Page:Lombard Street (1917).djvu/188

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
160
LOMBARD STREET

element of truth in it is very plain—the great advances made to Overends were a principal event in the panic of 1857; the bill brokers were then very much what the bankers were lately—they were the borrowers who wanted sudden and incalculable advances. But the bill brokers were told not to expect the like again. But Alderman Salomons, on the part of the London bankers, said, 'He wished to take that opportunity of stating that he believed nothing could be more satisfactory to the managers and shareholders of joint stock banks than the testimony which the Governor of the Bank of England had that day borne to the sound and honourable manner in which their business was conducted. It was manifestly desirable that the joint stock banks and the banking interest generally should work in harmony with the Bank of England; and he sincerely thanked the Governor of the Bank for the kindly manner in which he had alluded to the mode in which the joint stock banks had met the late momentary crisis.' The Bank of England agrees to give other banks the requisite assistance in case of need, and the other banks agree to ask for it.

"Secondly. The Bank agrees, in fact, if not in name, to make unlimited advances on proper security to any one who applies for it. On the present occasion £45,000,000 was so advanced in three months. And the Bank do not say to the