DR. LEAF ON BANKING.
If only by reason of its eminent authorship, the small work on banking, by Mr. Walter Leaf, the Chairman of the West- minster Bank, which has just been published, is sure of a very wide circle of readers. Especially can the book be recom- mended to those who desire not merely to be informed con- cerning the mechanism of banking and of Lombard Street generally, but who wish to discover how that mechanism has been affected by the War and the many abnormal develop- ments since the termination of the conflict. Thus, it will be seen that Mr. Leaf devotes a major part of his book to a con- sideration of the developments in Central Banking, and does not pass to a consideration of the mechanism of the joint stock banking system and the Discount Market until these develop- ments in Central Banking have been thoroughly thrashed out. As far as possible, Mr. Leaf has also kept away from contro- versial topics, but already one assertion in his book, namely, that the joint stock banks do not create but only distribute credit, has challenged replies from various quarters. Within certain limits, which it would be difficult, perhaps, to define precisely, there can be little doubt that in many cases the advance of loans by the joint stock banks must be regarded as constituting, for the moment at all events, a distinct creation of new credit. A. W. K.
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