they ought never to be used like a common deposit.
It follows from what has been said that there are always possible and very heavy demands on the Bank of England which are not shown in the account of the Banking Department at all: these demands may be greatest when the liabilities shown by that account are smallest, and lowest when those liabilities are largest. If, for example, the German Government brings bills or other good securities to this market, obtains money with them, and removes that money from the market in bullion, that money may, if the German Government chose, be taken wholly from the Bank of England. If the wants of the German Government be urgent, and if the amount of gold "arrivals" that is, the gold coming here from the mining countries be but small, that gold will be taken from the Bank of England, for there is no other large store in the country. The German Government is only a conspicuous example of a foreign Power which happens lately to have had an unusual command of good securities, and an unusually continuous wish to use them in England. Any foreign State hereafter which wants cash will be likely to come here for it; so long as the Bank of France should continue not to pay in specie,[1] a foreign State which wants it must of necessity come to London
- ↑ The Bank of France resumed specie payments on Jan. 1, 1878.
