It cannot pay the interest on its debt if that bank cannot produce the public deposits when that interest becomes due; it cannot pay its salaries, and defray its miscellaneous expenses, if that bank fail at any time.

A modern Government is like a very rich man with very great debts which he cannot well pay; its credit is necessary to its prosperity, almost to its existence, and if its banker fail when one of its debts becomes due its difficulty is intense.
Another banker, it will be said, may take up the Government account.
He may advance, as is so often done in other bank failures, what the Government needs for the moment in order to secure the Government account in future.

But the imperfection of this remedy is that it fails in the very worst case.

In a panic, and at a general collapse of credit, no such banker will probably be found.

The old banker who possesses the Government deposit cannot repay it, and no banker not having that deposit will, at a bad crisis, be able to find the 5,000,000 L.or 6,000,000 L.which the quarter day of a Government such as ours requires.