obligation to pay both Bank of England notes and currency notes in gold on demand should, in its judgment, be maintained, it was not necessary or desirable that there should be an early resumption of the internal circulation of gold coin. It did not think that any legislation on this subject would be required, since the public have become so accustomed to handling paper money that it would not be likely to want to handle gold as long as it was made clear to it through informal action on the part of the banks that it would not be desirable to do so. If necessary, however, the Committee said that the circulation of gold coin could be prevented by making the notes convertible at the discretion of the Bank of England into either gold coin or into bar gold. It also suggested that the gold reserves of the country should be held by our one central institution, and that all banks should transfer any gold then held by them to the Bank of England. This recommendation was actually carried out, more or less completely, in the spring of 1920.
A more questionable suggestion was to the effect that, while the import of gold should be free from all restrictions, "it is not necessary to allow gold coin or bullion obtained otherwise than from the Bank of England to be exported." This provision would have given the Bank of
