About the Work
The Spectator is a periodical — a weekly magazine of news, commentary, essays, reviews, correspondence, and advertising — rather than a single sustained treatise. The issue examined here is dated October 31, 1925, and carries the number 5,079, priced at sixpence, with editorial offices at 13 York Street, Covent Garden, London. Its table of contents announces a characteristic mixture: leading articles on foreign and domestic affairs, a theatre notice, motoring notes, letters to the editor, book reviews, and a substantial Banking and Insurance Supplement. The magazine addresses itself to a general educated readership, moving in a single issue from the resignation of a French premier to the trout fishing of New Zealand, from the bombardment of Damascus to the art of driving a motor-car.
The issue is a document of its moment. It reports on the aftermath of the Locarno agreements, the French financial crisis, the League of Nations’ handling of a Greek-Bulgarian frontier incident, the Peking Tariff Conference, the situation in Syria and Morocco under French mandate, and the state of British industry and banking. Alongside this news, it carries the kind of discursive, opinionated writing — on preaching, on Socialism and the common law, on Prohibition, on Gilbert and Sullivan — that gave the magazine its character. The supplement at the back, devoted to banking and insurance, is itself a small survey of Scottish banking, trade prospects, and the relationship between bankers and the community.
Context
The issue belongs to the middle years of the 1920s, a period of uneasy reconstruction. The Great War is a recent memory that shapes nearly every page: the naval dockyards at Rosyth and Pembroke, built at enormous expense to meet a hostile fleet that no longer exists, stand as monuments to the waste of war; the gold standard has just been re-established; the Dawes Report on German reparations has been adopted; and the Locarno Pact, concluded only weeks before this issue, is being greeted as the most important development in European affairs since the war. The writer of the financial outlook notes that the closing months of the year may mark the beginning of greater trade activity, but lists deterrents: chaotic currency in France, an autumn drain of gold from the Bank of England, and poor relations between Capital and Labour.
The international scene is unsettled. France has just lost its Finance Minister, M. Caillaux, thrown overboard to preserve the Cartel des Gauches; the war in Morocco continues with Abd-el-Krim boasting that he has driven a French army of 160,000 men into winter quarters; Syria is under a League mandate and the bombardment of Damascus has raised grave questions about the conduct of General Sarrail. In China, the Peking Tariff Conference meets while the authority of the Peking government barely extends beyond the capital, and the Tuchuns oppose any settlement that would strengthen the central government. In the Balkans, the League of Nations has intervened with unprecedented speed in a Greek-Bulgarian frontier dispute, a sign that its authority is now universally recognized. In Egypt, a new High Commissioner, Sir George Lloyd, takes up a difficult post amid anti-British agitation. And in Greece, a social revolution is quietly underway, driven by the arrival of refugees from Anatolia.
Domestically, the issue reflects a Britain adjusting to diminished circumstances. The leading article on the naval dockyards describes the familiar pattern by which announced economies are obstructed by local interests and eventually abandoned. A Dutch editor, asked what is wrong with England, answers in eight words: “England has idled and played away her position.” The correspondence columns debate Socialism and the common law, the foolishness of preaching, Prohibition in America, and the humour of Gilbert and Sullivan. The banking supplement surveys a Scottish banking system that has been intertwined with national history for more than two and a quarter centuries.
Structure of the Book
The issue is organized as a magazine rather than a book, and its structure is that of a weekly periodical. It opens with a table of principal contents and a news section, “News of the Week,” which reports on the resignation of M. Painlevé’s government in France, the situation in Damascus and Morocco, the Greek-Bulgarian frontier incident, and the Peking Tariff Conference. This is followed by leading articles on domestic and foreign topics, including Lord Rothermere’s advice to the Government, the French financial crisis, the Damascus bombardment, the naval dockyards, and the question of what is wrong with England.
The middle of the issue is given over to a mixture of reportage and commentary: an article on Egypt and the new High Commissioner, Stanley Casson’s account of the capture of Greece by Greeks, a piece on New Zealand as an angler’s paradise, a travel essay on Virginia, an article on who will fly across the Arctic, and a theatre review of Chekhov’s The Seagull. Motoring notes follow, then the correspondence columns, which carry letters on Socialism and the common law, the foolishness of preaching, Locarno and President Wilson, Prohibition, circular walking in woods, Guernsey’s financial policy, hymn-books, a child’s will, Wembley for the hospitals, and the humour of Gilbert and Sullivan.
The issue concludes with a substantial Banking and Insurance Supplement. This opens with advertisements and a directory of a large banking company, then presents a contents page listing articles on the financial outlook, Communists and British trade, Scottish banking, the banker and the community, accident insurance, doctors’ bills and insurance, and disability and life assurance. The supplement includes Arthur W. Kiddy’s survey of the financial outlook, Lord Inchcape’s article on liner traffic, a detailed examination of Scottish banking by an Edinburgh banker, and tables of bank profits, dividends, share prices, and yields. The issue closes with further advertising matter.
Inside the Book
The Week’s Contents and the Fall of the Painlevé Government
The issue opens with its table of contents, a wide survey of the week’s affairs: France at home and abroad, the medical profession and the public, the problem of the naval dockyards, the question of what is wrong with England, Egypt and the new High Commissioner, the capture of Greece by Greeks, New Zealand as an angler’s paradise, and the race to fly across the Arctic. Alongside these come theatre, motoring notes, correspondence from Cambridge, and letters to the editor—among them Mr. G. Bernard Shaw on definitions, the Peking Tariff Conference, humane slaughter, and Gilbert and Sullivan—followed by a book on Lord Ullswater’s reminiscences, reviews ranging from the world as mathematics to the conquest of disease, and finance by Arthur W. Kiddy. The editorial offices sit at 13 York Street, Covent Garden, and a year’s subscription costs thirty shillings.
The news of the week is dominated by France. M. Painlevé’s Government has resigned, extinguishing hopes of an immediate scheme for French financial recovery at a moment when France recognizes that the Morocco war is far from over and that the dangerous situation in Syria adds fresh anxiety. The resignation, decided on Tuesday, was the Cabinet majority’s way of ridding itself of M. Caillaux, who had been bitterly attacked without any formal chance to defend himself. Caillaux stood for sound public finance, adequate taxation, and honouring debts; he was called “impossible” for refusing to consider the Socialists, whose support was necessary—yet whereas he had a policy, the Socialists had none, demanding a Capital Levy while accepting only the vague resolution of the recent Nice Conference. The matter comes down to this: to keep the Cartel des Gauches intact, Caillaux was thrown overboard, and the decision was political, not financial. Painlevé’s new Ministry will be further than ever from a financial formula capable of uniting enough groups.
