We shall now proceed to the consideration of those conditions. It has already been seen that the Bank of England should not be allowed to issue unrepresented notes without participating its profits with the State, from which it derives the privilege of issue. Now there are several methods in which this participation might be effected. For instance, a computation might be made of the probable amount of annual profit that would be derived from the privilege; and the Bank might be required to pay annually into the Treasury, whatever proportion of this profit might be considered equitable. This plan, however, is liable to the fatal objection, that it could hardly fail to operate as a bonus on excessive issue. For, as in this case, the profits of the Bank would rapidly increase in proportion to the greater number of notes that could be kept in circulation, the Directors would be exposed to the continual temptation of resorting to imprudent means for extending their issues. A single illustration will show the force of this. For, supposing that the proportion of the profits set apart for the State, should amount to the total profit arising out of the issue of say some £10,000,000 of notes, then all the profits derived from the issue of notes in excess of those £10,000,000 would go undivided into the coffers of the Bank, so that the Bank would be directly interested in extending the issues as much beyond the £10,000,000 as would be practicable. And the experience of the whole past history of the Bank has proved that such a system as this would be inconsistent with the highest interests of the commercial public. It has been proposed again by some eminent authorities, that the Bank should be allowed to supply the whole paper issues of the country on condition of lending some fifteen or twenty millions of its notes to the Government without interest, which would necessarily give the same pecuniary advantage to the State as if it issued an equal number of its own notes. But this plan would be liable to the same objection as the former. It would make the profits of the Bank depend directly on the amount of unrepresented notes retained in circulation; and under such circumstances the Bank could hardly fail at times to extend its issues beyond the limits which the condition of trade would render advantageous.