NOTE ON THE LAST PROCEEDING AT THE BANK. Tun Bank
of England has further reduced its rate of interest, to 5 per cent. The step has by no means caused such unmingled satisfaction as it would have done, in some quarters, even a little while ago : the experiences of the last few months have been too instructive. The journals, of all parties, present an unusual una- nimity of alarm, and the Bank is blamed pretty freely. Commer- cially, it is justified by the large increase of notes in reserve and of bullion in store: if the Directors did not discount at 5 per cent, others would, and do, even at 41 per cent; and why should the Bank of England lose all that custom, all that profit, all that addition for the idolized "rest"? But what becomes of its supposed public function as a regulator of the currency ? Interest fluctuating from 8 per cent to 5 per cent within less than two months !—the utmost degree of tightness and the most openhanded freedom. Well ! no law has been broken ; the statute of 1844 is still uninfringed. It is only the " moral obligation" which is overridden : but how can that be expected to stand against such very eloquent figures in the profit and lose account, especially in . the absence of any express law to compel discretion?
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