" Re-Igniting the Torch of Hope
THERE was a phrase in the speech delivered last week to the shareholders of Lloyds Bank by the Chairman, Mr. Beaumont Pease, which captures the imagination and which, it must be hoped, the course of future events will make historic. In his address to shareholders of the Westminster Bank, to which I referred a week ago, Mr. Rupert Beckett emphasized the important truth that cheap money and inflation cannot in themselves stimulate trade activity. This truth was warmly endorsed by Mr. Beaumont Pease who, after commenting upon the failure of cheap money here and in America to affect prices materially at either centre, remarked that before the desired increase in the price level can be realized a factor outside the purely economic sphere must come into play. Something, said Mr. Pease, "must occur to induce the owners of this increased purchasing power to put it into use. Some spark must re-ignite the torch of hope, some outstanding event or accumulation of events must strike man's imagination and persuade him that the darkness is past and the dawn at hand, that the depressing influences by which he has been held down so long have been removed, that trade is now on the upward turn, that now is the time to extend, and that if he does not buy to-day he will have to pay more to-morrow for what he requires."
It is, indeed, just that " something " which seems to be required before there can be a return of confidence and without which the piled-up, unused resources, as expressed in record figures of banking deposits, constitute the reflection of trade stagnation rather than of forces immediately ready to be mobilized for fresh activities. Whether, however, financial and economic developments will in themselves suffice to light the torch of hope or whether there will have to be a great change in the political atmosphere before the torch will ignite, it would be hard at the moment to say.
A TIME OE PREPARATION.
Of the many able addresses delivered at recent meetings of bank shareholders, Mr. Pease's address must be given a very high place. There was no ignoring of the fact that definite signs of improvement in home trade were at present lacking, but Mr. Pease was-by no means straining the point when he declared that the past year must be regarded as one where much had been accomplished in the way of preparation for better things later on. He rightly emphasized the fact that the year had revealed a tendency both in this country and elsewhere to face more courageously the actual causes of depression, while he pointed to the Lausanne agreement as an indication of greater readiness on the part of some of the nations to co-operate in dealing with some of the causes.
TECHNOCRACY.
Referring to the somewhat despairing wail from the devotees of technocracy in the United States, Mr. Beaumont Pease refused to accept any despairing conclusion that machines have finally and hopelessly, left men's hands empty of work in the future, but said that for his past he was not afraid " that man will be destroyed by a monster of his own making or that he will be finally overwhelmed by a glut of goods which he cannot use." History, he said, " supports me in the hope that the world will not and cannot logically be impoverished in the long run by an accretion of those
things which constitute real wealth, even though there may be many dislocations of trade and hardship of individuals in the process of finding a better distribution of the product of men's hands amongst those who so greatly desire them."
INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH.
There were two points at the conclusion of Mr. Beaumont Pease's speech which have been noted in financial and business circles with particular interest. After acknowledging that our industrial recovery must, of course, depend to some extent upon the solution of problems of an international character, the Chairman of Lloyds Bank said that it behoved us none the less to exercise that resourcefulness and enterprise which our predecessors had shown in days past in no less difficult circumstances. In particular, Mr. Pease directed attention to the necessity for scientific research in industry. This, he admitted, involved expense, and the necessary finance was not always available except for the larger and richer firms.
Then came a sentence to which much importance seems to be attached. He said : " I agree that some organization for providing finance for intermediate loans of modest amounts, and for comparatively short periods, which would fill the gap between ordinary bank- ing loans and those of a longer duration and for larger sums, would be a desirable addition to our financial machinery. Steps for the formation of such an organi- zation should be, and, I may say, are being, taken." It would seem, therefore, that ere long we may hear something of the formation of some new institution designed to supplement the machinery of existing banks in providing facilities for the aid of industry.
ARTHUR W. KIDDY.
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