§ MR. WYLDsaid, he would beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether it is expedient that the Directors of the Bank of England should exercise the power they possess by their exclusive privilege of issuing notes to compel the sale of Consols, and thereby depreciate the securities of the State upon which their own issues are mainly founded?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERSir, I hope my hon. Friend will allow me to say that this is a question which opens a very wide field for discussion upon a matter of general policy. It amounts in reality to a question as to whether the entire position of the principal issuing body in this country should be changed, and whether issues and advances should be made on the direct responsibility of the State? This is a question which it is impossible for me to meet or discuss in answer to a simple interrogatory; but I must say that on the principle of the law as it stands, and viewing the position of the Bank of England as essentially that of a commercial establishment, especially as that position has been defined and understood by the Act of 1844, I think it would be quite impossible to deprive the Bank of England of the discretion it is possessed of, and which it exercises with a view of making a greater or less amount of advances either on public securities or mercantile accounts.