a banker owing large sums which he may be called on to repay, but he cannot hold as much as an ordinary banker, or nearly as much, of such sums in cash, because the loss of interest would ruin him. Competition reduces the rate which the bill broker can charge, and raises the rate which the bill broker must give, so that he has to live on a difference exceedingly narrow. And if he constantly kept a large hoard of barren money he would soon be found in the Gazette.
The difficulty is aggravated by the terms upon which a great part of the money at the bill brokers' is deposited with them. Very much of it is repayable at demand, or at very short notice. The demands on a broker in periods of alarm may consequently be very great, and in practice they often are so. In times of panic there is always a very heavy call, if not a run upon them; and as in consequence of the essential nature of their business, they cannot constantly keep a large unemployed reserve of their own in actual cash, they are obliged to ask help of some one who possesses that cash. By the conditions of his trade, the bill broker is forced to belong to a class of "dependent money dealers," as we may term them, that is, of dealers who do not keep their own reserve, and must therefore at every crisis of great difficulty revert to others.
In a natural state of banking, that in which all
