THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
SIR,—Mr. Connely's letter in your issue of January and is, I think, written under an entire misapprehension of the position.
In the first place I know of no Australian Bank which has the word " British " in its title, although there are banks prefixed by that word operating in countries other than the Dominions, e.g., the British Bank of South America. Mr. Connely will hardly argue that South America is not independent of Great Britain. Most British Dominions in their Carly stages naturally looked to the parent country, through the banks, for the finance necessary for their development, but that does not mean that local control or influence is entirely in the hands of the City; indeed, most of the Dominion Governments maintain Reserve or Commonwealth Banks (which also have London offices) whose primary duty it is to control, and in some cases to restrict the activities of the commercial banks, and regulate the exchanges.
London being the financial centre of the world, most banks, both Dominion and foreign, find it necessary and convenient to have offices or agents in the City. Further, the share capital of the Dominion banks is by no means confined to shareholders in this country, a large part of the dividends being paid in the country where the profits are earned.
Mr. Connely says (without any relevance to Australian independence) that it has been stated that £50,000,000 annually is received in England from India as interest. It may or may not be so. I do not know. Neither apparently does he. But seeing that vast sums of British capital have been spent in India on railways, electric plants and so on, is it not natural that such expenditure should earn interest? Do not United States citizens receive interest on the investments they have made in other countries?—Yours faithfully,
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