The nature of migration into Australia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries provides much valuable material relating to the mechanism of interregional population transfers during one of the most important periods of demographic redistribution in recorded history. Examining this country's experience during the seventy years, 1865–1935, two problems are treated which not only contribute to the understanding of Australian growth but also provide insight into important aspects of American economic development.

It is necessary not only that capital be accumulated, but also that it be mobilized for productive use, if an economy is to benefit from an increase in capital per person. The classical model of resource allocation assumes that within any economy capital is perfectly mobile. It implies, therefore, that once allowance is made for uncertainty and risk, returns on investment are equal in all industries in all regions. Such a model, while logically consistent, is not very useful for analyzing the process of economic growth. In the early stages of development, because the uncertainty discounts are high, capital is not very mobile. As a result, rates of return vary widely between industries and between regions; and growth in high-interest regions is retarded. Development, in part then, takes the form of a reduction in uncertainty discounts—a reduction that makes it possible for capital to move more freely between regions and industries.

In spite of its importance to economic development, much remains unknown about commercial banking in early America. The Historical Statistics of the United States gives the number of banks, their capital stock, bank note circulation, deposits, and specie for only four years prior to 1830, and these data are far from complete. Economic and financial historians generalize about this period from statistics presented in Albert Gallatin's Considerations on the Currency of the United States and from the reports of the Treasury Department, summarized in the Annual Report of the Comptroller of the Currency, 1876.

The chronology of events in 1836 surrounding Jackson's Specie Circular and the Act to Regulate the Deposits of Public Money, under which the Federal fiscal surplus was distributed to the states, has never been much in dispute. The orthodox analysis of these events likewise has been almost universally accepted. The Specie Circular has been seen as a device that provoked an increase in the demand for hand-to-hand specie in the West where the public lands were being sold, at the same time that specie was needed in the East to effect the distribution of the surplus. The monetary system could not have its specie in two places at once, the argument has been, and the attempt to do so led to the disastrous breakdown of the banking system and to the ensuing business recession of 1837.

Hugh G. J. Aitken, as former chairman of the membership committee of the Economic History Association, made a very revealing analysis of the trends, geographical distribution, and prospects of the Association's membership as of 1962. See his communication on “The Association's Membership: Growth and Distribution” in this Journal for September 1963, pages 335–341. This updating of Aitken's analysis is based on the reports made by the membership committee and by Herman Krooss, the Association's treasurer, at the annual meeting in September 1964.