In dealing with his subject, Elmer Wood has found it necessary to give very considerable attention to the actual procedure followed by the Bank of England, and for this purpose he has prepared a large number of charts that show the actual movement of the various items of the Bank’s statement. Contrary to the position taken by most modem writers, he concludes that the country banks were not in a position to thwart control by the central institution. In the matter of gold, he has taken the view that the Bank, instead of adjusting its position to an international gold standard governed automatically by natural law, managed the international standard. Since, however, the Bank’s management of the standard was not on a secure footing, it was only an historical accident that it was successful in maintaining gold payments as long as it did.