Any foreign state hereafter which wants cash will be likely to come here for it; so long as the Bank of France should continue not to pay in specie, a foreign state which wants it must of necessity come to London for it.
And no indication of the likelihood or unlikelihood of that want can be found in the books of the Bank of England.
What is almost a revolution in the policy of the Bank of England necessarily follows: no certain or fixed proportion of its liabilities can in the present times be laid down as that which the Bank ought to keep in reserve.

The old notion that one-third, or any other such fraction, is in all cases enough, must be abandoned.

The probable demands upon the Bank are so various in amount, and so little disclosed by the figures of the account, that no simple and easy calculation is a sufficient guide.

A definite proportion of the liabilities might often be too small for the reserve, and sometimes too great.

The forces of the enemy being variable, those of the defence cannot always be the same.
I admit that this conclusion is very inconvenient.