Such clerks might in many cases sever
their connection with the banks to which they were appointed and start
in business on their own account. They would, however, probably look
upon the institution as their 'Alma Mater,' Every endeavour should be
made to promote _esprit de corps_; and where exceptional ability is
developed it should be ungrudgingly rewarded. If industry is to be
extended it is essential that British products should be _pushed_; and
manufacturers, merchants and bankers must combine to push them. It is
believed that this pushing could be assisted by the creation of a body
of young business men in the way above described."
The scope and purpose of this British Trade Bank suggest another East
India Company with all the possibilities of gold and glory which
attended that romantic eighteenth-century enterprise. Perhaps another
Clive or a second Hastings is somewhere in the making.
That the British Government proposes to follow the German lead and
definitely go into business--thus reversing its tradition of aloofness
from financial enterprise--is shown in the new British and Italian
Corporation, formed to establish close economic relations between
Britain and Italy. It starts a whole era in British banking, for it
means the subsidising of a private undertaking out of national funds.
It embodies a meaning that goes deeper and travels much farther than
this. Up to the outbreak of the great war Germany was the banker of
Italy.
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