import of most articles of food, and the business, it will be observed, gradually increased in years of good harvest, until suddenly enhanced by a diminution of home supplies. In the present year the harvests are again good, but the exports to England do not fall back to former figures. They suffice to sustain prices in the face of large supplies from the interior. The exports in the present year, although less in prices, are by no means, in aggregate value, much less than in former years. Cotton, as an instance, has touched a point lower than ever before, and greatly in contrast with the remunerating rates of last year; but the quantity exported has been 1,674,545 heavy bales against 1,044,479 average lighter last year. This gives at least 75 per cent increase in export. The export of farm produce generally is larger than in several years, although less than under the extraordinary circumstances of 1847. The quantities coming down from the interior have also been considerable, and at prices higher than periods for several years prior to the last. This has served to increase the credits in favor of the country, and diminish the effect of the large export of specie, which was beginning to exercise an injurious influence upon the standing of the country banks, having already produced a stringency in the money market which caused the failure of many eminent merchants, and involved the stoppage of the Canal Bank of Albany, one of the oldest New York safety fund banks. The stringency of the market arises mostly from the fact, that last year there was a great increase in the State circulation, demanded by the large quantities of produce sent down at high prices. This enabled the banks to keep out large amounts of notes safely, and the State circulation stood as follows: FREE AND CHARTERED BANK CIRCULATION OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. In November, 1847, the circulation exceeded that of the same date in 1846 by $4,000,000, nearly all of free bank origin. Those institutions derived most of their profits from circulation redemptions. This year the amount of circulation required is not one-third as much as last year, as measured by the amount of ag ricultural productions sent to market. Hence the banks are struggling against the continued pressure for redemption of the large amounts they last year put out to feed the great movement in produce, and many of them must go down. The public suffer for want of some systematic mode of redeeming country money. The markets generally, both here and in the interior, are active, and money circulates very freely. In the New England States more particularly, the activity of money is very great, following the prompt communication between the country and the city. It is well known that nearly all the banks of New England are compelled, through the operations of trade, to keep their bills at par in Boston. In each of the New England States the banks pay out their money in the prosecution of local industry, mostly manufacturing; and these bills being collected by shopkeepers, nearly all of whom are in direct communication with Boston as a centre of commerce, are sent by them to Boston merchants in payment of debts. All these bills are made bankable at the counter of the Suffolk Bank; consequently, nearly all the country money that reaches Boston is received by that bank. The increase of railroads around Boston, diverging from that point to every section of New England, has greatly facilitated the activity of money, allowing of its more frequent transmission to Boston in the payment of debts, and of its return upon the issuing bank for redemption. The banks of New England, subject to this operation, are as follows, according to recent returns: Total...... Bestou......... annum. 246 $38,349,634 $61,139,741 $1,876,160 $23,433,114 26 18,863,650 34,158,402 3,286,015 7,207,833 The average capitals of the banks out of Boston, in all New England, is $156,000, and the average issues $100,000. Now the (in round numbers) $24,000,000 of notes these banks issue are redeemed in Boston eight times! in the course of a year. From January 1 to July 1, 1848, the Suffolk Bank received $86,000,000 at its foreign money counter. This is equal to $172,000,000 per This vast amount of money is sent from the country to Boston in the payment of goods, mostly purchased in that city for distribution and consumption in the interior, and is all redeemed there by the issuing bank. The amount of money received in New York in the same time cannot be short of $200,000,000, redeemed at an average of discount, the law allowing discount. This amounts to a tax of $1,250,000 per annum, levied upon the New York trade merchants for the benefit of country bankers. This is a tax from which Bostonians have relieved themselves. The country banks of New England are enabled easily to keep their redemptions good at the Suffolk by making payable there the drafts on Boston that they discount, and for which they pay out the bills. By these means a perfect system of counter exchange is perfected. Every bank is compelled to confine its business to the actual products of its locality, and the whole is regulated by a prompt settlement of balances, effected at the counter of the Suffolk, as at the clearing house in London for the English banks, and that of Edinburgh for the Scotch banks. This prompt settlement of balances takes from bank notes to a considerable extent their feature of money, and confers upon them more that of internal bills of exchange, payable on presentation. It is absolutely necessary that some such system should be perfected in New York. COMMERCIAL STATISTICS. BALTIMORE EXPORTS OF DOMESTIC PRODUCE. QUANTITY OF PRODUCE SHIPPED TO EACH FOREIGN COUNTRY. THE following table, derived from the Commercial Journal and Lyford's Price Current, comprises the names of all the foreign ports to which all the principal articles of domestic produce were exported from the port of Baltimore during the year 1847: |