one other section of the bill
which will materially affect the amount
of currency in actual circulation, that is,
the section which requires banks to keep
three-fourths of their legal tender reserves
at home. The effect of this provision will
be to keep at the home counter of national
banks, for home use, large part of the
money heretofore accumulated in New
York to the encouragement of gambling
stock operations. The full significance of
this provision may be better understood
fIom the following explanatory letter from
Comptroller of the Currency Knox to Gen.
Garfield, intended to show its probable
effect:
enclose herewith statements showing
the amount of legal-tender reserves held
by national banks on February IS, April
p, June Is, September ~, and December
26, 1873. Also, the amounts to be held
under the Senate bill, now pending in the
House, providing for increasing the ma
tional bank circulation to $500, 900 600. from
which it will be seen that under the pend
ing bill, if it had been in force at those
dates, an additional amount of legal.tender
reserve would have been required to be
held by the banks, as follows: February
%, 1878, S43, ,99S; April 25, $40, S77 ,9OS;
} une 10, S44 $3.50, SIS; September II, S44,-
734, 7O6; December 26, S46,961, 1867.
1.-The amount of legal-tender reserve ac-
tually held at national banks at each of
these dates was in excess of the amount
now required by law. The amount requir-
ed to be held, under the pending bill, in
excess of the amount actually held at those
dates would have been as follows: Feb
ruary Is, S25, OILS, 639; April %, $50, 235, 433
une -, SIS, 237 ,S39; tSeptember II, $685.
935, 4O3. The amount of legal-tender re-
serve hold by national banks, December
20, 1873, was $40 ,l19, 1857, i'll excess of the
a AMOUNT required by the existing law, aud
81, 2lS APO in excess of the amount which
would have been required by the pending
bill had it been then in force. This large
increase in the cash means of the banks
may be easily explained by comparing the
statements at that date with the statements
on September II previous, showing a re-
duction in the loans of banks of SCI ,599 =
454.n