Annuity Notes

Abstract

14 Novr 1820 MS. useless — Printed Copies extant

Supposing Bank Notes to be driven out of the circulation,(a) Note(a) This (it should seem) would depend upon Government: since, if Government on the issue of Annuity Notes refused to take Bank notes in payment for them, the unwillingness to take barren paper, when interest-bearing paper was to be had, would soon become general, if not universal. As to the propriety of this or any further measures in the same view, see Ch. XIV.

the same sort of necessity, for as it is called

Note paper or supposed necessity, which gives employment to Bank paper

in the transaction of Government,(b) Note (b) "Guineas can not be used in any considerable dealings", says Mr H. Thornton in his Evidence to the Committee of the House of Lords on the Stoppage of the Bank, Report p. 72. (Reprinted in Mr Allardyce's Address on the affairs of the Bank Append. p. 54.) By Mr Abraham Newland's evidence in the above Report (p. 62) it appears that the payments of each into and from the Exchequer are small in comparison of the payments in Bank Notes: not above £50,00 or £60,000 a day, upon an average of the sale remaining in the Exchequer in the shape of cash". Noting a Daily total of money (cash & paper together) about £151,095. See Ch. 5. And out of £14,000,000 paid on the score of Dividends, at the Bank not above £1,300,000 or £1,400,000 is paid otherwise than in Bank Notes. and other transactions

upon a large scale, in preference to each, to save counting

examining, keepingand luggage, would create

an equal demand for the Annuity Note paper on that

score. But this could last no longer than till Stock

3 per Cent were up at par: for then

Note Annuities, yielding as high an interest as Stock

Annuities, would come be equally suitable to the purpose of the

customer for Stock Annuities, and being in the same

way kept in hand or as a source of permanent increase,

would be taken up out of the circulation, and would only

appear in the market now and then, (and that only for a single transfer)

in the same small proportion that Stock Annuities

do at present: and then Bank Paper, if before

kept under, would regain its former amount.

Upon a second issue at a reduced rate,

a part of such second emission would probably indeed, remain

in the circulation for a time: because upon

the reduction a custom same the holders would, many of them, not be

able to afford to keep it in hand as a source

of income, but would throw it into trade: i:e: employ

it as money to make their payments with in the course

of trade. But, inasmuch as, by the redemption of principal

that would go on with, and be forwarded by, the

reduction of the rate of interest, Note Annuities became ( now by

the conversion of Stock Annuities became the only Government

Annuities) will have become scarcer and scarcer, which

the