Moral Superiority
Snt,—Like Strix, I have an idea that we English are not as astute at looking after our financial affairs as we flatter ourselves.
At the moment, the nation's monetary matters are supervised by three classes of superior intellectual prelates, none of whom, I suspect, unlike Maynard Keynes, have ever been personally involved in mak- ing, or (as important) in losing, money: (1) Socialist ministers who affect to despise money and would like to see the profit motive abolished because it is im- moral. (2) Salaried civil servants whose income has been assured from the moment they pass the civil service examinations. (3) Academic economists whose background is similar to their civil service colleagues.
In spite of this plethora of good intentions and 'double-firsts' we are in the middle of our worst fin- ancial crisis since the end of the war and the only European nation to have come to this pass after twenty years of international expansion and pros- perity. Would it not be better to recruit a few Jewish bankers or Greek merchants to do the distasteful business of looking after the nation's money for us? Our present Government can then carry on unper- turbed their self-appointed mission of conveying their moral superiority to the rest of the world.
J. M. RAMPTON
Easton Lodge, Easton, near Norwich
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