A BANKER ON INDUSTRY.
I cannot too strongly endorse the comments made by Mr. R. J. Hose at this week's meeting of the Anglo-South American Bank concerning our industrial problems. " I do not propose," said Mr. Hose, to examine the conflicting claims of the parties involved in the coal dispute. I must, however, as a banker, make some reference to the dire economic effects of recent events, for, at gatherings such as the present, it is with facts that we must deal." After dealing with many visible evidences of the havoc wrought by the coal stoppage and the far-reaching character of the damage inflicted, Mr. Hose sug- gested that in place of some of the silly slogans with which British workers have been befooled for so long, we should adopt slogans more consistent with the stern facts of the situation such, for example, as Great Britain must export to lire. " Whichever political party," said Mr. Hose, " might be in office would eventually have to deal with the fundamental effect of the absolute dependence of Great Britain upon the maintenance of her overseas commerce." Not a few, I fancy, will also endorse Mr. Hose's desire that there should be a great insistence upon compulsory education in our schools on elemen- tary economic principles with special reference to the com- plicated nature of the State's financial fabric. Possibly, as the Chairman of the Anglo-South American Bank suggested. there might then be few in the future generation who would not realize that if any changes are to be made, they must come about by evolution and not by revolution.
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