Now the figures from New York were not complete. And New York clearings do not overcount New York check deposits. Outside clearings do not undercount outside check deposits nearly to the extent that Professor Fisher assumes. For each of these three statements I shall offer what would seem to be conclusive evidence, and I shall attempt to get an estimate of the real relation between New York check transactions and check transactions for the rest of the country.
First, the figures for New York were far from complete. It may be noted that Dean Kinley, in his volume for 1909,[391] is very careful to repudiate the assumption that the cities were complete more than the country: "Moreover, it is a mere assumption that the non-reporting banks are mainly the small banks in the country districts. _A great many city banks also did not report._" (Italics mine.) That this is true for New York is abundantly evident from figures there given for the private banks and the trust companies, not to consider at all the State and national banks. New York shows only $1,751 in checks deposited in the "all other deposits" in private banks! This is a city which includes among its private bankers J. P. Morgan & Co., Kuhn, Loeb and Co., J. & W. Seligman & Co., and others! Figures from these banks appear nowhere in Kinley's totals, since deposits made _by_ these banks in other banks are also excluded from Kinley's figures.[392] Of course, exact figures cannot be given to show how much New York would be increased had the private banks made full reports. We have no reports of any kind from these institutions. Every feature of their business is kept from the lime light, as far as possible--a practice which is much to be regretted, since it arouses hostility and suspicion, where a statement of the facts in the case would frequently entirely dispel them. We have, however, some information regarding the magnitude of their deposits, meaning by deposits, not what Kinley means in this investigation, namely, checks, etc., _deposited_ on a given day, but rather, deposits in the balance sheet sense of demand obligations to depositors. In Nov. 1912, J. P. Morgan and Co. held deposits of $114,000,000, exclusive of 49 millions on deposit with their Philadelphia branch of Drexel & Co. About half of these were deposits of interstate corporations. Kuhn-Loeb held, on the average, for the six years preceding 1913 over 17 millions of deposits of interstate corporations. What their aggregate deposits were, we do not know. These figures are obtained from the report of the Pujo Committee.[393] Morgan's deposits were equalled by only three banks and two trust companies in New York (as of April 3, 1915), and Kuhn-Loeb's deposits for interstate corporations alone exceeded the total deposits of any one of the great majority of the New York Clearing House banks and trust companies. Of course, large deposits in the balance sheet sense need not mean large deposits made on a given day. Private bankers' deposits may be inactive. But we know, first, that half of these figures for Morgan, and the whole of the figures given for Kuhn-Loeb, represent the deposits of active business corporations, engaged in interstate business. They are not mere trust funds lying idle, or awaiting investment in securities. What the rest are we can only conjecture. That they are deposits of men and firms connected with the Stock Exchange in some way is highly probable. The whole drift of the statistics presented in this book, and of the argument developed in this book, would serve to show that such deposits are likely to be more than ordinarily active.[394] I refrain from assigning any figures as to the amount of checks deposited in private banks in New York on March 16, 1909. It must have run high into the millions.[395] It certainly exceeded the two thousands, or less, reported to Kinley! The figures for New York were, thus, incomplete.