Damascus, Morocco, and the League’s New Authority
On Damascus, the paper declines to commit to estimates of damage or lives lost, since reports are contradictory and likely exaggerated, but it holds that the bombardment by artillery and aeroplanes while most civilians remained was a panic measure—not that the military staff panicked, but that the methods and results resembled panic, disproportionate to the danger. The allegation that foreign colonies, except the French, were neither warned nor protected is grave; “The Lost Rules of War” are more lost than had been thought. Citizens still flee the city. Frenchmen at home are as concerned as foreign observers, and if General Sarrail, the High Commissioner, is not recalled, he should account for his stewardship. France holds Syria under a League mandate, and Great Britain, in a like case, would seek an immediate League inquiry and acquittal at the bar of public opinion; if France fails to signal such willingness, the League should raise the question spontaneously.
On Morocco, the Times’ well-informed Tangier correspondent wrote on Wednesday that war, though inevitable when it broke out, might have been avoided had France explained her aims during the previous six months; it arose through unnecessary misunderstandings on both sides. The French system of making war is unsuited to the country—too ponderous. Abd-el-Krim still boasts of bringing down one French Marshal and driving a French army of 160,000 men into winter quarters where health will cause anxiety. French and Spanish methods differ, yet formal collaboration saddles France with responsibility for reprisals and prisoner treatment she disapproves. The correspondent concludes, as does the paper, that an immediate attempt at peace should be made; no serious effort toward peace has come from France or Spain.
A Greek-Bulgarian frontier encounter has been taken up by the League of Nations. Where formerly Great Powers with Balkan protégés held hands on swords, the League’s authority is now universally recognized. Early last week a Greek officer and two soldiers were killed, and Athens sent Bulgaria a forty-eight-hour ultimatum demanding apology, reparation, and punishment. Greece was tempted to take a strong line because Bulgaria, an ex-enemy, may keep only a tiny army. Bulgaria appealed to the League, and the Council met in Paris within three days—a fine example of alertness.
The Peking Tariff Conference
The Peking Tariff Conference met in depressing circumstances: the Powers treat with a Government whose writ runs short and which may cease to exist. Sun Chang-fang, Tuchun of Chekiang, has defied Peking and driven northwards Chang Tso-lin, the Manchurian War Lord and champion of Peking. General Wu Pei-fu may or may not collaborate with Sun but opposes Peking; Feng, the Christian General, is more or less inactive but also opposed. The reason for this general opposition is that all anti-Peking figures fear that if Peking treats successfully with the Powers and gains a tighter hold on China’s finances, it will be enormously strengthened, and the Tuchuns would lose wealth and power. The Conference opened Monday; the Chinese Foreign Minister, elected Chairman, declared his Government wanted tariff autonomy. Mr. C. T. Wang surprised the Conference by demanding tariff independence in three years and a 5 per cent surtax instead of the 2½ per cent promised at Washington. Two days before, a new tariff law was promulgated: import duties on non-luxuries not higher than 4 per cent and not lower than 7½ per cent; on wine and tobacco 50 to 80 per cent. Delegates of the nine Powers read addresses in which “the word ‘generosity’ in relation to Chinese aspirations was repeated ad lib.” The Central Government’s instability is discouraging.
Lord Rothermere, the Bank Rate, and the French Crisis
Lord Rothermere is said to have ordered the Government to return to Conservatism, claiming its measures are indistinguishable from Socialist ones and recommending “a retreat all along the line.” The writer calls this advice worse than seldom given. Mr. Baldwin, to his “eternal credit,” is trying to carry out a national policy, though continually “stabbed in the back by professing friends.” He seeks to make class warfare unnecessary by removing its reasonable causes. No other policy is as broadminded; if the Unionist Party does not carry it out, it will be attempted some day, dangerously and perhaps to the nation’s permanent injury, by Socialists.
Financial data follow: the Bank Rate changed from 4½ per cent on October 1st, 1925, with figures given for the Funding Loan, War Loan, and Conversion Loan on Wednesday, Thursday, Thursday week, and a year ago.
On France, high hopes formed when M. Caillaux became Finance Minister six months earlier have been shattered. His cosmopolitan tendencies and tolerant views on international questions were expected to aid settlement of international indebtedness, the root of European troubles. The causes of the resignation of M. Painlevé’s Cabinet are hard to analyze. Three days earlier the cause would have seemed simply dislike of M. Caillaux’s financial proposals; on Monday and Tuesday it was stated the controversy covered practically the whole political field. M. Caillaux’s personality is the chief trouble—he is a “stormy petrel” who flies to storms or creates one. The writer does not lay principal blame on him: his strong, often uncompromising personality was his undoing because of other men’s temperaments. His ideas for French finance’s reconstruction were clear and sound; he fitted the new movement for European conciliation and was the first Finance Minister boldly to acknowledge the need for France to pay her external debts. From the British view, no better Finance Minister could exist. His enemies discovered faults not apparent to foreigners: he affronted the Socialists and made the political alliance essential to the Government’s existence impossible—meaning he turned down the Socialist Capital Levy scheme, concluding it would do more harm than good, though not opposing greatly increased direct taxation. He was accused of planning fresh inflation, foreign to his principles, and of having done nothing despite much talk—a charge with more substance, though he never professed a magic remedy, saying reconstruction must be slow, based on progressive taxation, requiring heavy sacrifices, stopping only where taxation encourages evasion. He was probably never forgiven for being a Defeatist in the War. French recovery will remain bad until Frenchmen consent to tax themselves and pay their debts. The resignation may mean indefinite delay in arranging payment of French debts to Great Britain and America. No recorded feeling urged keeping M. Caillaux in office until settlement of his provisional arrangement with Mr. Churchill. A British Government would have withheld resignation until the crisis was explained in Parliament and the House of Commons’ sense ascertained. M. Caillaux will now take revenge as an independent person, exciting more bitterness than a resigning Minister’s apologia. All friends of France must regret this turn.
The Damascus Riots and the Parade of Corpses
The situation in Syria has been obscure; Frenchmen used hot language about General Sarrail’s secretive methods as High Commissioner.
Fishing in New Zealand
The segment opens with an account of New Zealand’s extraordinary trout fishing. Brown trout in the southern lakes and river estuaries reach weights of twenty to thirty pounds, with occasional specimens of forty; in the 1880s an angler might land over a hundred pounds in a day. Rainbow trout teem in the thermal lakes of the North Island, where seasonal records of half a ton and more were not unusual, and one man on the Taupo plateau is said to have taken five tons. Individual feats are catalogued: 261 fish averaging eight and a half pounds in under a month; a kinsman of the writer landing rainbows of sixteen and a half pounds down to eight; a stuffed twenty-pounder on a smoking-room wall; the season’s best rainbow at twenty-two and a half pounds; a mounted brown of twenty-eight pounds in a Rotorua shop window. Near the Government sanatorium at Rotorua, baskets of twenty-five to thirty-five rainbows in a day were common, and one evening at Lake Tarawera, beneath the volcano whose 1886 outburst destroyed the Rotomahana terraces, three anglers casting at the mouth of the Wairoa took fifty-two, fifty-six and forty-five fish, all on a black feather fly that the trout would not touch by day.
