genuity is seen at
its very best. He reserves for the State that part of banking which is
purely a matter of routine, and he leaves to private enterprise that
part of it which requiries the elasticity and judgment and quickness
in which the average bureaucrat is most likely to fail. A certain
amount of friction may easily arise from this differentiation. The
interest that the State would be enabled to allow to depositors would
clearly depend to a great extent on the interest which it would be
able to receive from the financial institutions engaged in lending
the money. These institutions could naturally pay the State interest
according to the rate which they were able to charge their borrowing
customers, leaving themselves a margin for profit and for protection
against the risk that their business would involve. It is obvious that
there might at times be considerable difficulty in adjusting these two
different points of view, and anybody who knows anything about the
length of time and argument involved in inducing officials to make up
their minds can only fear that occasional jarring in this connecting
link between the two sides of banking might sometimes produce effects
which would be awkward for the industry of the country.

But apart from this obvious difficulty, can we contemplate with
equanimity the prospect of the State monopoly of the ordinary banking
facilities as they present themselves to the man in the street,
namely, the provision of bank branches, the use of the cheque book,
the custody of securities and any other articles that the customer
wishes to leave with his bank? At present the ease and quickness with
which these routine matters of banking are carried out in England are
developed to a point which is the envy of foreign visitors. How would
it be if every cashier of every bank were converted by the process of
nationalisation from the kindly, businesslike human being as we know
him into the kind of person who ministers to our wants behind the
counters of the Post Office? As it is, we go into our bank, to present
a cheque in order to provide ourselves with cash for the daily
purposes of life; the cashier looks at the signature, recognises
the customer, hands him over the money. If that cashier became
a Government official how long would it take him to verify the
signature, to see whether the customer really had a balance to his
credit, and finally furnish him with what he wanted? It is obvious
that the