TOPICS OF THE TIMES.

Southland Times, Issue 22498, 7 December 1934, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE TIMES.

Importance of Insurance. Mr E. A. Radford, M.P., in an address to the Guild of Insurance Officials (Manchester branch), described insurance as an absolutely necessary and vital part of the delicate organizations that make up British industry and commerce. Throughout the long depression, with works and collieries going out of business, the insurance business had gone on blossoming like the rose. There was hardly a man or woman in the country who was not now insured under either private or national schemes. Four-fifths of the national wealth was insurable, and the burden must be spread over many backs. It was truly a wonderful thing that in a world which had become more and more competitive the small islands of the United Kingdom could keep 45,000,000 people and give them more in the way of social service than was known by any other people in the civilized world. Nationalized Banking.

“Surely there is no department of life where the element of confidence counts for so much as it does in banking,” said Mr Runciman, President of the Board of Trade, in a recent speech. “If the Labour Party have their way with the banks we must deal with this subject very early in the day. It is quite clear they will talk a great deal about banks in the future. They point out that the Big Five have been guilty of lack of social purpose in the use of their resources, and that they ought to be amalgamated into a banking corporation under public ownership and control. Directors would be nominated by the Government from persons willing to carry out work under the new conditions. I should think they would

be. Governments had better have nothing whatever to do with the overdraft business,” Mr Runciman added. “They will burn their fingers if they do. I would not trust the management of the overdrafts to either the Liberal, Labour or Conservative Party offices. They are not set up for it. How is the Labour conference going to provide for the element of trust? I am sure there would be very few depositors who would feel comfortable if they knew that their money was in the hands of people who were running them for political purposes.”

Planning in Industry. Sir Arnold Wilson, M.P., speaking on “The Limitations of Planning” before the British Works Management Association, said: “Bureaucratic intervention in favour of a particular retnedy introduces an element of rigidity which is fatal to economic progress. The business of a Government in a civilized country is not to engage itself, officially or by deputy, in the complexities of production and distribution of perishable commodities. Its primary function is to establish conditions in which private persons can undertake such tasks to mutual advantage in the service of the consumer. If the Govenunent’s policy is to be one of continuing interference with industry it must be accompanied by the assumption of public responsibility for the control of industry. Advocates of planning are sailing against the tide. The schemes already in being are breaking down; abroad they they are being abandoned. Industrialists are increasingly hostile to them. Planning is a scheme to give sectional advantages to particular industries, which must involve ultimately central and therefore inflexible control of production and distribution. The results of that system abroad have been wholly discouraging. The small business man has weathered the storm of the past three years better than the large corporation. His total fluctuations of employment have been smaller, his managerial overheads proportionately no larger, and his relations with his employees better because more personal. The ‘small man’ has also done better in agriculture. There is a great field open for large concerns, well managed and dealing with certain branches of industry, but I do not think that the future lies with greater and yet greater firms.”