The charm of the sport lies partly in its setting: the best-stocked North Island rivers lie close to Rotorua, Wairakei and the National Park lakes, where one can swing a fish from a rushing stream into a boiling pool a few feet away, while the South Island’s salmon and trout inhabit the famous Canterbury and Otago lake districts. Government efforts to acclimatize Atlantic salmon have succeeded within the last few years; salmon now swarm in the principal rivers and are spreading rapidly, so that large commercial fisheries may soon develop. Above all, the sport is democratic: preserved waters are unknown, a £1 licence obtained at any post office opens every lake, river and stream in the Dominion for the season, women and boys pay five shillings, and a single day’s fishing costs a trifle. The State has reserved many stream banks for anglers, and landowners raise no objection to those who shut gates and damage no fences. Small wonder New Zealand is called one of the Empire’s chief sporting grounds. The piece is signed “R.W.W., Wellington, N.Z.”
“Old Dominion” of the New World
A travel piece by Lady Burghclere follows. Contrast, she writes, lends zest to travel, and Virginia should interest the European tourist fresh from the canyons of New York’s skyscrapers. There the English visitor finds himself unexpectedly at home, in an atmosphere recalling the West of England a generation ago: woods, hills and rivers on a grander scale, but old houses and hospitality that recall the welcoming cordiality of the farm and the squire’s mansion.
Chekhov on the Stage
The next piece turns to Chekhov. In the scene where a character recounts her ruin to Treplev, who has told it in an admirable scene to the indifferent Dorn, Dorn stares at her and regrets, yet hardly hears; he begins talking of himself, saying she has found her path while he still floats in a chaos of dreams and images. It is all fire into the air, never at one another, with everyone gazing as smoke fades into the distance, and the characters generalize beautifully that it is somehow all wrong and perhaps will be better in another century or another world. The effect mingles the ludicrous with the pathetic, as in life, and in this medley Chekhov is supreme: he leads to nothing, concludes about nothing, has no message; the threads slip from his hands in their subtle, entangled pattern as they ought to. This is why he appeals to a generation unwilling to accept an ipse dixit from any sage—our fathers heard so much preaching that we have lost our taste for sermons, as the Archbishop of Canterbury recently remarked. The writer hopes The Seagull succeeds at the Little Theatre, recalling Miss Miriam Lewes’s Madame Arkadin and Miss Valerie Taylor’s Nina, and that success may bring Three Sisters, or what he cannot help thinking the most perfect of Chekhov’s plays, Uncle Vanya. The piece is signed “R. J.”
Motoring Notes: The Art of Driving
A motoring column argues it is a mistake to imagine anyone who handles a steering-wheel is a driver. Such a person can steer, start and stop the engine, but there his knowledge ends; to see a truly “incompleat” driver one should watch the antics of drivers getting cars into position at the nearest garage or parking space—amusing were it not so risky for nearby cars. Only the person with full control of his car and sound judgment of distances and speed deserves the name. Old cabbies and coachmen make splendid drivers because road-craft makes the good driver, and road-craft comes only from experience; courtesy and road-craft are really synonymous. The column then lists the rules of the art: use the horn but drive as though it were out of order; never overtake unless the road is clear ahead; keep well to the left when entering a main road; look back before pulling right; pass tramcars slowly and sound the horn; do not splash pedestrians on wet or dusty roads; stop well to the left and in a place visible to oncoming traffic; learn and use ordinary driving signals; and always remember that every other driver may do something wrong in an emergency. A good driver is distinguishable before the car starts: gears should be changed quietly and unobtrusively, hills negotiated with plenty of time to change down, brakes applied gently, cross-roads and corners approached with a gradual slowing. Above all, never try to show what a good driver you are by cutting in—that is not skill but incompetence or incipient insanity.
The number of women drivers has increased enormously in the last year or two, and on the whole most drive better than one would have expected; many have no right to handle a car at all, but this applies equally to some men, though in a much smaller proportion. Women as a whole seem totally to lack road-craft: they can drive, often well, manage gears excellently and avoid accidents until an emergency arises. In fact women should make finer drivers than men, having a much more sensitive touch, but this does not make the complete driver; they lack many little courtesies of the road that render motoring pleasant, and are usually selfish, giving way scarcely at all when meeting traffic, apparently under the impression that the centre of the road belongs to them.
Socialism and the Common Law
A letter to the editor from H. Gottley of The Temple protests against Sir Frederick Pollock’s letter in that week’s Spectator. Gottley respects Pollock’s learning and shares his reverence for the common law, but fears his authority might spread the belief that Socialism stands condemned by the common law—a belief unwarranted and, given its possible consequences, deplorable. Legislation of the near future may lie in the hands of men brought up in the Socialist faith, and the older Fabians’ preference for Roman law is notorious; that preference, joined to a popular belief that the common law is the enemy of Socialism, might have consequences for English law Sir Frederick himself would be among the first to deplore. Legal theories, or lessons drawn from legal history, are not scientific tests of political theories; it is unjustifiable and mischievous to suggest that the principle which made courts frown on private monopolies is “the grain of truth in Socialism.” The law develops along lines of its own, and nothing but confusion results from intruding political theory into law or legal theory into politics. Theories of all kinds have in the past reacted on political activity and provided material for the growth of law, and similar sources will arise in future, but the spirit of the law will never identify itself with Socialism, Individualism, or any political creed.
The Foolishness of Preaching
Two letters respond to Dr. Inge’s article. George C. Stewart of Falkirk, a Scotsman and Presbyterian, writes that no article in his many years of reading the Spectator gave him keener pleasure; nothing in the Dean’s remarks could offend any clergyman, though some may feel themselves faithfully dealt with, and he praises the vigour and terseness of the writing as a splendid mental tonic, recommending it to patients needing bracing in cerebration. Norton G. Lawson of Haddiscoe Rectory, Norwich, offers his own experience: an ounce of experience is worth a ton of theory. He preaches a written sermon every Sunday to small farmers, labourers and their families, and in nearly twenty-four years his congregations have not varied appreciably; they listen with full attention, and he claims no merit except taking pains in preparation.
The Banking and Insurance Supplement: October 31st, 1925
The supplement opens with the apparatus of institutional finance: an advertisement for comprehensive insurance on buildings and dwelling-house contents, followed by the particulars of a great limited company. Its subscribed capital stands at £13,617,080, its paid-up capital and reserve fund at £9,479,416 each, and its deposits as of June 30th, 1925, at £254,290,570. A long roll of directors follows—Lord Avebury, Sir Arthur Balfour, Sir Claude Laurie, Everard Baring, and some two dozen others—presided over by Sir Alfred Lewis as Chief General Manager, with five joint general managers beneath him. The head office is at 15 Bishopsgate, with over 1,100 offices and agents everywhere; the bank offers every description of home and overseas banking, small savings accounts, and trusteeships and executorships, and is affiliated with Coutts & Co. and Grindlay & Co., and associated with the Bank of British West Africa, the P. & O. Banking Corporation, Lloyds & National Provincial Foreign Bank, and the British Italian Banking Corporation.
