Regulation and token money

The Bank Charter Act of 1844 followed a long dispute about the control of the money supply and whether the value of the note issue should be allowed to exceed the stock of gold available to support it. The Act placed a statutory limit on the fiduciary issue (that part of the note issue which was not backed by gold) and restrictions were placed on the issue of notes by joint stock banks other than the Bank of England. In fact, these regulations were framed so that the passage of time would eventually leave the Bank of England as the sole note-issuing authority in England and Wales. The last private bank of issue in England surrendered its rights in 1921.

Apart from relatively short periods of emergency when conversion was suspended, all bank-notes, until 1914, were convertible into gold. Convertibility on a restricted basis was restored in 1925, but finally abandoned in 1931. Since that time Bank of England notes have been wholly inconvertible and we have now reached the stage where our bank-notes, while still carrying a 'promise to pay printed on their faces, are no more than token money. This is also true of the coinage; the commodity value of the coins is but a tiny fraction of their money value. Nevertheless the notes and coins are universally acceptable, the fact that they have no real commodity value, and are not backed by gold, in no way affects their ability to serve as money.