This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
137
LOMBARD STREET PHASES

commercial crisis—1866 for example—two things happen: first, we call in the debts which are owing to us in foreign countries; and we require those debts to be paid to us, not in commodities, but in money. From this cause principally, and omitting minor causes, the bullion in the Bank of England, which was £13,156,000 in May, 1866, rose to £19,413,000 in January, 1867, being an increase of over £6,000,000. And then there comes also a second cause, tending in the same direction. During a depressed period the savings of the country increase considerably faster than the outlet for them. A person who has made savings does not know what to do with them. And this new unemployed saving means additional money. Till a saving is invested or employed it exists only in the form of money: a farmer who has sold his wheat and has £100 'to the good,' holds that £100 in money, or some equivalent for money, till he sees some advantageous use to be made of it. Probably he places it in a bank, and this enables it to do more work. If £3,000,000 of coin be deposited in a bank, and it need only keep £1,000,000 as a reserve, that sets £2,000,000 free, and is for the time equivalent to an increase of so much coin. As a principle it may be laid down that all new unemployed savings require either an increased stock of the precious metals, or an increase in the efficiency of