"'These are evidently the answers of intelligent persons, convinced by general reasoning, and confirmed in this conviction by the results of their experience, that the contraction of issues made upon discounts is, in times of commercial pressure, impracticable; that is, that the attempt to accomplish it would inevitably produce 'immense mercantile mischief,' equal almost to the evil which it was intended to avert.

"We thus find the Bank, in the first instance, calling for the repayment of her advances to the Government, that she may have her issues more completely under her own control, and looking to her advances upon discount as the means for acquiring this power. We next find her convinced that the control she seeks cannot be obtained through that means, and almost admitting that an increase, rather than a decrease, of her issues upon discount must be the consequence whenever commercial pressure occurs, and she is called upon to fulfil her obligation of supporting public and private credit." (Remarks, etc. pp. 48 - 50.)

Thus far I have taken a full, and, I hope, a fair review of Mr. Loyd's case against the Bank, the evidence and reasoning upon which he rests it, and the corrective system he has so firmly enforced; I shall, therefore, pass over for the present other portions of his last pamphlet most pertinent to the matter of this volume, but not bearing directly upon the point immediately before me. To those who desire evidence of his impartiality, and are anxious to examine the grounds upon which the private joint-stock Banks have been charged with an injurious action upon the currency of late years, I particularly recommend his third chapter, of which I have not room to give an outline.

Here then let us pause, and consider what all this tends to. For what has Mr. Loyd written so often and so well? For what have many others like him for years past laboured so strenuously and so consistently? Why has the management of the Bank of England been so repeatedly and so severely criticized and corrected? The answer is, to fulfil one purpose, to enforce one action, - to regulate the issues by the foreign exchanges.

There is a peculiar pertinency and importance in this particular question and the answer to it, at the present juncture. To Mr. Loyd, more than to any other individual, is the memorable fact to be ascribed, that for the last two years the Bank of England has made unprecedented exertions, under the most trying circumstances, has struggled harder than ever, to adhere to this rule, and given the nation the sharpest experience it has ever suffered of its severity. Had it not been for Mr. Loyd, this would not have happened; at least to the same extent. The Bank was constrained by the influence which his great wealth and success as a Banker have given him, set off as they are by the peculiar idiosyncrasy of character that distinguishes him, - strict independence, arising from his fortune, and the conviction he never fails to evince of the strength of his position, and the indifference to opposition and contention which the power and sincerity of that conviction impart to his language and actions. To these advantages must be added another, derived from the dread inspired by the proof he has given of superior ability as a writer, - the weight he possesses as a witness in Parliament, and the certainty that the inquiry, more or less searching and inconvenient, which has been pursued for several years past, must be persevered in until the Bank charter shall have been renewed in 1843. But for the combined force of these various circumstances, centering in and depending upon an individual mainly, I very much doubt whether the Bank of England would have reduced its own rules so steadily to practice, and wormed the screw so tightly as it has done for the last two years, upon the manufacturing and commercial interests of the country.

But what have we gained? The knowledge of a painful and most perplexing truth, - that great as was the mischief inflicted when the Bank violated its own rules, the mischief is nearly to the full as intense and extensive when, having violated them, it strives to return to rectitude. It is further clear, I apprehend, and beyond the pale of dispute or discussion, that no security whatever exists at present against the recurrence of the heavy and desolating evils by which we have been so often borne and broken down; because their origin is not always the result of positive fault and mismanagement on the part of the directors, but, at intervals, a natural consequence of vicious constitution in the establishment they preside over. The double interests and duties of the Bank - as the proper institution for regulating the currency, and conducting a profitable Banking business - are incompatible. The two things may often consist, but times will occur when they cannot be preserved together. So long as this constitution lasts, contradiction, modifications, palliations, apologies, and explanations will be tried and tolerated; because the country, like an invalid suffering under some deep and dangerous disease, will rather endure fits of periodical illness and pain, than run the risk of a violent operation, which may end in destruction.

Still, however, the question returns: Is Mr. Loyd right - do the foreign exchanges really furnish the only proper test for regulating the issues of the Bank? I believe they do, as things are; but I also believe that the operation of that rule is so slow and severe, that the remedy is nearly as bad as the disease. I am further inclined to contend, that we have of late years pushed our economy of the use of the precious metals too far; that we have narrowed the channel of their circulation too much; that we have neglected silver and attached an undue value to gold; and that the foreign exchanges, however positively they may govern the supply of the precious metals, are by no means faithful representatives of our whole manufacturing and commercial transactions, and are not therefore to be adopted with safety as the sole gauge and measure of our circulating medium.