NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLI, Issue 9498, 23 April 1921, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

An interesting feature of the latest banking returns is that they disclose a small reduction m the amount of bank notes actually m circulation— that is, the total liabilities m respect of notes less "legal tender notes of other banks" held by the various banks. The net circulation has steadily increased until the returns for the December quarter of 1920 showed a total of £7,163,683. Those for last .quarter shov." a .total of £7,080,222, a decline of £83,461. The difference is small, but it probably marks the turning of the corner. CoincidentaUy, there has been an increase m the coin arid bullion held by the banks, the total for the last quarter having been £7,662,557, as against £7,657,093 m the December quarter. Both movements indicate a reduction of the currency distributed among the public, and, allowing for the increasing needs of a growing population, this contraction may be expected to continue as prices decline and its purchasing power rises.

A new experiment m industrial life is being tried m England. For some time past large firms which have been foremost m applying methods of industrial welfare have provided music for their workers m spare time, but several of them have now gone a step further and have experimentally provided bands m 'factories to play while the workers worked. The "Daily Chronicle " reports one firm as saying that "when the brass band plays liveliness is born among the workers, who can be heard singing and whistling the tunes as they push on with their work." The success of bands which pay for themselves by increasing the output would indeed be delightful. We wonder, however, whether, when some grave student of the muscular movements of the industrial human being gets to work upon the effect of brass bands, he will not discover that production increases with rapid tunes and decreases with slow ones. Is there not a tendency m most persons to keep timetjfcp the music ? We have all heard of the " Government stroke." But might there not be such a thing as a brass-band stroke, "keeping time, time, time, m a sort of runic rhyme," to the gallop, or to the slow march, as the case may be ?