BRITISH FINANCE

Waipa Post, Volume 44, Issue 3180, 21 May 1932, Page 7

BRITISH FINANCE

THE SHREW OF THREADNEEDLE The Old Lady oi 1 Threadneedle Street is proving to be a veritable jade (writes a London correspondent), and in the course of his notes he comiments that in the course of years of beneficient administration she inspired on the part of Dondon as a whole a certain genial tolerance of outlook, and even when the Bank of England was transformed and revolutionised by architects, and its facades wrenched into modernity by grotesque sculptural symbolism, the Cockney looked upon it as the kindly old lady still. Rejuvenation, however, seems to have emphasised all that was shrewish in her nature, for she has issued an edict, not against overdrafts, whistling in the presence of directors, or the purloining of bullion, but against lipsticks ! No woman in her employ may, while under her jurisdiction, enrich a lip, however pale, the prohibition being inspired presumably by pro- ( found psychological considerations, both momentous and obscure. But it is one thing to declaim, and quite another to enforce, and there are already signs that a revolt against the aggressive decree must meet with success; for who amiong males would dare to stay the lipstick, and who among women would want to ? Even Mr Norjman cannot be expected to turn his attention from international loans to the prohibition of cosmetics.