The contents page announces the supplement’s essays: Arthur W. Kiddy on “The Financial Outlook,” Lord Inchcape on “Communists and British Trade,” a piece on Scottish banking, Leonard F. Gregory on “The Banker and the Community,” and articles on accident insurance, doctors’ bills, and disability and life assurance.
The Financial Outlook
Arthur W. Kiddy opens the supplement proper by reading the signs of the times. Unless indications mislead, the closing months of the year may mark the beginning of greater trade activity, extending into the new year—though several deterrents stand in the way: chaotic currency and financial conditions in France, the autumn drain of gold from the Bank of England, and poor relations between Capital and Labour. September’s foreign trade returns showed a further increase in the adverse trade balance, a reminder that export trade must be raised if the nation is to regain financial and economic independence and command of foreign exchanges. Banking and commercial prosperity, he insists, are closely bound to international developments, which is why he gives first place to Lord Inchcape’s article on liner traffic.
On Scottish banking, an Edinburgh correspondent reports two interesting facts: Scottish banks, whether from southern example or inner conviction, are using their resources more freely to finance trade and relying less on long-dated investments; and, perhaps partly in response to competition from south of the Tweed, the Scot now retaliates by extending English offices beyond the City of London into the West End. Kiddy also notes Mr. Gregory’s article, in which Gregory, without endorsing every modern criticism of bankers, suggests ways of identifying bankers’ responsibilities more closely with the trade their resources finance.
On insurance as an economic factor, Kiddy observes that unprecedented developments have made insurance as important a reflection of the country’s financial position as banking itself. Once mainly a matter of death protection or losses by fire, sea, or accident, insurance now channels a large proportion of national savings through endowment and limited premium policies; growth in life premiums may be as good an index of saving power as banking deposits—in some respects more reliable, since deposit growth may reflect expanded loans rather than genuine saving.
On banking liquidity, favourable tendencies appear in share and stock prices. Despite prolonged trade depression and provision for bad debts, the banks have disentangled themselves from the involuntary “Trust Companies” position thrust upon them by the War, when investments were about 22 per cent. of assets against just over 13 per cent. pre-War. By June 30th they had reduced investments by some £130,000,000, bringing the proportion to a little over 16 per cent., with a further shrinkage of just over £12,000,000 in four months. Banks are thus freer to finance trade, and profits from realizations offset increased expenses and bad debts. That such huge sales occurred with almost uninterrupted upward price movement is remarkable; the investor’s absorbing power must have been great, though foreign money and bank customers’ purchases stimulated by loans must be considered.
Kiddy bases favourable expectations on the satisfactory banking position plus three developments: the conclusion of the European Pact, the successful re-establishment of the Gold Standard, and the probable early removal of the embargo on foreign loans. The Locarno Pact, if ratified, promises to be the most important development since the adoption of the Dawes Report last year; approval of the Dawes Report and gradual improvement in Germany marked the turning of the tide.
Shipping Conferences and the Communist Threat
The supplement’s argument on sea transport turns to the liner conferences. Prescribed intervals of departure, regulated movements, and fixed freight rates for the various classes of goods are arranged in conference, so that transport charges and delivery dates are known and trading is facilitated—a matter of mutual interest. Shipowners shoulder the risk of fluctuating merchandise flows by working vessels through programmed, dated voyages; shippers, wanting regularity at known rates, prefer these facilities to casual vessels with no pre-ordained engagements, which appear only when seasonal shipments promise full holds. Liner owners maintain routes and sailings in lean times, and it is no injustice that, having run half-empty in slack seasons, they seek full cargoes when cargo is plentiful. Through sometimes unhappy experience, shipowners and the mercantile community have evolved a regulated system ensuring complete efficiency and the best public service. The writer notes how much of the nation’s commercial welfare depends on regular carriage of goods by sea, and how much it may be damaged by the disruption of mercantile fleets through war—a comparatively recent memory. A reckoning is yet to be taken of the injury resulting from the arrest of tonnage in Dominion waters through the efforts of Communists.
Scottish Banking: An Edinburgh Banker’s Survey
The Scottish banking article, dated October 31st, 1925, is by “An Edinburgh Banker.” Over more than two and a quarter centuries, Scottish banking has been so intertwined with national history that viewing it independently is wellnigh impossible. It arose when national wealth was depleted by the disaster of Darien; largely through the efficiency of its banking system the nation rose again in opulence, and the greatest war in history found its credit sure and unimpaired.
Eight Joint Stock Banks of Issue operate in Scotland. Four have in recent years become affiliated to English institutions; four remain independent. Agreements and understandings as to the general conduct of business are honourably observed: deposit and lending rates for Scottish business are the same in all banks, and a table of charges—discretionary in some directions, fixed in others—is the order of the day. Competition born of healthy rivalry remains keen, but rate-cutting is not practised. This friendly co-operation lets each bank conduct business on a recognized basis before the public; the plus or minus in given areas has roots psychological rather than market-based. Unlike the London banks, Scottish institutions make up accounts at various periods; only the Clydesdale and the North of Scotland Bank, both Midland affiliations, frame balance-sheets as at December 31st.
The table of banks, establishment dates, and balance dates runs: Bank of Scotland, 1695, February 28th; Royal, 1727, early October; British Linen, 1746, January 15th; Commercial, 1810, October 31st; National, 1825, November 1st; Union, 1830, early April; Clydesdale, 1838, December 31st; North of Scotland, 1836, December 31st. Paid-up capital and reserve funds, excluding pension reserves and balances carried forward, total £11,084,500 paid-up and £113,597,393 reserve as printed.
Aggregate deposits of the eight banks are round about £250,000,000, averaging slightly over £30,000,000 each. The Royal Bank of Scotland holds the premier position at about £40,000,000; the North of Scotland shows little over half that. The other six are wonderfully consistent, implying fairly equal distribution of Scottish patronage. A moderate contraction in deposit resources has been noticeable in Scotland as elsewhere, chiefly due to low prevailing rates and counter-attractions offered by municipalities and other public bodies. Notably, while Banks of Issue have seen decided shrinkage in deposit funds over the years, Trustee Savings Banks have increased in every area. The clientèle differs entirely: Joint Stock Banks serve mainly the mercantile community; Savings Banks draw small lodgments from artisan clients, mostly in industrial centres. The progress of trustee banks—notwithstanding the attractions of the National Savings Certificate—is called extremely satisfactory.
Profits, Powers, and the Branch Revolution
The survey turns to the latest reported net profits and dividend rates: Bank of Scotland, £365,975 and 16 per cent.; Royal, £452,369 and 15 per cent., with 6 per cent. on “A” shares and 10 per cent. on “B” shares; Commercial, £335,117 and 16 per cent.; Union, £330,464 and 18 per cent.
