into the new conditions and circumstances which have arisen during the last 60 years, the marvellous development of our resources and responsibilities, the vastness of the transactions that now enter into daily commercial life, that it is our duty to enquire whether it is not necessary to make further provision for that which we conceive the object of all recent legislation respecting the Bank of England to have been, viz., the unquestioned safety of our currency so necessary for our world-wide commerce, and the maintenance of our position as the one free market for gold, and as the recognised banking centre of all civilised nations.
This is one of the greatest problems of our time, and one which will have to be faced. Questions are again coming to the front which are making the study of Political Economy more imperative than ever: a science which in its variety, in its influence in regulating the development of nations, in its close relationship to human nature, appears to me to be one of the most interesting, and amongst its many intricate chapters that of currency is surely not the least important.
