• CONFIDENCE IN OUR BANKING SvsTEm Now I am far
from suggesting that bankers, any more than any other public companies and institutions, should. be immune from criticism. In the first place, as I have already said, there is a healthy and constructive criticism which is to be welcomed, and, in the second place, it would not be difficult to point out directions where points in banking policy-might fairly be challenged, but that is a very different thing from the kind of persistent attack or vendetta which leaves the impression upon the public that the joint stock banks are grossly profiteering at the expense og the interests of the community, .a charge which, if it Were true, or, even if it were believed by many people, could not fail to be harmful to that prestige of the banks, which plays a very important part in the goodwill of the banking -business: - Fortunately, -not- withstanding the attacks. which have been made,- the prestige and high traditions of our banks are so firmly established as to have ministered in no small degree to the financial stability of this country at a time when at almost every other foreign centre there has been general hoarding and distrust. At one of the most critical inoments in our history-last September, when confidence was disturbed both by the appalling state of the national finances and our departure from the gold standard, the earl:mess with which the situation was viewed here by the general public-was-largely- due to the absolute confidence which wa_s reposed in our banking system and in its con- duct by the present generation of bankers.
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