Whilst the $8,000,000 specie reserve grew successively to $54,000,000,
$79,000,000; $109,000,000, and finally to $128,000,000 in 1878, 1879,
1880, and 1881; that is to say, upon the approach of the panic, the
circulation also expanded from $290,000,000 to its highest figure
$323,000,000 in 1882, the year of the European crash and of the stoppage
of the rise of prices in the United States. As to the minimum amount of
the specie reserve, it is to be noted in 1883, between the critical
years 1882 and 1884.
Metallic reserves are too small in the United States for their
fluctuations to exhibit the same regular course they offer us in Europe;
the least need exhausts them, and the smallest payments fill them to
overflowing. The panic soon brought about a default in payment and a
need of metallic money to re-establish equilibrium, but this remedy, if
it does precede panics, sometimes precedes them by a year, as we have
observed in 1883, and the same irregularity is apparent whether we
observe the banks of the whole United States, or the Associated Banks of
the City of New York.
After the panic of 1882-1884, the ebb of specie into the coffers of the
National Banks of the United States and of the Associated Banks of New
York resumed its usual course, and raised its level in the case of the
National Banks from $97,000,000 to $177,000,000 between 1883 and 1885,
and even to $181,000,000 in 1888.
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