4. The Speeches of the Bank Chairmen(1924-1927)

(i) February 1924

We have an admirable custom in this countryby which once a year the overlords of the BigFive desist for a day from the thankless task ofpersuading their customers to accept loans, and,putting on cap and gown, mount the lecturer’srostrum to expound the theory of their practice;—a sort of Saturnalia , during which we areall ephemerally equal with words for weapons.These occasions are of great general interest.But they are more than this. They have a re-presentative significance;—they hold up, as itwere, financial fashion-plates. What have theyfound to say this year about Monetary Policy?

Only one, Mr. Walter Leaf , of the West-minster 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 SirHarry Goschen of the National Provincial Bank,feel that there is something improper, or at anyrate undesirable, in thinking or speaking aboutthese things at all; and the other of which,

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