Advertisements and the Business of Money
The issue opens with publisher advertisements from John Murray and Macmillan, listing financial and economic works with their prices and impressions: titles on war-time financial problems, the business of finance, the meaning of money, money changing, international finance, Lombard Street, stocks and shares, poverty and waste, and “Our Money & the State.” Walter Bagehot’s description of the money market appears in its fourteenth edition, alongside G. Armitage Smith on taxation and E. Hilton Young on the system of national finance. Macmillan presents The Financial Crisis of France, promising that the real facts of the problem—especially the great floating debt—are faithfully set out, and offers Memorials of Alfred Marshall, edited by A. C. Pigou, J. R. Bellerby’s Monetary Stability, L. McDougall’s Sheltered Markets with a preface by Sir Robert Horne, a new edition of Palgrave’s Dictionary of Political Economy edited by Henry Higgs, and Pigou’s The Economics of Welfare. An insurance notice follows, urging Staff Life Assurance Schemes so that employees may work with an easy mind and employers may pension long-serving staff and provide for dependants.
A Long Speakership
The review of A Speaker’s Commentaries by Viscount Ullswater, the Rt. Hon. James William Lowther, opens by noting that only two Speakers held office longer, and none saw so many vital changes: he took office in 1905 and resigned in 1921. Aristocratic in training and heredity, he was accepted by the new democracy and “the new woman” as above prejudice. Patience made him a good Speaker but not a good writer; he cannot shake off discretion, copying bald diary records, though there is the better part of one good book of real history in him, and readers will like the author. The diary is interrupted by throwbacks. Lord Haig confessed two nervous periods: one at the extremest advance of the German army in Spring 1918, spent drafting his proclamation calling the Army to stand with backs to the wall and die at their posts; the other in 1917, when the French attack on the Chemin des Dames was routed. Lowther judged the debates on the Parliament Bill of 1911 the most interesting he heard, for novelty, far-reaching possibilities, historical references, strong feeling, and uncertainty of result. He admired Campbell-Bannerman, whose titles to fame he summarized: persuading the Duke of Cambridge to resign the Commandership-in-Chief in 1895, granting autonomy to the Transvaal in 1906, and combining divergent Liberal and Labour sections while leading the Commons from 1906. The reviewer singles out the Transvaal autonomy as one of the bravest decisions ever impressed on a Cabinet, comparing it to the Matterhorn. The Speaker may not lead but must trim; yet Lowther may have permanently influenced British politics by directing the new Labour Party into Parliamentary precedent. References to the altered psychology of Labour begin with Campbell-Bannerman’s story: forming his Cabinet in 1906, he sent for a prominent Labour member and suggested he join the Government; A. B. rose, shook his hand, and said, “Sir ‘Enery, that’s the most popular thing you’ve done yet.” Lowther influenced the newest party by tact and common sense; they objected to wearing Court dress. He was great at domestic details, from green blotting paper and a clock instead of an hour glass to abolishing the dinner hour. His memoirs cover travel too: as a small boy returning from his first voyage to Russia he passed through Danish-Austrian war scenes; he met Bismarck and Moltke; knocked over the Archbishop in Battersea Park during bicycle-riding days; sought big game in the Okanagan Valley before it became a paradise for apples. The gist is the Speakership record, from A. B.’s appearance to the hat the Speaker vainly advised Lady Astor not to wear. He guided women and the Labour Party to a right sense of Parliament’s dignity, helped by his wife. He saw Suffragette excesses and rebels penetrating the inner sanctum. He records an incident just before the War: during an exciting debate, with feeling high in his wife’s gallery where altercations occurred between Lady Londonderry and Mrs. Asquith, Mrs. Asquith appealed to him to keep order among the ladies; his wife was abroad in Madeira, so he replied he had as much as he could manage keeping order among the devils below without controlling the angels above. Mrs. Humphry Ward appropriated this incident and note, without acknowledgment, into one of her later novels. This occurred in 1914, just after Sir John French’s resignation from the Army Council and Mr. Asquith’s assumption of the Secretaryship of War. The reviewer notes how blind they all were to the approach of August. A subscription notice follows—a year of the Spectator costs 30s. and makes an ideal present for an absent friend—and “This Week’s Books” begins with Mr. Clement Shorter’s edition of The Twelve Adventurers and Other Stories.
Dr. Burtt and the Philosophy of Science
A review of Dr. Burtt’s work on the philosophy of science argues that man was not suited to mathematical study, his life being one of colours, sounds, pleasure, griefs, passionate loves, ambitions, and strivings. Hence the “real world” was held to be the world outside man—the world of astronomy and of resting and moving terrestrial objects. The only thing man shared with this real world was his ability to discover it, a fact easily neglected. This produces a dilemma: for questions of morality and value, the universe must be regarded as geocentric and anthropocentric; for physical science, the external universe is regarded as independent of and more real than man. Insofar as scientific hypotheses are taken as philosophical axioms, no philosophy inspiring the conduct of life is possible. Burtt attempts to reinstate mediaeval views of man’s dignity and succeeds in his critique of science. The reviewer, Alan Porter, notes it is unusual to receive a book from America witnessing that man is a spiritual being, since America is on the whole on the side of the physicists. Porter’s criticism is that Burtt does not seem to know what an admirable weapon the physicists themselves have put in his hand: when science has gone its full circle of anti-subjectivism, a new theory lays infinite stress upon the observer. It is a pity the theory of relativity found no theologian or philosopher agile enough to take it over; they leave it to the mismanagement of Mr. Bertrand Russell, who insists we can assume observation without an observer. Burtt left the quarrel unresolved but stated clearly the more neglected side.
The Conquest of Disease
A second review covers The Conquest of Disease by David Masters. Popular science description must be picturesque and have human interest, and Masters takes some twenty memorable occasions in the war against physical ills, illustrating medical research: Jenner’s fight against small-pox, Lister’s antiseptic method, and Pasteur’s lifelong work. Sir James Cantlie, in his preface, gives a curious example: during an outbreak of bubonic plague in Hong Kong, a clergyman directed attention to a passage in the First Book of Samuel relating that the Philistines sent back the Ark of the Covenant with two gifts—five golden emerods or buboes and five golden rats—proving the Philistines had discovered the causes of the disease. A quaint advertisement regarding the King’s Touch in The Intelligencer of 1665 is quoted. Masters is impatient with the critical layman such as Mr. Bernard Shaw. Medicine has had its follies; opposition to new methods has always been greatest in the profession itself. Satirists such as Molière and the author of Gil Blas reminded their century of human fallibility.
The Nation and the Church
A third review covers The Nation and the Church, six Charges by Bertram Pollock, Bishop of Norwich. A Bishop’s touch on history is seldom original; Stubbs’ work was monumental, and Creighton whitewashed the Renaissance Popes. The Bishop disclaims historical study but attempts an historical survey upholding the ideal of a National Church, his view that of Archbishop Benson. The important Charges are those on the Enabling Act, the Lambeth Appeal for Union, and Marriage. The Bishop is a practical statesman. He lays stress that the pace of the Church Assembly is out of proportion to national thinking. He asks what if the Church Assembly received a rebuff in Parliament; he believes the country has no wish to disturb the relation between Church and State but is not enamoured of the Church Assembly. On reunion, he suggests occasional exchange of pulpits with Nonconformists, with safeguards: the invitation must come from both the incumbent and his churchwardens or parochial council, with sanction of authority on either side, and the visiting minister must assent to the first three articles of the Lambeth Quadrilateral.
