Then I should say, putting the foregoing reasoning into figures, that the Bank ought never to keep less than 11,000,000 L.. or 11,500,000 L. since experience shows that a million, or a million and a half, may be taken from us at any time. I should regard this as the practical minimum at which, roughly of course, the Bank should aim, and which it should try never to be below. And, in order not to be below 11,500,000 L., the Bank must begin to take precautions when the reserve is between 14,000,000 L. and 15,000,000 l.; for experience shows that between 2,000,000 L. and 3,000,000 L. may, probably enough, be withdrawn from the Bank store before the right rate of interest is found which will attract money from abroad, and before that rate has had time to attract it. When the reserve is between 14,000,000 L. and 15,000,000 L., and when it begins to be diminished by foreign demand, the Bank of England should, I think, begin to act, and to raise the rate of interest. CHAPTER XIII. Conclusion. I know it will be said that in this work I have pointed out a deep malady, and only suggested a superficial remedy. I have tediously insisted that the natural system of banking is that of many banks keeping their own cash reserve, with the penalty of failure before them if they neglect it. I have shown that our system is that of a single bank keeping the whole reserve under no effectual penalty of failure. And yet I propose to retain that system, and only attempt to mend and palliate it. I can only reply that I propose to retain this system because I am quite sure that it is of no manner of use proposing to alter it. A system of credit which has slowly grown up as years went on, which has suited itself to the course of business, which has forced itself on the habits of men, will not be altered because theorists disapprove of it, or because books are written against it. You might as well, or better, try to alter the English monarchy and substitute a republic, as to alter the present constitution of the English money market, founded on the Bank of England, and substitute for it a system in which each bank shall keep its own reserve. There is no force to be found adequate to so vast a reconstruction, and so vast a destructions and therefore it is useless proposing them.