DEFENCE OF BANKERS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17639, 1 December 1931, Page 2

DEFENCE OF BANKERS

SOCIALISTS BAD LOSERS I m Turning to the financial position, Mr. Baldwin m a, speech on October 21 said they had been told that there had been no crisis, that it was all «a« bunkers ramp. There was one thing which struck him, and .that was that tho *' Socialist Party were -had losers. He remembered that in 1924- they never ’ Stopped talking about what was called' the Red Letter, and they attributed all ? their disasers to that. Now they .sail! v they were beaten by a bankers b ramp. He had no sympathy with them. | He had been beaten many times and he .had never whined. When they were ■ beaten it was better to look within 'rather than without, and he advised the Socialist‘Party to do this, jjv' ,• A baukers’ ramp meant one of two , things. It meant either that the bankers j engineered the crisis for their own sell fish ends and advantage. That was ; ridiculous,- If any man wanted security • it was the banker. In the United States f n hundred banks a month were jiegular--1 ]y being placed in the hands of re>ceivers, and all the banks in one large Mown in Ohio had closed. In Franco l the fourth largest deposit bank threatenjcd to break flown, and was only 'saved ■ by the intervention of the llank of France. In Germany and Austria the •' situation had been similar. | In England alone there had been no • failure of any bank, and when we went C off the gold standard the banks were open for business as usual, mul there * was no rnn. Thero was a flight from the pound, bnt no flight from the banks, a marvellous tribute to the solidity nnd to the character of British management. | Secondly, the phrase “a banters’ 7 ramp” might mean that the bankers bdisliked the Socialist Government and : sought, to turn them out. Mr. Mae- | Donald in the House on September 8 I answered that. He said that never in ' the whole process of negotiations with the Labor Government, did the bankers tf-Anf/twirk unf li tmllfl/vil TUTirtACtlltl I

interfere with political proposals. They gave only expert advice. • Mr. Henderson himself in the House also admitted i that he had no complaint to about ' the bankers and did not dream of • i making any/That was very interesting :in the light of what was now being I sard. || After quoting Mr. Snowden to the '' same effect, Mr. Baldwin paid a tribute to Mr. Montagu Norman, Governor of the Bank of England, and said that "there was no statesman, nor anyone, to whom the world owed more for his unjejfish work for the rehabilitation of .-this country and of the world than it did to Mr. Norman. {]■ ' mmmmmmmmmmm—mmm W£,‘ ■ . I