THE ATTACK ON THE BANKS
[To the Editor of THE gPECTATOR.] SIR,—Professor J. H. Jones conducts a masterly rearguard action in defence of the banks, first enlists our sympathies by tactfully admitting the minor charges against the Joint Stock Banks, then dismisses the Socialist criticisms as being " mere Socialism " (surely a faint-hearted begging of the question—as who should say " I shan't bother with your arguments because I dislike your politics ") and finally rebuts the main attack on the egg-binding deflationary policy of the Bank of England by a subtle equivocation. He says, " It isn't the Bank you must blame but the Government," and quotes a string of restrictive Bank Acts. But were not those Bank Acts inspired precisely by the Bank itself ? and has not the whole disastrous deflationary policy of this country. for the past 16 years while the present Governor has been in office been dictated chiefly by the dominating personality of the Governor ? No Chancellor or Government even pretends to be themselves financiers or economists, they are merely politicians in high office and lean almost entirely on the Bank for financial advice and frequently acknowledge the same. We industrialists would not have the faintest difficulty in producing plenty of everything in almost limitless abundance, if only there was enough credit issue in circulation to finance popular purchasing power and consumption of that plenty. But the Bank rigidly insists on the golden egg-laying goose of British industry remaining egg-bound.—I am, &e.,
THOMAS BURNS.
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