Why the Bank of England did not share the same fate as the private bankers has already been demonstrated. It certainly was not one whit better informed than they; and it sympathised with them in their distrust of the intruders, whose speedy downfall it quite expected to witness. That the joint stock banks must come to grief was the opinion of the majority of City men in 1834, and the then directors of the Bank were City men imbued with those tenets which found credence within the sacred square mile. The bank which keeps the Government account must always be a great power in the land. Had that account been removed in 1844, together with the last vestige of monopoly, the Bank--the directors of which shared to the full in that tenacity and narrow-mindedness characteristic of wealthy City merchants, whose businesses, and therefore whose ideas, flow in the narrowest of grooves--must have ceased to be a progressive institution. But no Government has ever hinted at deserting the Bank, whose record, though bristling with mistakes, is one of unbroken integrity; and the public has always looked upon its management as above suspicion. Especially was this the case during the first few decades of the new movement. The Bank of England had public opinion behind it; and the joint stock banks, concerning whose stability opinion was divided, were not then strong enough to keep their own reserves and to defy the Bank; but when their system had stood the test of time, the Bank opened its doors to them, and the companies meekly bowed to the inevitable--for they were not the power in Lombard Street in those days that they are now. In the first instance, we found the private bankers grouped around the Bank; and now we see our huge joint stock banking companies in a similar relation to her. They kept their reserves with her when their system was in its infancy, when the Bank of England, as a result of monopoly, was the greatest credit institution in the country. As the companies spread their tentacles throughout the land, accumulating credit at an extremely rapid pace, those reserves grew proportionately, until, to-day, we find the Bank of England in the centre of a system which owes over £910,000,000 in _cash_ to the public. Our modern credit system has developed around the Bank, which, as the holder of the bankers' reserves, now occupies an almost national position. That position is, undoubtedly, the indirect result of a monopoly which, prior to 1826, enabled the Bank of England to build up a huge business unopposed by others of its kind. In other words, it had a start of 132 years. The greater, consequently, attracted the smaller. But united Lombard Street is now a much greater power than Threadneedle Street--therefore it is always wise to remember that the Bank of England can only retain its position in the centre of the money market so long as Lombard Street is agreed that it shall.