BANKING IN THE UNITED STATES.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 October 1934, Page 4

BANKING IN THE UNITED STATES.

President Roosevelt’s speech last week to the American Bankers’ Association was an important pronouncement. It has been described as a challenge to the banks to undertake once more the supply of credit to the industries of the Republic, and to have been received with satisfaction by the banking authorities. The President’s emergency measures for recovery included a large measure of control over the provision of credit, but his appeal last week for the co-opera-tion of all thp forces available for the purpose of recovery seems to indicate that he is satisfied that the speculative banking he condemned so strongly has been brought to an end, and that banks can take over many if not all of the loan functions that have been exercised during the past eighteen months by the Government’s emergency agencies. The President did not indicate his future monetary plans, but viewed in conjunction with the recent reorganisation of the N.R.A. and his appeal to industry for co-operation with the Administration in bringing about trade recovery, it appears as though a re-shaping of the emergency policy is in progress. The appeal to industry was broad-based. It

applied to labour and to agriculturists as well as to manufacturers, and it gave Indications that as soon as industry was prepared to show itself capable of recovery the Government would be prepared to leave it to work out its own salvation. Credit supply is an important factor in that recovery, and pending reorganisation of much that was unhealthy in the banking system the Administration was obliged to find the means of making that supply available. At the time the crisis was acute the rigid control of banking was accepted just as the interference in commerce and farm production was tolerated if not welcomed by those who felt that any action was better than none. The suggestion that industry and banking can once more aid recovery without State control, but with co-operation between themselves and the Government seems an indication that the President is of opinion that temporary expedients are no longer necessary, and that the best features of the old-time individualism of the. American nation can be retained and once more be made important factors in the recovery of trade and finance. The next chapter in the Roosevelt plan of recovery bids fair to be as interesting as, if less spectacular than, the dynamic actions that followed the President’s inauguration.