BANKS [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—I have read Mr. Kiddy's defence of the private owner- ship of banks with interest but without conviction. From his article one would imagine that the banks were solely occupied with the faithful custody of the money of the people. Not a word about the power of the great central banks to create new money out of nothing and to destroy money at will.
The interests of bankers and of ordinary citizens are in direct conflict on the matter of the money supply, for ordinary citizens require money to be plentiful, but bankers, being dealers in money and also moneylenders, like the commodity in which they deal to have the high value which scarcity secures. That is why the amount of a country's money supply should be adjusted to the amount of its real wealth in goods by an administration responsible to the people, and should not be left in the hands of financiers who regard mainly the interests of their own class.
The position in regard to War Loan is nothing else than a colossal scandal of exploitation. About 25 per cent. only of this huge burden was subscribed by private citizens out of savings. The remainder was created by the bankers without work or self-denial, by the simple process of writing the necessary -figures in their ledgers. This money, which the banks' created hy a stroke of the pen, really belongs to the taxpayer since it was created against the security of Britain as a going concern ; but now the taxpayer is being crushed with financial burdens to pay interest to the bankers for putting money figures against the 'wealth he himself has The Place House, Peasmarsh. - - • _ •
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