same point in other words to say that all exchange operations are
centering more and more in London. Formerly for many purposes Paris
was a European settling-house, but now it has ceased to be so. The
note of the Bank of France has not indeed been depreciated enough to
disorder ordinary transactions. But any depreciation, however
small--even the liability to depreciation without its reality--is enough
to disorder exchange transactions. They are calculated to such an
extremity of fineness that the change of a decimal may be fatal, and
may turn a profit into a loss. Accordingly London has become the
sole great settling-house of exchange transactions in Europe,
instead of being formerly one of two. And this pre-eminence London
will probably maintain, for it is a natural pre-eminence. The number
of mercantile bills drawn upon London incalculably surpasses those
drawn on any other European city; London is the place which receives
more than any other place, and pays more than any other place, and
therefore it is the natural 'clearing house.' The pre-eminence of
Paris partly arose from a distribution of political power, which is
already disturbed; but that of London depends on the regular course
of commerce, which is singularly stable and hard to change.

Now that London is the clearing-house to foreign countries, London
has a new liability to foreign countries. At whatever place many
people have to make payments, at that place those people must keep
money. A large deposit of foreign money in London is now necessary
for the business of the world. During the immense payments from
France to Germany, the sum in transituthe sum in London has perhaps
been unusually large. But it will ordinarily be very great. The
present political circumstances no doubt will soon change. We shall
soon hold in Lombard Street far less of the money of foreign
governments; but we shall hold more and more of the money of private