refused he felt persuaded that the state of affairs would have been much worse on the Saturday than it had been on the Friday.  The fact was that the Act of 1844 was totally unsuited to the present requirements of the country, which since that period had tripled or quadrupled its commerce; and he was sorry to know that the measure seemed to meet with the approval of many of their directors.  Any one who read the speeches made in the course of the discussion on Mr. Watkins’ motion must see that the subject called for further inquiry; and he trusted that the demand for that inquiry would yet be conceded.

Mr. Jones said he entirely dissented from the views with respect to the Bank Act entertained by the hon. proprietor who had just addressed the court.  In his opinion the main cause of the recent monetary crisis was that, while we had bought 275,000,000 L. worth of foreign produce in the year 1865, the value of our exports had only been 165,000,000 L., so that we had a balance against us to the amount of 110,000,000 L. He believed that the Bank acted wisely in resisting every attempt to increase the paper currency, and he felt convinced that the working classes would be the people least likely to benefit by the rise in prices which would take place under such a change.

Mr. Moxon said he should be glad to know what was the amount of bad debts made by the Bank during the past half-year.  It was stated very confidently out of doors that during that period the directors had between 3,000,000 L. and 4,000,000 L. of bills returned to them.

The Governor of the Bank.—­May I ask what is your authority for that statement?  We are rather amused at hearing it, and we have never been able to trace any rumour of the kind to an authentic source.

Mr. Moxon continued—­Whether the bad debts were large or small, he thought it was desirable that they should all know what was their actual amount.  They had been told at their last meeting that the Bank held a great many railway debentures; and he should like to know whether any of those debentures came from railway companies that had since been unable to meet their obligations.  He understood that a portion of their property was locked up in advances made on account of the Thames Embankment, and in other ways which did not leave the money available for general banking and commercial purposes; and if that were so, he should express his disapproval of such a policy.  There was another important point to which he wished to advert.  He was anxious to know what was the aggregate balance of the joint stock banks in the Bank of England.  He feared that some time or other the joint stock banks would be in a position to command perhaps the stoppage of the Bank of England.  If that were not so, the sooner the public were full & informed upon the point the better.  But if ten or twelve joint stock banks had large balances in the Bank of England, and if the Bank balances were to run very low, people would naturally begin to suspect