Peter Mundy’s Travels and the Close of the Volume
A splendid edition of Peter Mundy’s Travels, drawn from the original manuscripts and the fruit of much labour and scholarship, has neared completion. Mundy undertook only one further voyage, to the little-known factory at Rajapur in Western India. The series gains added interest because Mundy made his expeditions not for an agent but for his own pleasure and to ease his “habituall disposition off travelling.” His “Petty Progresse through some parts of England and Wales,” rich in contemporary detail and colour, was accomplished with but a single mishap: Peter succumbed to the attractiveness of Welsh harp-music and ale, lost all his money, and observed, pathetically perhaps, “I had to pawne My sword.” He left a normal England and returned to find his country in the terrible civil war. He wandered through Amsterdam and Danzig, stayed a time in Warsaw, and found Archangel in the throes of customs, even noting down the language of the “Samoyedes.” When we recollect that Gustavus Adolphus ruled in Sweden and Mikhael Romanoff in Russia, and that it was the period of the Thirty Years’ War, this contemporary account will be seen to be precious. As a traveller Mundy was an object lesson to many modern globe-trotters: a careful observer, sceptical of “tall” stories, good-tempered, and never grumbling at danger or discomfort. His remarks on “The chieftest end of traveille” remain appropriate—that more is to be enjoyed and seen at home than in any one country besides, yet the Almighty ordained mutual commerce among all nations so that each might share the blessings severally distributed.
Reviews: Types and Characters, Sporting Prints, Cadet to Commodore
Under “TYPES AND CHARACTERS,” by Walter Sichel, an amusing fable, fantasy, and satirical sketch, Mr. Sichel seeks worthy morals for the age, noting the permanent type and its passing embodiment, measuring all that is new and superficial by what is old and sound. In his reliance on a sound conservatism and hearty dislike of fads, he perhaps underestimates the significance of modern restlessness. Curiously, though his metrical satires are light and Gilbertian, his prose is too ponderous to capture the fantastic politician or futuristic artist; a historian, he is too philosophic and kindly to be an exciting satirist. Under “THE STORY OF BRITISH SPORTING PRINTS,” by Captain Frank Siltzer, the Sporting Print, through its equal appeal to artist and pugilist or bookmaker, has been unduly neglected. In this pioneer catalogue Captain Siltzer gives a fascinating amount of industrial detail, and in his descriptions of Morland, Sutherland, and other masters of the coloured aquatint adds so many anecdotes of “bloods and bucks” and of the great days of hunting, shooting, and coaching that the historical and personal interest of old prints, as well as their artistic interest, become clear; the lithographs of View-Hallo, Boxing Champion, or Trout on the walls of country inns appear no longer negligible. Under “CADET TO COMMODORE,” by Albert B. Armitage, this fine personal record shows the spirit of the British Merchant Service in peace and war and repeats the unchanging call of the sea. Late of the P. & O. fleet, Captain Armitage was not too late in his early days to learn the hard discipline of sails, “to shoot the sun,” and take a trick at the wheel. “Going steam,” he rose rapidly in rank and took part in two Polar expeditions, of which he has already given an account. Here are amusing experiences of passengers, royal or otherwise—including the alluring advertisement of a small steamship company: “A Surgeon, a Stewardess and an Experienced Cow.”
Six Prisons and Two Revolutions
Under “SIX PRISONS AND TWO REVOLUTIONS,” by Oliver Baldwin, sometime Lieut.-Colonel in the Armenian Army, Mr. Baldwin describes his unforgettable experiences during 1920–1921 in Transcaucasia and Anatolia. The terse title is indicative of the contents. The terrible consequences to Armenia of casting in her lot with the Allies and of Bolshevik domination are shown with painful detail—almost an incredible record of human madness and crime. Of his own hardship, increased by uncertainty and the proximity of the death sentence, Mr. Baldwin says little enough. Famine, persecution, and torture are not pleasant themes, but no student of Near Eastern affairs can ignore this indictment. Mr. Baldwin points out that Labour in this country is hardly aware of the Imperialism of Soviet Russia, and his remarks on Pan-Islamism as the present menace are of equal weight. His considered opinion of Bolshevism: “It struck me as being far more of a psychological disease than a form of society.”
Financial Tables and Commentary
A table lists insurance companies with columns for value, percent, price, and yield, in pounds, shillings, and pence—Alliance Assurance, Atlas Assurance, Commercial Union, Eagle Star and British Dominions, Employers’ Liability, Equity and Law Life, General Accident Fire and Life, Guardian Assurance, London and Lancashire, London Assurance, Motor Union, North British and Mercantile, Northern Assurance, Phoenix Assurance, Prudential Assurance “A,” Royal Exchange, Royal Insurance, Scottish Union and National “A,” Sun Insurance Office, Sun Life Assurance, World Auxiliary, and Yorkshire Insurance. Footnotes explain that an asterisk means “Ex-Dividend,” that quotation is per £1 of stock, and that yields are “free of Income Tax.” There is little doubt about the growing popularity of banking and insurance shares, a further cause being the confidence produced by sound management over many years, so that stability in dividends with a slight upward trend in profits has characterized these companies for many years, except during certain difficult periods. Investor confidence has been strengthened by recognition of how these concerns emerged from a period of exceptional strain. During the past twelve years banking and insurance companies passed through almost every possible kind of experience, emerging successfully with enhanced credit—attributed first to both systems having been thoroughly sound, and second to a sound and cautious policy pursued throughout these abnormal experiences. Present quotations are given for representative concerns with approximate yield based on the past financial year’s dividend at current prices. For both banking and insurance shares, present prices are generally well above the multi-year average though not at the highest recorded, with exceptions. In the banking table, shares with big liabilities tend to drag behind those where uncalled capital is small. Yields on leading banks’ shares tend to approximate closely, as do yields on discount companies’ shares, though in the latter case more varying dividends act somewhat on the general price level. The popularity of Scotch bank shares with investors north (and possibly south) of the Tweed is clearly indicated. In both insurance and banking shares, prices have tended upward of late, with no signs of change for banks. Due to prolonged trade depression, considerable provision will doubtless be made at year’s end for bad or doubtful debts; on the other hand it was a fairly good year for investments, many realized at considerable profit. There are signs of gradual improvement in trade, and assuming dividends are maintained, there is prospect of appreciation relative to the upward tendency in securities as a whole.
Financial Notes and Rubber Shares
Although mostly firm, less business passed on the Stock Exchange during the week due to conflicting influences. The conclusion of the European Pact still causes an undercurrent of optimism, but an unfavourable effect was produced by the resignation of three members of the Cabinet in Germany. Large gold withdrawals from the Bank of England were an adverse factor, and the heavy fall in the franc occasioned anxiety about Germany’s financial situation. While almost instant success attended various capital flotations during the week, these large issues tend to divert attention from existing to new securities. The rubber share market was distinctly quieter, partly due to uncertainty about further modification in the ensuing quarter of existing arrangements for restricting rubber output within the Empire. Constant creation of new companies diminishes resources available for existing shares, especially when capital involved is large. This is the case in the impending flotation of Allied Sumatra Plantations, Limited, whose authorised capital is £1,500,000, the forthcoming issue consisting of 1,400,000 shares of £1 each at 21s. per share. The concern will represent one of the largest areas of rubber under single company ownership or control, being virtually a holding company, with ownership vested in Dutch Indies companies whose shares will be owned by Allied Sumatra Plantations, Limited. The scheme occasions transfer of rubber-growing territories from Dutch to British ownership, significant given the growing importance of Dutch Colonial production in the rubber industry.
