This £910,000,000 may be called the "floating capital" of the country. It is deposited or left with the banks, who invest a certain proportion of it in securities, in short loans to the bill brokers and stockbrokers, in making advances and loans to their customers, and in discounting bills for them; and, as the said millions are left at either call or short notice, the banks also have to maintain a sufficient supply of legal tender to meet all probable demands upon this immense debt. It is with this "floating capital" that the present chapter is principally concerned. Stored in their strong rooms the banks keep sufficient legal tender (Bank of England notes and specie) with which to conduct their business. The sum thus held may be called their "till money"; and it probably would not exceed five per cent. of the £910,000,000 in question--viz.: £45,500,000. A large part of this till money is, however, held in Bank of England notes, which are warrants for gold upon the store in the Issue Department, but as creditors cannot refuse the notes they are quite as valuable to a banker as gold. All a banker has to consider is whether he has a sufficient supply of legal tender to discharge his public indebtedness; and if he have, he need take no thought for the morrow. Deducting £45,500,000 from £910,000,000, we get £864,500,000. Though this is an accumulation of credit in the books of the banks rather than of cash, their customers can demand the equivalent from them in legal tender; yet we see that, were the banks drained of £45,500,000, they would then be entirely dependent upon their reserves at the Bank of England. The reserves are included in Other Deposits, £42,695,526; and seeing the magnitude of the amount it seems a pity that the Bank of England does not tell us each week what portion of this total belongs to the other banks. Further, the Bank of England employs these balances in its own business; and, though it generally maintains a very large ratio per cent. of reserve to liabilities, the fact remains that a certain proportion of the cash reserves of our banks is lent out to the public--a somewhat startling position at first sight. The banks accumulate a reserve against those dangers from which their business is never free, and the Bank of England advances some of it to its own customers! Apparently, what could be more absurd? But in finance things are so often not what they seem. We now come to the store of gold coin and bullion in the Issue Department--£33,617,330. A certain proportion of this must be retained in order to secure the convertibility of the notes of the Bank, and the remainder may perhaps be called the national store or accumulation. The banks of the United Kingdom are indebted, roughly speaking, to the public to the extent of £910,000,000. But we have seen that, say, £45,500,000 of this sum is secured by legal tender in hand, so the unsecured portion amounts to £864,500,000. Our position, then, stands as under:--