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207 known whether they are able; a committee of management, in which seniority is the necessary qualification, and old age the common result; and no trained bankers anywhere.

Even if the Bank of England were an ordinary bank, such a constitution would be insufficient; but its inadequacy is greater, and the consequences of that inadequacy far worse, because of its greater functions. The Bank of England has to keep the sole banking reserve of the country; has to keep it through all changes of the Money Market, and all turns of the Exchanges; has to decide on the instant in a panic what sort of advances should be made, to what amounts, and for what dates;—and yet it has a constitution plainly defective. So far from the government of the Bank of England being better than that of any other bank—as it ought to be, considering that its functions are much harder and graver—any one would be laughed at who proposed it as a model for the government of a new bank; and that government, if it were so proposed, would on all hands be called old-fashioned and curious.

As was natural, the effects—good and evil—of its constitution are to be seen in every part of the Bank's history. On one vital point the Bank's management has been excellent. It has done perhaps less "bad business," certainly less very bad business, than any bank of the same size and