Recreations of London: Lectures and Films
A listing announces lectures from November 3rd to 21st at 5.0 p.m., including a Humorous Exhibition with Humorous Talks, Sketches, etc., at the Girdlers Gallery, Trinity, in aid of King Edward’s Hospital Fund, 7 Walbrook, E.C.
Main Arguments
The issue advances a number of arguments, some explicit and some implicit in its reporting. On France, it argues that the resignation of M. Caillaux was a political rather than a financial decision — the Cartel des Gauches threw him overboard to preserve itself, and the result is that Painlevé’s new Ministry will be further than ever from a financial formula capable of uniting enough groups. Caillaux, the paper contends, stood for sound public finance, adequate taxation, and honouring debts; his enemies discovered faults not apparent to foreigners, but his ideas for French reconstruction were clear and sound. French recovery, the paper concludes, will remain bad until Frenchmen consent to tax themselves and pay their debts.
On Syria, the argument is that the bombardment of Damascus was a panic measure — not that the military staff panicked, but that the methods and results resembled panic, disproportionate to the danger. The allegation that foreign colonies were not warned or protected is grave, and the paper holds that if General Sarrail is not recalled he should account for his stewardship. France holds Syria under a League mandate; Great Britain, in a like case, would seek an immediate League inquiry and acquittal at the bar of public opinion. On Morocco, the paper argues that an immediate attempt at peace should be made, since no serious effort toward peace has been made by France or Spain.
On the naval dockyards, the argument is that the Government, if sincerely resolved the dockyards are unnecessary, should let no local interest forbid action. The pattern of obstruction — press praise, local pressure, deputations, inquiries, capitulation — is deplorable, and it is ironic that Mr. Lloyd George, who would have turned down such a deputation when himself at Downing Street, consented to join one. Something like £14,000,000 has been spent on Rosyth, but it is no use throwing good money after bad; if Rosyth can no longer serve the Fleet, it must go. The problem of what to do with the dockyards remains, and the paper suggests the Government appoint an expert committee to investigate the whole matter.
On England’s economic position, the argument of S. F. van Oss is that England has idled and played away her position. The long era of conquest, expansion, exploration, and exploitation begat a period of leisure and laziness; riches increased and vast economic reserves accumulated, so England could afford to take it easy, and did. But while England enjoyed wealth, leisure, ease, and pastimes, the very foundations of that era became undermined. On Egypt, the argument is that the new High Commissioner must heal antagonisms among moderate men, help form a moderate Government, assure it of British support, and put new hope into the British community and real fear into the hearts of instigators of political crime.
On Greece, Stanley Casson argues that the country is passing through a social revolution of far greater consequence than any of its political revolutions. The refugees from Anatolia constitute a future whose economic and social possibilities are incalculable; they are more Hellenic than the Hellenes and more accustomed to hard work than their mainland brothers. Their arrival means the death while still embryonic of Hellenic Fascism. On Socialism and the common law, H. Gottley argues that it is unjustifiable and mischievous to suggest that the principle which made courts frown upon private monopolies is the grain of truth in Socialism; the law develops along lines of its own, and nothing but confusion results from intruding political theory into law or legal theory into politics.
On preaching, Norton G. Lawson argues from experience that an ounce of experience is worth a ton of theory. He preaches a written sermon every Sunday to small congregations, and numbers have not varied appreciably in nearly twenty-four years. People have more intelligence than they are credited with and can follow a clearly worked-out train of thought. On Prohibition, Nathan De Wallis argues that the testimony of a Scottish engineer who resided ten years in a single American town proves nothing; his own travels over twenty years show a steady increase of drinking, and police and hospital statistics bear him out. On Scottish banking, the Edinburgh banker argues that the system’s friendly co-operation, its freedom from rate-cutting, and its extension of branch banking have made it a model of efficiency and public service.
Key Concepts
Several concepts recur throughout the issue. The most prominent is the idea of the League of Nations as a living organization with real authority. The paper notes that formerly Great Powers with Balkan protégés held hands on swords, but now the League’s authority is universally recognized; the Council met in Paris within three days of the Greek-Bulgarian incident, a fine example of alertness. The Locarno Pact is presented as the most important development since the adoption of the Dawes Report, and the League is described as the peg upon which the Locarno hat is hung.
Another key concept is the distinction between political and financial decisions. The French crisis is summed up as a political decision, not a financial one: to keep the Cartel des Gauches intact, Caillaux was thrown overboard. The paper insists that French recovery depends on Frenchmen consenting to tax themselves and pay their debts, and that no better Finance Minister could exist from the British view than Caillaux.
The concept of the “lost rules of war” appears in the discussion of Damascus. The paper holds that the bombardment by artillery and aeroplanes while most civilians remained was a panic measure, and that the allegation that foreign colonies were not warned or protected is grave. The phrase suggests that the rules governing the conduct of war, once thought secure, are more lost than had been supposed.
The concept of road-craft is central to the motoring notes. The argument is that anybody can learn to drive, but there is a huge difference between an expert driver and one who merely gets through traffic without accident. Road-craft comes only from experience; courtesy and road-craft are really synonymous. The good driver is distinguished before the car starts, changes gears quietly, negotiates hills in plenty of time, and never tries to show off by cutting in.
The concept of the refugee as a new factor in the State is central to Stanley Casson’s article. The refugees are described as men who would not be in Greece at all were it not for their endurance, bravery, or industry. They are determined to make money by their hands or brains and to take a prominent part in the control of the country. Their work is everywhere evident, and no politician dare set forth his views unless they include schemes for improved treatment of the refugee problem.
The concept of banking as a reflection of national character appears in the Scottish banking supplement. Scottish banking is described as intertwined with national history, so that disentangling it or viewing it independently is wellnigh impossible. It arose when national wealth was depleted by the disaster of Darien; largely through the efficiency of its banking system the nation rose again in opulence, and the greatest war in history found its credit sure and unimpaired. The concept of the banker and the community is also developed: Mr. Gregory, while not supporting all modern criticisms of bankers, makes suggestions toward identifying bankers’ responsibilities more closely with the trade financed by banking resources.
