30 DECEMBER 1932, Page 28

FEATURES OF THE YEAR.

These are times, however, when there is no room either for the shallow optimist or the gloomy pessimist. I think it was the late Studdert Kennedy who likened the former to an ostrich hiding his head in the sands and smiling with his back feathers, while the definitions of the pessimist are too numerous and too well knowri to be worth repeating. I want, therefore, in a very few paragraphs not to make an exhaustive survey of the events of the past year in so far as they have affected the financial situation, but to summarize a few of the more important features, with special reference to those which seem likely to have the greatest influence upon prospects for the New Year.