dwindled by £35,000,000, and at the time when the rate was raised Treasury Bills were in fact being sold with quite satisfactory ease, so the effect of putting the rate up was rather to check the demand both for them and for commercial bills, because it was felt that with the Bank Rate rising on this apparently quite illogical system another rise in Bank Rate might happen at any moment. The old reasons for movements in Bank Rate to protect the gold stock, so strongly insisted on by the Cunliffe Committee Report, had all been destroyed for the time being by the prohibition of the export of gold. Consequently, the market had no bearings to steer by in the matter of Bank Rate and could only cherish an uncomfortable feeling that since a rise had taken place when there was apparently nothing special to warrant it, a further rise on equally obscure grounds might be expected at any time. In fact, there was for a time a serious risk of something like panic, because Lombard Street, very naturally under the circumstances, practically retired from its bill discounting business, and a very awkward deadlock was only stopped by special measures taken by the Bank of England, which expressed its readiness to discount sixty days' bills (instead of the customary ten or fifteen days) for the bill brokers if they needed such
