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38 is mended the theory is not. There has never been a distinct resolution passed by the directors of the Bank of England, and communicated by them to the public, stating, even in the most general manner, how much reserve they mean to keep or how much they do not mean, or by what principles in this important matter they will be guided.

The position of the Bank directors is indeed most singular. On the one side a great city opinion—a great national opinion, I may say, for the nation has learnt much from many panics—requires the directors to keep a large reserve. The newspapers, on behalf of the nation, are always warning the directors to keep it, and watching that they do keep it; but, on the other hand, another less visible but equally constant pressure pushes the directors in exactly the reverse way, and inclines them to diminish the reserve.

This is the natural desire of all the directors to make a good dividend for their shareholders. The more money lying idle the less, cœteris paribus, is the dividend; the less the money lying idle the greater is the dividend. And at almost every meeting of the proprietors of the Bank of England there is a conversation on this subject. Some proprietor says that he does not see why so much money is kept idle, and hints that the dividend ought to be more.