Chapter XIII.
BANKS AND CURRENCY—TREATMENT OF GOLD.
ONE of the first requirements of a newly-found goldfield is a ready means of disposal of the gold gathered, at a standard price and for cash. Another essential requirement is reliable buyers who will hold the proceeds at the disposal of the sellers, to be drawn upon by them from time to time as required, in small or large sums. Only trading banks can meet such requirements, and they willingly afford them to fields considered sufficiently important and likely to be long-lived. Charleston was considered one of such, and within eighteen months of its discovery three banks were operating there, the Union Bank of Australia, the Bank of New Zealand, and the Bank of New South Wales; not in tents, slab-huts, or corrugated-iron shacks, as were the first branches further south, but in substantial buildings; evidencing a belief in the permanency of the field, a faith which was shared by the Resident Magistrate and expressed in his report of 1870. Events have proved them to have been mistaken; it was short-lived.
The coming of the banks was of the greatest benefit to the settlement, a major factor in the rapid development of the town and its businesses, as in many cases they financed the gathering of the gold that, in turn, was expended in gathering more gold. Of those who made the long and hungry trek along the coast to this new field, not all, in fact few, possessed much beyond unbounded energy, tenacity, and courage; assets which the banks considered sufficient to advance money upon without further security.
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