TRADESMEN'S BANKING FACILITIES.

Southland Times, Issue 930, 8 April 1868, Page 3

TRADESMEN'S BANKING FACILITIES.

We last month quoted a letter from a middle-class tradesman, which put the complaint against the present system of bank management in a truthful light. The several failures which have occurred during the past eighteen months of banking institutions have been accompanied by disclosures of speculative advances to men of straw, and it is not unnatural .that well-to-do respectable persons should remember that they have been thrown overboard, while these " large " men have been fostered. The folly of a policy which denies the ordinary banking facilities to safe but small men, and reserves everything for large risks with those who have neither name nor position at stake is, one would think, self-evident. Yet the error has so often been committed, and always with the same results sooner or later, that we are obliged to protest against what is not only suicidal but unjust* and to maintain that true banking must be confined to the legitimate assistance of bona fide trading and Bound commercial business. We do not speak to those who are unable to see as we see. 1 Every bank-manager in the kingdom knows as well as we do that the stability of a bank is the multiplicity of small accounts, and small bills. But they seem impelled to a course they can have no faith in by a greedy desire for large and Sudden gains. That we do not 7 assume too much is evident. Most, if not all, banks will gladly take the smallest accounts, and should there be hardly any average balance, a few shillings annually for'the cost of the account is all that the banks ask. In receiving, they work upon the policy that every little helps. In discounting, they go upon the policy that large loans bring prestige and status, and perhaps large profits ; they shut their eyes against the inevitable risk and ruin which are sure accompaniments of such a business. What is the result of this policy to the banker? Why, simply that he is exceedingly active during times of speculation and universal exaggeration, and that when the certain and periodic collapse comes, he is overwhelmed with losses, and without even the base of rarely-vary- "'; ing trade-custom, which, after all, is the ; ; mainstay of all good banking. Moreover they not only prejudice their position, but their future also. . The v majority of tradesmen in this/country deal with cash capital only — they limit ■-.'■ "their business to that; if they see special bar*; ains; they pass them by if their cash~n^alai.ce; ihakeT "the operation doubtful. Eamilianty with reasonable arid certain

banking acommodation would break down this needless restriction, and the gain would be mutual ; the banker would prosper with the sound prosperity of his clients. The one would react upon the other. In connectiou with this subject, we cannot too earnestly advise all tradesmen tc place their accounts where they can rely upon a ready co-operation with their business. Anything but the strictest conduct of banking business they need not expect, and are not interested in obtaining; but the usual safe facilities they have a right to look for. It is not unlikely that the wholesome lessons of the past year or two will assist this very needful reform.— "Borwick's Price Current." .