[E] We have not alluded in the text to the effect of our proposed system, in reducing the enormous fluctuations in the rate of discount produced by the operation of the Act of 1844; but this is a feature of the question too important to be altogether passed over without reference. In his examination before the Committee of the House of Lords on Commercial Distress, Mr. J. H. Palmer, a very competent authority, declared, that in his whole experience he had never known such vicissitudes in the rates of interest and discount as since the passing of the Act; and the greater number of the witnesses were unanimous in deploring the excessive injury inflicted on the community by those vicissitudes. Now, one essential part of the operation of the governmental charges of 1, 2, and 4 per cent. would be the reduction of those violent oscillations within more salutary limits; as we have just now seen that 3½ to 4 per cent. would be the probable minimum, and 6 to 7 per cent. the probable maximum, at which the Bank of England would ever grant accommodation, and that moreover it would only be in extraordinary cases that the range of variation would exceed from 4 to 6 per cent. We have now contrasted the operation of the present and the proposed systems, in the cases in which there is an excess and in which there is a deficiency of circulating medium. But the contrast would not be complete if we did not consider a third case, somewhat intermediary to the other two; viz. that in which an occasional or only temporary expansion of the circulation is required by the domestic transactions of the country. The principal case in which this occurs, is at the payment of the dividends. At such times, whenever the reserve in the banking department happens to be small, through a low stock of bullion or through some degree of pressure, the effect of the restrictive clauses of the Act of 1844 is to render the payment of the dividends a matter of considerable difficulty, except at the expense of a serious temporary contraction in the amount of accommodation afforded to the public. In both the cases of April and October, 1847, already referred to, this was one of the circumstances which contributed to aggravate the pressure.[F] But other cases not unfrequently arise, in which advances are requisite for some temporary purpose, and which the Act of 1844 has rendered almost impracticable. A striking illustration of this occurred in the beginning of the year 1846, when Parliament required that all Railway companies which intended applying for an Act, should lodge 10 per cent. upon their capital, within fifteen days after the meeting of Parliament. It may well be doubted whether, if Government had been fully enlightened as regards the difficulty of performing such