As this is the final stage of this Bill I presume that we are much in the same position as when a Bill comes forward for Second Reading. I mentioned yesterday to the Minister for Finance a point which he promised to consider. I have never heard this point discussed in connection with the Bill. I do not want to divide the House on the question, but I think this is a matter that is deserving of very serious consideration. The point has been suggested to me by certain things which have transpired. One of the sections of the Bill provides that in the case of the consolidated notes the name of the issuing bank should be printed across them. This is not a Party question in any way, but it is a matter which seems to me to be of very great importance to the State. In America, I notice that it is the custom to print the name of the bank across the note. But America is in a very different position from this country, and things which are quite safe in America might not be by any means safe here.
I am afraid that if the name of the issuing bank is printed on the face of the note some discrimination may be made between the two classes of note— the legal tender note and the consolidated note. Perhaps it will be thought that I am speaking in favour of the banks as a whole or of a particular bank. I am not. From my knowledge of the country, I am inclined to think that the average man will say,"I will take the bank note, because I know the bank note is good, but I will not take the Free State note." It is all very well to say that your legal tender note must be accepted, but if an organised attack is made on it, and if that sort of feeling is engendered and spread throughout the country, I think a situation might arise which it would be desirable to avoid. It could be easily obviated by not printing the name of the bank on the note, and by discriminating between the two classes of note by numbers. It could be easily arranged that distinctive numbers would be borne by the consolidated note issue and by the legal tender note issue. The public would not know to which class the note belonged, but that knowledge would be available to the Currency Commission.
It would be quite easy to creat a sort of feeling which might do a great deal of harm. Certain organised parties might go to a fair and say, "I will not take these legal tender notes, because they are no good." The people at that fair would go home to the hills and mountains and spread the story that these notes were no good, doing damage thereby to the credit of the State. I think it would be most desirable to distinguish between the consolidated notes and the legal tender notes by numbers rather than in the way proposed.