But if the policy be relinquished which formerly assuaged alarm, that alarm will be protracted and enhanced, till it touch the Banking Department of the Bank itself.
I do not imagine that it would touch the Issue Department.

I think that the public would be quite satisfied if they obtained bank-notes.
Generally nothing is gained by holding the notes of a bank instead of depositing them at a bank.

But in the Bank of England there is a great difference: their notes are legal tender.

Whoever holds them can always pay his debts, and, except for foreign payments, he could want no more.

The rush would be for bank-notes; those that could be obtained would be carried north, south, east, and west, and, as there would not be enough for all the country, the Banking Department would soon pay away all it had.
Nothing, therefore, can be more certain than that the Bank of England has in this respect no peculiar privilege; that it is simply in the position of a Bank keeping the Banking reserve of the country; that it must in time of panic do what all other similar banks must do; that in time of panic it must advance freely and vigorously to the public out of the reserve.
And with the Bank of England, as with other Banks in the same case, these advances, if they are to be made at all, should be made so as if possible to obtain the object for which they are made.