To this plan, however, there is one cardinal objection, at least at the present, and perhaps for many years to come; such a bank would necessarily be directly or indirectly subject to the control of whatever Government might happen to possess the seals of office. And although it is to be hoped that no Ministry which is ever likely to be entrusted with the executive in the United Kingdom, would so far descend from the dignity of their high position, as to tamper with the integrity of the monetary system of the country for any unworthy purpose, whether party or personal, yet it is not so certain that in the heat of parliamentary conflict, such tampering might not be ascribed to the Government of the day; and even the suspicion of any misdirection could not fail to be prejudicial to that feeling of public confidence which is so essential to the well-being of every paper currency. In these circumstances, therefore, it seems preferable that the issue of paper money should be preserved entirely free from any possible entanglement with the strife of party politics. There remains, then, as the only alternative, the selection of some one of the existing banks as the exclusive depository of the privilege of issue. The qualifications required by such a bank, are the possession of a capital sufficiently large to form the basis of at least the present paper issues of England and Wales, together with a long experience of business transactions, on a scale proportionally extensive. Now both of these requisites are combined in the Bank of England. Its commercial experience has been greater than that of any other bank in the world. Its capital and rest united, amount to about £18,000,000, and although £14,000,000 of this are permanently invested in the loan to Government and other public securities, and are not therefore available for banking purposes, yet the knowledge that they can be relied on in the case of any possible disaster, has the same effect in inspiring confidence, as if they formed a part of the working capital of the Bank. Now, although the total authorized issue of unrepresented notes in England and Wales amounts to £22,000,000, yet the total average circulation of such notes is only about £15,000,000; and according to the judgment of the best practical authorities, the portion of the united capital and rest, which is not permanently invested, would form a perfectly adequate basis for an average unrepresented circulation of £15,000,000. And if the £3,000,000 that are now permanently invested in public securities, distinct from the Government debt, were set at liberty and employed as working capital, it is equally well established, that the £7,000,000 of which that working capital would then consist, upheld as they would still be, in public confidence, by the £11,000,000 lent to Government, would be quite sufficient as a basis for a circulation of unrepresented notes, to the extent of from £20,000,000 to £30,000,000.