NOTES OR GOLD

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 107, 6 May 1926, Page 15

NOTES OR GOLD

i.•. ' " ' The "Evening Standard" expects that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Winston Churchill, in his Budget statement, will announce the amalgamation of the Treasury and Bank of England note issues,^accompanied by the igsueof £1, £2, £3, and £4 banknotes. ■".•-■■ One of the most important steps of the British Government in the financial arena at the outbreak of the war in 1914 was the suspension of the Bank of England Act, and the issue by the Treasury of paper currency notes, a privilege which previously'had rested almost entirely with the Bank of England. Millions of the new paper tokens were ready for issue when the doors of the British banks were opened after the extension of the August bank holiday, and at the same time the Bank of England was relieved of the obligation to cash its notes in gold on demand. The Treasury has ever since continued to circulate these "war emergency" tokens, which came to be known as "Bradburys" from association with the name of the then secretary to the Treasury, Sir John Bradbury.