Finance—Public & Private
Banking and Industry—The Macmillan Report—I
IT is unfortunate that the appearance of the long expected Report of the Macmillan Committee on Finance and Industry should have coincided with the acute world crisis arising out of the special crisis in Germany. For the moment the problems dealt with by the Macmillan Committee, urgent as they are, have seemed to be merged into the larger problems represented by the world crisis. At the same time I cannot ,help thinking that there is a sense in which the present crisis ,constitutes in itself a very important comment upon the Macmillan Report. That Report deals, of course, with the general problems of banking, finance and industry upon technical and in some senses on academic and theoretical grounds. The present world crisis, however, offers a very clear and striking demonstration of the fact that just as the Great War of 1914 to 1918 was a force overwhelming all facts and theories and, indeed, the whole of financial and social civilization, so- .thany, if not most, of the economic and social problems of the post-War years find their explana- tion in causes entirely removed from monetary and economic theories.
A few weeks ago, for instance, the United States made certain proposals with regard to a year's moratorium for Reparation payments and international debts, which it was seen provided the basis for relief to Germany and improvement in the whole international and financial situation. To insure the success of the Hoover Plan, however, it was essential that there should be an instant acceptance of it by all the countries concerned, so that the relief should be expressed not merely in terms of money represented by the year's moratorium, but in the restoration of international confidence, which is the basis of international credit. Subsequent events showed that so far as France was concerned, this confidence was lacking, and I bring forward the point not necessarily as attempting to show that France was wrong in her point of view, but as very clearly demonstrating the inability of international bankers to carry through any great scheme for the re-establishment of international credit if " politics " become the dominant force.
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