Money makes money
MY FAVOURITE nationalised industry has broken its own record. This week it reported a profit of £1,397 million. The figure was up by 28 per cent on the previous year's, and was achieved on a turnover of no more than £1,445 million, so that of every pound which passed through the business, all but fourpence or less remained in the till. This paragon is the Issue Department of the Bank of England, which provides our currency notes. The Bank has a licence — and, in England and Wales, the only licence — to print money, and the business is as good as it sounds. It works as it always has: the issuing bank hands over notes, which bear no interest, in exchange for credit, which it can invest so as to earn interest. The income and profits which this produced for the Bank of England covered the costs involved producing, storing, guarding and recover- ing the notes — with no trouble at all. Higher interest rates helped. Against that, the Bank lost its one-pound business to the Mint, which coins money in the same rewarding way. The Governor of the Bank, at a City cricket lunch this week, singled out the qualities he admired in a leader — aristocratic, firm, fair, absolutely straight. . . . Down the tables somebody muttered that these did not seem to win championships. Perhaps, though, on the Issue Department's results, they ought to be revalued. A pity, the Governor would agree, that all of the £1,397 million has to be wasted on the Treasury.
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