As the Bank of England lends money to keep up the bankers' balances, at their usual amount, and as by means of that usual amount whatever sum foreigners can get credit for may be taken from us, it is not possible to assign a superior limit (to use the scientific word) to the demands which by means of the bankers' balances may be made upon the Bank of England.
The result comes round to the simple point, on which this book is a commentary: the Bank of England, by the effect of a long history, holds the ultimate cash reserve of the country; whatever cash the country has to pay comes out of that reserve, and therefore the Bank of England has to pay it.

And it is as the Bankers' Bank that the Bank of England has to pay it, for it is by being so that it becomes the keeper of the final cash reserve.
Some persons have been so much impressed with such considerations as these, that they have contended that the Bank of England ought never to lend the 'bankers' balances' at all, that they ought to keep them intact, and as an unused deposit.

I am not sure, indeed, that I have seen that extreme form of the opinion in print, but I have often heard it in Lombard Street, from persons very influential and very qualified to judge; even in print I have seen close approximations to it.

But I am satisfied that the laying down such a 'hard and fast' rule would be very dangerous; in very important and very changeable business rigid rules are apt to be often dangerous.

In a panic, as has been said, the bankers' balances greatly augment.