of exchange (this being the total of bills discounted less bills rediscounted) and six millions into investments and loans, and it holds more than its paid-up capital in cash at bankers.
We thus see at a glance the function that is performed by these companies and the private firms which engage in the same business. They act as merchants in the market for bills of exchange, which are the currency of international trade, keeping a large stock of them in hand so that they may be able to provide, for the banks and other purchasers, bills of the date and class that are required by the buyer.
In order to finance this mass of credit-merchandize, they borrow from the banks and finance houses and from the India Council and anyone else who wants to place funds for a time. Their utility is obvious—they provide a reservoir into which the floating cash of Lombard Street may be poured to earn the current rate of interest for short loans, and another reservoir which holds the floating supply of bills of exchange which finance the home and foreign trade of Great Britain, and of many other countries, and (at present in the form of Treasury bills) form the greater part of this country's floating debt.
