common, though there are cases of it) the cessation of any great export—causes a balance to become due, which must be paid in cash.
Now, the only source from which large sums of cash can be withdrawn in countries where banking is at all developed, is a "bank reserve." In England especially, except a few sums of no very considerable amount held by bullion dealers in the course of their business, there are no sums worth mentioning in cash out of the banks; an ordinary person could hardly pay a serious sum without going to some bank, even if he spent a month in trying. All persons who wish to pay a large sum in cash trench of necessity on the banking reserve. But, then, what is "cash?" Within a country the action of a government can settle the quantity, and therefore the value, of its currency; but outside its own country, no government can do so. Bullion is the "cash" of international trade; paper currencies are of no use there, and coins pass only as they contain more or less bullion.
When, then, the legal tender of a country is purely metallic, all that is necessary is that banks should keep a sufficient store of that "legal tender." But when the "legal tender" is partly metal and partly paper, it is necessary that the paper "legal tender"—the bank note—should be convertible into bullion. And here I should pass my limits, and enter on the theory of Peel's Act, if I began to
