The greatest risk the bank runs, is in discounting bad bills; but by the extent of their business in this branch, and by circulating the cash of all the merchants who keep accounts with them, they acquire so perfect a knowledge of the state of their affairs, that it rarely happens that any one can fail for very considerable sums, without the bank’s having a previous notice of it. A sudden loss may no doubt happen, without a possibility of being foreseen; but the matter of fact proving that their losses upon bad bills are inconsiderable, we may thence infer, that there is but little mystery to the bank, with regard to the credit of London merchants.
I come now to the last branch of their management, to wit, their trade in gold and silver.
For the circulation of bank notes, coin is necessary. We have seen, in treating of the Scotch banks, how coin is brought in: to wit, in consequence of all the payments made to the bank, in which there must be a proportion of coin equal to what is found in common circulation. What is not paid in coin, comes in, in their own notes, which are thereby taken out of the circle; and consequently make place for a subsequent supply, which issues in the manner we have described.
In times of peace, and a favourable balance of trade, the bank suffers little by the obligation it is under to pay in coin, except so far as the great confusion of the present currency affords an occasion to money-jobbers to melt down the new guineas. The extent of this traffic I am no judge of, and the bank no doubt has an interest in preventing it as far as the laws have provided a remedy against it.
But when large payments are to be made abroad, the distress of the bank is no doubt very great.
In Scotland, the banks, upon such occasions, are totally drained of coin. They have no market for the metals; because they have no mint to manufacture them into coin. It is different with respect to the bank of England; their distress proceeds from another cause.
The exportation of the heavy guineas in time of war, and of a wrong balance upon the trade of England, leaves circulation provided with a light currency, in which the bank is obliged to pay their notes; and the intrinsic value of the gold in which they pay, regulates the price of the metals they are obliged to buy at market. If they provide them themselves from abroad, they must pay the price of them in bills of exchange. But then the lightness of the currency at home, sinks the value of the pound sterling, as it raises the value of the ounce of gold and silver. So the only considerable loss they incur, is in providing the metals, which must ever be considerable, so long as the old guineas remain in circulation.
The loss upon coining silver is still greater than upon gold; because, besides the loss incurred by reason of the lightness of the gold, the metals in the silver and gold coin of Great Britain, are not proportional to the value they bear in the London market, where they have been bought, as has been sufficiently explained already in another place[[13]].
[13]. See Book III. Chap. 21. Quest. 7.
It is with great diffidence that I propose an expedient to a company so knowing in the arts and science of trade, for preventing, in a great measure, this loss in providing the metals for the use of circulation. The bank is directed by long experience, and by a knowledge of many facts and circumstances hid from me; and which, therefore, I cannot combine into a theory founded chiefly upon reason.