Page:Bankers and Credit (1924).pdf/131

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a limited extent owing to the necessity for keeping a large part of their funds in a liquid state. It accordingly suggested that it would be necessary for the banks "to exercise discretion upon rather broader lines," and in order to enable them to do this with some safety and confidence, it was strongly of opinion that the banks should make a considerable increase in their paid-up capital. The Committee also made the curious suggestion that bankers should make more widely known their willingness to accept deposits for long periods at fixed rates of interest, and expressed the belief that if they were encouraged to do so a number of depositors would be willing to deposit their money at fixed rates of interest at periods of from one to five years without the right of withdrawal.

Presumably the Committee had some good ground for making this statement, but it seems that any depositor who was asked to lock his money up definitely for five years, during which time he would have no opportunity of getting his cash back in case of an emergency, unless somehow or other a market could be established in bankers' deposit receipts, would think twice or thrice before he did so. The Committee also considered that the principal manufacturing establishments of the country should