"Proposed in 1877 and 1883, the Boston movement at first resulted in a deadlock, based on the supposed importance of having certain city banks, who declined to come in, participate. After twenty-two years through another movement started among the Connecticut banks, the deadlock was broken by substituting the manager of the Boston Clearing House for any abstaining members, and giving him checks on their correspondents to collect. The association finally decided that all checks passed through the out-of-town clearing should be collected by him.
"The only opposition exhibited by country banks has been in the refusal of a few to pay the Clearing House in full for their checks, deducting so-called exchange. Boston checks passed through the Clearing House are paid in full, or not at all. New England checks should be. This can be effected, either as in London, by Boston banks returning checks, drawn on such banks, as not collectible through the Boston Clearing House, or by the manager, charging to collect checks, bearing indorsement of the non-par banks, which would cut them off from the use of the New England free list, now enjoyed by them, without reciprocity; that is, without being themselves on the free list."
Mr. Charles A. Ruggles, manager of the Boston Clearing House, says: "In the thirteen years that we have made collections in this way, we have collected over eight thousand million dollars ($8,000,000,000).
"Our cost now is, and has been for ten years, seven cents for a thousand dollars. That includes the clerk hire of fifteen men, postage and stationery, and we collect seven or eight hundred million dollars a year; furthermore, 90 per cent of the banks in New England remit at par. We collect 95 per cent of it in twenty-eight hours."
It is an interesting and important historical fact that the country banks of England and Wales forced the clearing of country checks at London; so, too, the banks of Connecticut, thirty of them in number, by combining under the advice and leadership of Mr. James C. Hallock, succeeded in having the plan adopted by the Boston Clearing House. As a result New England became a free check zone. I think we should note in this connection that the father of Mr. James C. Hallock was the organizer, if not, indeed, the originator of the New York Clearing House in 1853.