of preventing the establishment of a future good bank.
When the trade of Banking began to be better understood, when the Banking system was thoroughly secure, the Government might begin to lend gradually; especially to lend the unusually large sums which even under the most equable system of finance will at times accumulate in the public exchequer.
Under a natural system of banking it would have every facility. Where there were many banks keeping their own reserve, and each most anxious to keep a sufficient reserve, because its own life and credit depended on it, the risk of the Government in keeping a banker would be reduced to a minimum. It would have the choice of many bankers and would not be restricted to any one.
Its course would be very simple, and be analogous to that of other public bodies in the country. The Metropolitan Board of Works, which collects a great revenue in London, has an account at the London and Westminster Bank, for which that bank makes a deposit of Consols as a security.[1] The Chancellor of the Exchequer would have no
- ↑ The functions of the old Metropolitan Board of Works are now vested in the London County Council, which has continued the arrangement with the bank (now the London County and Westminster Bank) for the deposit of security, and similar arrangements have been entered into by certain other banks who keep the accounts of other local authorities.
