is readily convertible into coin, those notes can exert no influence different from that of the coins themselves, and cannot therefore be held responsible for contributing in any degree to the extension of undue speculation. It may perhaps be retorted, that if small notes were allowed to be issued, no practical distinction could be enforced between the unrepresented issues and the bullion notes, and that therefore the necessary effect of such permission would be to increase the former as well as the latter. But this objection would involve a total misconception, as the consideration of the present system will at once make apparent. For, so long as the unrepresented issues of the Bank of England are limited to £14,000,000, as under the Act of 1844, they cannot possibly exceed those £14,000,000, whatever may be the denomination of the notes so issued; and even though the restrictive clauses of the Act should be repealed, and the Bank should be allowed to replace the country issues, an arrangement can readily be devised, as we shall presently show, which would at once permit of an indiscriminate issue of notes of all denominations from one pound and upwards, and yet preclude the possibility of the unrepresented issues ever exceeding a safe and salutary maximum. If, however, it should still be apprehended that any danger would result from the complete abrogation of the prohibition of small notes, the expedient might be adopted of allowing a certain maximum issue of such notes for the next ten years, after which experiment, if the change proved beneficial, the restriction might be removed unconditionally. But for rendering such an experiment effectual a smaller issue than £5,000,000 to £10,000,000 would be of little service.