Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T03:02:52.837Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - THE SPEECHES OF THE BANK CHAIRMEN (1924,1925, 1927)

from III - THE RETURN TO THE GOLD STANDARD

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2012

Get access

Summary

FEBRUARY 1924

Published as ‘The Speeches of the Bank Chairmen’ in the Nation and Athenaeum, 23 February 1924, and signed ‘J.M.K.’. Reginald McKenna was Chancellor of the Exchequer when Keynes was employed at the Treasury in 1915–16, and became a personal friend.

We have an admirable custom in this country by which once a year the overlords of the Big Five desist for a day from the thankless task of persuading their customers to accept loans and, putting on cap and gown, mount the lecturer's rostrum to expound the theory of their practice—a sort of saturnalia, during which we are all ephemerally equal with words for weapons. These occasions are of great general interest. But they are more than this. They have a representative significance; they hold up, as it were, financial fashion plates. What have they found to say this year about monetary policy?

Only one, Mr Walter Leaf, of the Westminster Bank, has refrained himself entirely. Each of the other four has had something to say. They fall into a pair of couples: one of which, Mr Beaumont Pease of Lloyds Bank and Sir Harry Goschen of the National Provincial Bank, feel that there is something improper, or at any rate undesirable, in thinking or speaking about these things at all; and the other of which, Mr Goodenough of Barclays Bank and Mr McKenna of the Midland Bank, so far from deprecating discussion, join in it boldly.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Royal Economic Society
Print publication year: 1978

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×