Page:Bankers and Credit (1924).pdf/36

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London City and Midland Bank.
Balance Sheet—June 30, 1914.

Paid-up Capital £64,348,650 Cash in hand and at Bank of England £15,128,192
Reserve Fund 3,700,000 Money at Call and Short Notice 12,510,356
Current, Deposit and other Accounts (including Undivided Profits) 95,027,439 Investments 8,835,697
Acceptances 7,353,110 Bills of Exchange 10,230,300
Advances, Loans and other Accounts 54,081,382
Liability of Customers for Acceptances 7,353,110
Premises 2,290,162
£110,429,199 £110,429,199

Bankers had to decide in the light of their long experience of these matters, the proportion which prudence required them to maintain between this mass of deposits, which they might be asked to meet in cash, and their holding of cash, on the other side of the balance sheet. A rough and elastic proportion was thus established between their holdings of legal tender cash and credit at the Bank of England, and the extent to which the banks could create deposits by granting credits to the community. It will be seen, when we look again at the balance sheet, that, besides their cash, the banks held assets which, in varying degrees,