Themes
The most pervasive theme of the issue is the aftermath of war and the difficulty of adjusting to peace. The naval dockyards at Rosyth and Pembroke stand as monuments to the waste of war; the paper notes that something like £14,000,000 has been spent on Rosyth, but it is no use throwing good money after bad. The war in Morocco continues, with Abd-el-Krim boasting that he has driven a French army of 160,000 men into winter quarters. The bombardment of Damascus raises questions about the conduct of a mandatory power. The financial outlook is clouded by the war’s legacy: chaotic currency in France, the autumn drain of gold from the Bank of England, poor relations between Capital and Labour. The issue is preoccupied with the question of how nations and individuals are to recover from the greatest war in history.
A second theme is the tension between local interests and national or international responsibilities. The leading article on the naval dockyards describes how local interests transcend considerations of national importance even among those expected to take a wider view. The French crisis shows a political party putting its own survival above the financial reconstruction of the nation. The Damascus bombardment shows a military authority acting with precipitancy and want of consideration for a large civil population. The Peking Tariff Conference shows the Tuchuns opposing any settlement that would strengthen the central government, because they fear losing wealth and power. The issue repeatedly asks whether particular interests can be subordinated to the common good.
A third theme is the emergence of new social forces. The refugees in Greece are presented as a new factor in the State, one which is but three years old, and which has already begun to transform the country’s politics. The article argues that the homely peasant of Anatolia has pulled the strings and made the puppets dance, and that this means the death while still embryonic of Hellenic Fascism. In Egypt, the politically untaught and credulous people are described as capable of producing fantastic and unnatural fruits of Parliamentary government. In China, the Tuchuns represent a centrifugal force that the central government cannot control. The issue is attentive to the ways in which new groups — refugees, peasants, workers, women drivers — are reshaping the societies they enter.
A fourth theme is the relationship between character and institution. The Scottish banking supplement argues that the efficiency of the banking system was largely responsible for the nation’s recovery after Darien, and that the system’s friendly co-operation and freedom from rate-cutting are matters of character as much as of organization. The motoring notes argue that road-craft is a matter of courtesy, and that courtesy and road-craft are really synonymous. The correspondence on preaching argues that an ounce of experience is worth a ton of theory, and that the continual dropping of water wears away the hardest stone. The issue is repeatedly concerned with the qualities — patience, courtesy, co-operation, endurance — that make institutions work.
A fifth theme is the contrast between appearance and reality. The paper notes that the causes of the resignation of M. Painlevé’s Cabinet are hard to analyze; three days earlier the cause would have seemed simply dislike of M. Caillaux’s financial proposals, but on Monday and Tuesday it was stated the controversy covered practically the whole political field. The Damascus correspondent’s narrative is said to justify every criticism of General Sarrail, but the writer cannot doubt the Times representative was sure of his facts, hoping he was unaware of some French conduct. The article on what is wrong with England argues that while England enjoyed wealth, leisure, ease, and pastimes, the very foundations of that era became undermined without her being aware. The issue is repeatedly concerned with the gap between what appears to be happening and what is actually happening.
The Author’s Conclusions
The issue does not speak with a single voice, but certain conclusions emerge from its reporting and commentary. On France, the conclusion is that the resignation of Caillaux may mean indefinite delay in arranging payment of French debts to Great Britain and America, and that all friends of France must regret this turn. The paper concludes that French recovery will remain bad until Frenchmen consent to tax themselves and pay their debts. On Syria, the conclusion is that the French should use the winter to procure by wise and generous treatment the peace urgently needed in Syria and Morocco. On Morocco, the conclusion is that an immediate attempt at peace should be made, since no serious effort toward peace has been made by France or Spain.
On the naval dockyards, the conclusion is that the Government, if sincerely resolved the dockyards are unnecessary, should let no local interest forbid action, and that the problem of what to do with them is extraordinarily difficult, requiring an expert committee to investigate the whole matter and make constructive suggestions. On England, the conclusion of S. F. van Oss is that England has idled and played away her position, and that the foundations of her prosperity were undermined while she was unaware. On Egypt, the conclusion is that Sir George Lloyd faces a heavy task, and it will be extraordinarily interesting to see how his great abilities come to bear on the situation.
On Greece, the conclusion of Stanley Casson is that the refugees constitute a future whose economic and social possibilities are incalculable, and that their determination to get good treatment is the result of their own endeavour. On Socialism and the common law, the conclusion of H. Gottley is that the spirit of the law will never identify itself with Socialism, Individualism, or any political creed. On preaching, the conclusion of Norton G. Lawson is that any given sermon’s effect is probably negligible, but many millions of sermons have been preached, and continual dropping of water wears away the hardest stone. On Prohibition, the conclusion of Nathan De Wallis is that the testimony of a single observer in a single town proves nothing, and that the evidence of travel and statistics points to a steady increase of drinking.
On Scottish banking, the conclusion of the Edinburgh banker is that the system’s friendly co-operation, its freedom from rate-cutting, and its extension of branch banking have made it a model of efficiency and public service. On the financial outlook, the conclusion of Arthur W. Kiddy is that the satisfactory banking position, combined with the conclusion of the European Pact, the successful re-establishment of the Gold Standard, and the probable early removal of the embargo on foreign loans, justifies favourable expectations. The issue closes with the banking supplement’s tables of profits, dividends, and yields, and with further advertising matter — a conclusion that is characteristic of the periodical form, in which the business of the magazine and the business of the nation are presented side by side.
Significance
The issue is significant as a document of its moment and as an example of a particular kind of periodical journalism. It captures the mood of the mid-1920s: the hope invested in the Locarno Pact and the League of Nations, the anxiety about French finances and the war in Morocco, the unease about the bombardment of Damascus, the concern about Britain’s economic position, the interest in the new social forces reshaping Greece and Egypt and China. It shows how a serious weekly magazine of the period addressed its readers — with a mixture of news, commentary, reportage, correspondence, and advertising, moving easily from the resignation of a French premier to the trout fishing of New Zealand, from the art of driving to the state of Scottish banking.
The issue is also significant for what it reveals about the assumptions and preoccupations of its readership. It assumes an interest in foreign affairs and a willingness to engage with complex questions of finance and diplomacy. It assumes a certain social and cultural formation: the readers who write to the magazine are Scots Presbyterians, Cambridge undergraduates, retired Indian civil servants, City men. It assumes a world in which the British Empire is a fact, in which the League of Nations is a hope, in which the gold standard is a reality, and in which the greatest war in history is a recent memory. The issue is a window onto that world.
Finally, the issue is significant as a demonstration of the periodical’s role in public debate. The correspondence columns carry letters on Socialism and the common law, on preaching, on Prohibition, on Locarno and President Wilson, on circular walking in woods, on Guernsey’s financial policy, on hymn-books, on a child’s will, on Wembley for the hospitals, on the humour of Gilbert and Sullivan. The range is extraordinary, and it suggests a readership that was engaged, argumentative, and curious. The magazine’s willingness to print such a range of letters, and its editorial replies — as in the note on circular walking, which suggests that the governing leg perhaps determines the direction of the circular movement, and asks “But does he?” — show a periodical that saw itself as a forum for debate as much as a source of information. The issue is a reminder that the periodical press of the 1920s was a vital institution of public life, and that its pages are a rich record of the questions, anxieties, and hopes of the time.
