I urge that, in a time of national crisis, which has taken the nation by surprise, which is no consequence of its own folly, the responsibility should be shared by the nation and the banks. It is possible that it was this high sense of justice, this high sense of equity, that inspired the measures that were taken last August, and that brought the country safely through the crisis. Had it not been for this higher inspiration and deeper vision, and had we trusted alone to narrow instinct and lack of insight, confusion might have reigned, and the consequences might have been as serious as those foretold by the prophets. If we are to lay it down as a rigid, unwritten law, a law existing only in the conscience of an irresponsible community, that banks must save themselves only by their gold reserves, then by what divine or earthly sense of justice shall we demand that banks shall not speculate? Are the banks to be the keepers of our consciences, as well as of our purses? The banks must live. And if instead of building up their deposits on sound wealth, they build them up on unsound wealth, and keep that proportion of reserves which critics demand they shall keep, then they will have fulfilled their duty from the standpoint of this narrow conception. Suppose they speculated and kept even higher reserves than those laid down by the mathematicians, content with the higher profits made from speculation, by whose standards of equity are they to be judged? If high gold reserves alone can save them, or should save them, and they possess these high reserves, then they can be saved even if they speculated. If the oracles say so, it must be so. If sound wealth be useless to them, then unsound wealth could not be more useless. If they could not get legal tender for sound wealth, for gilt-edged securities, they would be no worse off with brass-edged securities. As I have already insisted, it is something beyond lack of reason to ask banks in the same moment to lend freely and to save their gold reserves. It is as unreasonable as asking an ordinary man to be generous and prodigal and at the same time close-fisted and thrifty. Take that measure of the Government whereby it arranged with the Bank of England to discount, without recourse to the holder, all approved bills accepted before the declaration of the moratorium, guaranteeing the Bank against any loss it might incur. This was, of course, placing a burden on the shoulders of the community which was a perfectly equitable burden. But quite apart from its equity, it was, in its lowest aspect, an expedient burden. That is to say, if the nation had refused to shoulder this burden, it would have had a far greater burden to bear in the dislocation of trade and its incalculable losses. It would not have been just to place this burden entirely on the shoulders of the banks. In such a crisis the entire community had to face the perils as a whole, and sink or swim as a whole.