exchange had been guaranteed, and a financial catastrophe, probably without parallel, avoided. But they had to discriminate between bills, and experts could do so instinctively; and for this reason facilities had been partly refused in the case of Mr. Crisp, of which Sir A. Markham (L., _Notts_) had complained earlier in the debate. Only one member of an accepting house had been on the Committee of the Bank of England which examined the bills, and his business was with a neutral country. They discounted 57,000_l._ of Mr. Crisp's bills, but as collateral security for another 200,000_l._ he tendered only securities worth 72,000_l._ Only 50,000,000_l._ of bills, or about one-ninth of the total, would have to be put aside as dealing with belligerent countries or for analogous reasons. The loss would depend on the length and the issue of the war. Before ending the moratorium they had to consider: (1) the business specially affected by the war, such as the Scottish fishing industry, whose case they met by the Courts (Emergency Powers) Bill (p. 196); (2) the restoration of the foreign exchanges, which they effected by restoring the old-machinery, releasing the endorsers and drawers of Bills, and retaining simply the liability of the acceptors; (3) the restoration of the Stock Exchange, where the difficulty was that 70,000,000_l._ or 80,000,000_l._ of securities were hypothecated in respect of debts incurred before the war began. Had the banks pressed for these debts, the securities would have been placed on the market, their value would have been deplorably reduced, and the State, now the sole borrower, could have raised money only at incredible rates. The Government had left the banks to make their own arrangements with the Stock Exchange, but had agreed to advance 60 per cent. of the value of the securities on July 29 on condition that the banks undertook not to put their securities on the market till six months after the war; and had arranged that the Stock Exchange should only open with the sanction of the Treasury and under conditions to be imposed by it in the public interest. Not one application had been made for Government credit, either in respect of this arrangement or of a similar guarantee through which the Liverpool Cotton Exchange had been reopened. Provincial traders who had been sending goods to the Continent on credit, without receiving bills of exchange, had been promised Government assistance to the extent of 50 per cent. of the credit value of the interest, on condition that the local banks, who knew their men, undertook 25 per cent. Applications amounting to 16,000,000_l._ had come in in respect of these debts, and the Government hoped to do something at the earliest possible moment. Britain was still supreme in international commerce, its money market was better than any other, the gold at the Bank had risen during the war from 26,000,000_l._ to 85,500,000_l._ and they had raised