and Socialists still talk nationalization and municipalization. But it has already been noted that the several Socialist Governments that have come into power since the war have shown, when it came to practical measures, remarkable unanimity in nationalizing nothing. Bankers point out with some force that their business is the very worst for the State to try to work, because banks managed by Government officials, with the possibility that banking facilities might begin to be influenced by political considerations, might very easily produce a most unsavoury state of affairs. Mr. Kitson's claim to a moral right to credit for everybody who wanted it, would be better than the political right of gentlemen prominent on local caucuses to special tenderness on the part of national and municipal bankers.
It is interesting to note that Mr. Webb in an article published in the Contemporary Review of July 1918, argued that the process of bank amalgamation was preparing the way for the nationalization of the business, therein agreeing with many critics of the process, but only proposed that what may be called the routine half of the matter—taking deposits, issuing cheque books and so on—should be handed over to Government officials, the money lending side of it being still left to private enter-
