include only promises to pay of the British Government, but they may be in the form of undated or long-dated loans, such as Consols or War Loans, or they may be Treasury Bills, or they may be temporary advances, which the Government secures from the Bank of England in the form of Deficiency Advances for meeting interest due on Government debt; or Ways and Means advances necessitated at a time when the revenue of the country is coming in too slowly to meet the daily payments that the Government has to make. The "Other securities" include every investment or promise to pay that the Bank of England may hold, other than those issued by the British Government. And advances that it may make to banks, though banks very rarely borrow from it, or to bill-brokers, stockbrokers, or its ordinary customers, are here jumbled together in a comprehensive medley, with the result again that inferences drawn from the movement upward or downward of this item are extraordinarily likely to mislead the too curious inquirer.
We saw that any investment or loan made by an ordinary bank increased the deposits in the hands of itself or of some other bank. When the Bank of England makes investments
