of their wealth. If the Bank were wound up, most of them would
hardly in their income feel the difference. And what is more, the
Bank directors are not trained bankers; they were not bred to the
trade, and do not in general give the main power of their minds to
it. They are merchants, most of whose time and most of whose real
mind are occupied in making money in their own business and for
themselves.

It might be expected that as this great public duty was cast upon
the Banking Department of the Bank, the principal statesmen (if not
Parliament itself) would have enjoined on them to perform it. But no
distinct resolution of Parliament has ever enjoined it; scarcely any
stray word of any influential statesman. And, on the contrary, there
is a whole _catena_ of authorities, beginning with Sir Robert Peel
and ending with Mr. Lowe, which say that the Banking Department of
the Bank of England is only a Bank like any other banka Company like
other companies; that in this capacity it has no peculiar position,
and no public duties at all. Nine-tenths of English statesmen, if
they were asked as to the management of the Banking Department of
the Bank of England, would reply that it was no business of theirs
or of Parliament at all; that the Banking Department alone must look
to it.

The result is that we have placed the exclusive custody of our
entire banking reserve in the hands of a single board of directors
not particularly trained for the duty--who might be called 'amateurs,'
who have no particular interest above other people in keeping it
undiminished--who acknowledge no obligation to keep it undiminished
who have never been told by any great statesman or public authority
that they are so to keep it or that they have anything to do with it