And when we examine the proceedings with care, we shall find that they contain matter of the gravest import.
'This meeting may be considered to admit and recognise the fact that the Bank of England keeps the sole banking reserve of the country.
We do not now mix up this matter with the country circulation, or the question whether there should be many issuers of notes or only one.

We speak not of the currency reserve, but of the banking reserve--the reserve held against deposits, and not the reserve held against notes.

We have often insisted in these columns that the Bank of England does keep the sole real reserve--the sole considerable unoccupied mass of cash in the country; but there has been no universal agreement about it.

Great authorities have been unwilling to admit it.

They have not, indeed, formally and explicitly contended against it.