When in the end the gains and losses are weighed, perhaps we shall find that the gains, moral and material, greatly outweigh the losses. What was the duty of the banks, when this measure was proclaimed, towards the nation and towards themselves? Looking at it from the low standpoint of self-preservation, what was their duty? From a low and a high standpoint alike it was their duty to help the Government, help the nation, through the Bank of England. They could not give that effective help by hoarding their gold, by getting it from the Bank of England, by sending borrowers to the Bank of England, by refusing help to legitimate needs. Yet this is what some critics counselled them to do--counselled them to increase and not ease the difficulties of the Bank of England. If the country could depend calmly and securely on the Bank of England, with the Government behind it, then the banks also could depend upon it. The Bank of England was the bulwark of England. That bulwark could be weakened and not strengthened by the hoarding of gold. If the Press and others admonished, and wisely admonished, the citizens not to hoard gold, then it was illogical to ask the banks to hoard it, for they would be hoarding the citizens’ gold. These contrary counsels were opposed to all reason, and yet to this hour I see them advocated in some quarters in the Press. The Bank of England needed all the gold it could get as a basis for the discounting of this huge mass of pre-moratorium paper. Gold subsequently poured in from the gold mines and elsewhere, yet notwithstanding this mighty inflow, the proportion of the Bank’s reserve to the ever-growing deposits kept comparatively low, far below the normal proportion. It was in the interests of the country that the Bank should get this gold from any quarters to enable it to make a success of the remedial measure and to ease the country’s financial burdens. How, then, could it at the same time be in the interests of the nation for the joint stock banks to take gold from the Bank, to hoard it and not to send it there? Such action as this would have been inconsistent with the fervent gratitude the bank chairmen and the country have felt towards the Government and its advisers.