Page:Bankers and Credit (1924).pdf/206

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

time by the existing capitalist employers in the industry.

Everyone engaged in the industry was to be, as such, a shareholder in the bank. All wages and salaries were to be paid by the directors of the industry into the bank, and the employees would draw cheques on the bank to meet their living expenses. But the bank having the right to provide a proportion of the new capital required, would in the case of the Miners' Bank—the shareholders in which are all the persons employed in the mining industry—"find itself owning a steadily increasing number of shares in the steadily increasing total share capital of the colliery companies without the miners having had to put up any money at all." "This sounds delightful," say Messrs. Webb and company. "Unfortunately, it overlooks the elementary need for the Miners' Bank to have the capital before it can supply it to the colliery companies in return for their new issue of shares."

But they surely do Major Douglas a rather grave injustice. To such a monetary magician there would be no difficulty about producing the capital simply by another draft from the Treasury on the national credit account, or, perhaps still more simply, by giving all the new banks the right of unlimited note issue and