The nature and amount of the mischief done

This section is from the book "Banks And Bankers", by Daniel Hardcastle, Jun., 1842

For instance - look at the distant and obscure manner in which the two millions and a half loan borrowed by the Bank of England from the Bank of France is alluded to in the Report of 1841. I need not remark how conclusive is the nature of the evidence, afforded by that fact, of distress and mismanagement upon the part of the Bank of England; and yet most sparing is the information either sought by the committee or supplied by the Bank respecting it. On all sides, in short, there seems to have been but one anxiety, and that was to keep the transaction as much a mystery as possible. - Again, in all the returns upon Banking before the two houses of Parliament, there is no such thing as a complete list of the Banks that have failed, while Lords and Commons have been inquiring about a variety of things presumed to have something to do with their failure. Legislators have been delivering unprofitable speeches, and committees have been making endless reports, leading to nothing, upon the dangers to which the country has been exposed by its vicious system of Banking - Banks, meantime, have been breaking by the score, and money has been lost in millions; but the total number of bankrupt Banks has never been returned, nor the sum of the losses ascertained, which has from year to year been entailed upon the trade and commerce of the country. Not only has this not been done, but the particular cause of the failure of a single Bank has never once been investigated and exposed, nor has a word of censure fallen upon the many firms by which the public have lost millions of money. The anatomy of the subject has evidently been either too powerful for the nerves, or too intricate for the attention of members of Parliament, who have neither had the skill nor patience to probe the disease to its core, or the courage to describe in detail the ravages it has committed upon the body politic. The nature and amount of the mischief done was about the first thing to be ascertained, and it has been the only thing never considered. Had the evil been fairly traced, and honestly laid bare, the nation would have risen long ago as one man, and insisted upon a searching change. Our legislators have treated Banking as the doctors are sometimes said to treat a rich patient - they have been most anxious to keep the subject alive for the sake of what they can make by it, and have never insisted upon a radical cure, lest it might detract from their practice.