AN INTERNATIONAL BANK.

Hokitika Guardian, 21 August 1929, Page 7

AN INTERNATIONAL BANK.

“ The wise man knows that every liability properly envisaged becomes an asset. The ordinary mortal finds it difficult to understand how a huge governmental liability of doubtful security can be made the foundation ot a great and successful bank. Yet, the original capital of the Bank of England was an unliquid war debt of the Government of King William 111, and its rise to greatness thirty years later was intimately connected with public indebtedness arising out of the South Sea Bubble. Perhaps this history was in the mind of the original author or authors of the plan for a Bank of International Settlements—in this article ifor convenience we will call it the B.l.S.—which figures prominently in the P»eport of the Committee of Experts on Reparations. Certainly it would be in the fitness of things if a new world bank should begin a career of service and fame on the foundation of Germany’s Reparation debt,”— Daily Telegraph, THE PRIME MINISTER’S SALARY. “The question of the Prime Minister’s salary is one of real public urgency. It is a question which the new Government will naturally be rather shy of tackling, but upon which nevertheless it is necessary to speak very plainly. The present position is altogether absurd. Everybody knows this,” says ifiie “ New (Statesman,” which adds: * Everybody knows, that is to say, that an income df £SOOO a year—which, when income-tax and super-tax have been deducted, is not much more than £3,500 —is utterly inadequate for the proper upkeep under present conditions of such a house as the Prime Minister’s official residence at No. 10 Downing Street. Mr Baldwin is a rich man, and so was Mr Bonnr Law. But out of the last seven English Prime Ministers, at least three have required private financial assistance—which is not only obviously undesirable from every point of view, but is derogatory of the dignity of what is the greatest office and position in the world. (For a British Prime Minister, by virtue of our constitution and of our Parliamentary system, holds in his own hands more power even than a President of the United States, and, of course, infinitely more than a French or German President or Premier.)”,-