The “Banking Department” of the Bank of England is the separation of the ordinary banking business from the business of financial agency and issuing notes. In a speech on the renewal of the Bank charter in 1844 Sir Robert Peel said, “With respect to the banking business of the Bank, I propose that it should be governed on precisely the same principles as would regulate any other body dealing with Bank of England notes.” The Bank Act of 1844, then, does not touch the management of the Banking Department in any way beyond requiring that a weekly statement of its assets and liabilities shall be published. This statement—which forms part of the “Bank Return”—may be thus analysed. On the left hand side are the liabilities, divided into the liability towards the proprietors of the Bank as shown by the amounts of “Proprietors’ Capital” and “Rest” (which latter is practically an addition to the capital); the liability to the Government, as shown by the amount of “Public Deposits,” which are the balances of different Government accounts; the liability to the customers as shown by the amount of the “Other Deposits,” which are the sum of the balances of the current or “drawing” accounts; and the liability to the holders of the Bank’s acceptances as shown by the amount of “Seven-day and other Bills” in circulation. On the other side of the statement are the assets by which these liabilities are represented, divided into “Government Securities,” which show the amount of the banking capital invested in Government securities; the “Other Securities,” which show the amount of other investments made by the Bank; and, separately, the “notes” and “gold and silver coin,” which show the amount of cash in hand for the current purposes of the Banking Department. This sum of notes and gold and silver coin forms, so to speak, the cash assets of the Bank, and the proportion which it bears to the current liabilities disclosed by the public and other deposits and seven-day bills is called the proportion of reserve to liabilities, and is always a matter of great interest, and often of great anxiety, to the City on Thursdays.