4 de Julio de 2010

It is of course possible that a panic might arise in England so severe that members of the mercantile community might refuse to accept one another’s cheques in payment of debts and that we should temporary step backwards to the exclusive use of Bank England notes (…) But apart from actual general cataclysm it seems reasonable to expect that any gap in credit might probably be filled by a mere enlargement of the Bank’s advances, and a consequent increase in the credits which it gives to other credit-makers to serve as a basis for their operations. In other words, instead of the Bank’s reserve being depleted by internal panic, it might have the effect of merely increasing its holding of securities and its liability under deposits, as normally happens at the end of the half-years.

Hartley Withers, The meaning of money, 1932 (primera edición 1909), p. 197