104 
MONEY 
to give up one five-pound Bank Note for each five 
one-pound Currency Notes—a substitution of small 
denominations for large which would not affect the 
total currency in their hands at all. 
The Treasury Minute, reviving memories of the 
1797 ** Restriction ”” Act, speaks of * restricting 
the Bank of England from issuing notes above the 
maximum, as if the Bank was something more than 
the mere agent of the Treasury in the matter, but 
there is no getting over the fact that the Currency and 
Bank Notes Act, 1914, gives all power to the Treasury 
— “The Treasury may, subject to the provisions of 
this Act, issue Currency Notes for one pound and 
for ten shillings,” and “Currency Notes may be 
issued to such persons and in such manner as the 
Treasury direct.” * The Minute really amounted 
to a self-denying ordinance (very properly com- 
municated to the Bank of England and the other 
banks) by which the Treasury bound itself to provide 
for all the future outgoings by other means than the 
issue of notes. From very shortly after the beginning 
of the War down to December 1919, sales, known as 
“issues,” of Currency Notes, had supplemented what 
was obtained from taxation, from borrowing from 
individuals and institutions such as the Bank of 
England and other banks at home and abroad, and 
from sales of war stores and other miscellaneous 
l The remainder of Clause 2, of which these last words 
form the opening, runs, “ but the amount of any notes issued 
to any person, shall, by virtue of this Act and without further 
registration or assurance, be a floating charge in priority 
to all other charges, whether under statute or otherwise, on 
the assets of that person.” They suggest what is probably 
true, that the intention of the Act was only to provide loans 
in cash to individuals or banks in temporary financial diff- 
culties owing to the War, and that the use which has been 
made of it is contrary to its spirit though not perhaps to its 
letter.