has to consider. It is, I believe, a plank in the programme of the Labour Party, but recent experience has shown that Socialist Governments that have taken office on the Continent have been not at all in a hurry to nationalize anything, and the separation of central banks—and still more of the outer banking machinery—from political influence is now recognized as essential, if the monetary world is to be saved from the wild-cat achievements of Governments in currency debasement, that marked the war and after-war period. I think it would be pretty safe to bet against the nationalizaion of our banks during the next twenty years, but one cannot be certain about the jump of the political cat.
A more immediately practical fact, for the possible investor, is the notion that one finds current among bankers, arising partly out of the talk about nationalization, that it is a questionable policy for them to increase their dividends and that they should rather regard their business as an enterprise to be carried on purely in the public interest.
Over a long period of years increases in dividends by the English bank have been scarce; for some time before the war the banks were writing down their investments, having made the mistake (as we all see now) of
