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money, the quantity of the materials, tools, and maintenance,which the whole circulating capital can supply, may be imcreased by the whole value of gold and silver which used tobe employed in purchasing them. The whole value of thegreat wheel of circulation and distribution, is added to thegoods which are circulated and distributed by means of it.The operation, in some measure, resembles that of the under-taker of some great work, who, in consequence of some im-provement in mechanics, takes down his old machinery, andadds the difference between its price and that of the new tohis circulating capital, to the fund from which he furnishesmaterials and wages to his workmen.

What is the proportion which the circulating money of anycountry bears to the whole value of the annual produce cir-culated by means of it, it is, perhaps, impossible to deter-mine. It has been computed by different authors at a fifth,at a tenth, at a twentieth, and at a thirtieth part of that value.But how small soever the proportion which the circulatingmoney may bear to the whole value of the annual produce, asbut a part, and frequently but a small part, of that produce,is ever destined for the maintenance of industry, it must al-ways bear a very considerable proportion to that part. Whentherefore, by the substitution of paper, the gold and silver ne-cessary for circulation is reduced to, perhaps, a fifth part ofthe former quantity, if the value of only the greater part ofthe other four-fifths be added to the funds which are destinedfor the maintenance of industry, it must make a very con-siderable addition to the quantity of that industry, and,consequently to the value of the annual produce of land andlabour.

An operation of this kind has, within these five-and-twentyor thirty years, been performed in Scotland , by the erectionof new banking companies in almost every considerable townand even in some country villages. The effects of it havebeen precisely those above described. The business of thecountry is almost entirely carried on by means of the paperof those different banking companies, with which purchasesand payments of all kinds are commonly made. Silver veryseldom appears except in the change of a twenty shillingsbank note, and gold still seldomer. But though the conduct ofall those diff erent companies has not been unexceptionable, andhas accordingly required an act of parliament to regulate it;the country notwithstanding, has, evidently derived greatbene-