The Bank of Liverpool stopped on Monday, with liabilities estimated
at about a million, but the shareholders being fully
responsible, a call of 5/. per share has been agreed to, and business will be resumed. The chairman, Mr. Banner, Made an odd little speech at the shareholders' meeting. People who bought bank shares ought not, he said, to regard their dividends as income, but should accumulate part of them to form a sinking fund against reverses. That is as much as to say that the purchasers of such shares are not investors at all, but traders, who ought to save something out of profits—a theory which may be sound, but which will by no means tend to raise the popularity of Bank shares. It implies that the half-yearly statements, which always profess to show the risks incurred, are worthless. If they are, why buy such shares ; if they are not, why save the dividends ?
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