MONEY CANNOT CREATE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 21 March 1936, Page 4

MONEY CANNOT CREATE

BANK CHAIRMAN’S REMARKS

After noting/ important recent changes' in monetary ideas, the chairman of the Midland Bank, Mr Reginald McKenna, addressing the annual meeting of shareholders, went on to say that progress along this line had been slower than in banking technique. “The old conflict of opinon has by no merits ceased, and perhaps never will,” -continued. “There is a natural tendency, wjieu a particular course is" re-

cognised as bad, to jump to the conclusion that the opposite is good, whereas the truth may be that both arc bad and that a middle line is the right one. In past centuries so much suffering had been entailed by repeated currency debasement that mankind, in recoiling from that evil, was blind to the opposite evil of undue"restriction. There is, moreover, the extreme difficulty of detached reasoning on the subject of money. The earning or ownership of money on whatever scale js such tin important factor in our everyday lives. that -we find it difficult to discuss money in the abstract. But theories ou the total supply of money

have nothing whatever to do with its distribution among classes or individuals. More than one exponent < of monetary management has been misled into the belief that he has discovered a simple method whereby every individual can be made better off without working. Monetary management can do no more than remove obstacles in the way of industry and assist its expansion. It can help to extend the area, of employment and bring production and consumption into better relationship; hut notwithstanding many dogmatic assurances to the contrary, it cannot of itself create wealth available . for distribution,” i