There Are Bad Scots: A Concession from North the Tweed Prom OuR OWN ConRESPONDENT
Rdinburgh, Apr. 23. he Scottish Trade Union Congress at Ayr devoted some attention to that havely annual—nationaliza tion of banking, The usual vague statements that the existing order was prejudicial to democratic government, the interests of industry, and the economic welfare of the whole body of the people, were again complacently. set forth, but, Veyond the demand for another Royal Commission to inquire into the existing system, and another Blue-Book, no constructive policy would seem to have emerged, The advocates of banking nationalization seldom venture beyond generalities.
They fail to realize the basic fact that London owes its premier posi tion in the world—if not entirely, at any rate to a very large extent the unquestioned stability of its great banking institutions, and that successive Governments "have been, and still are, to a very large extent guided by the financial experts who conduct-their operations. A legislative control of banking would result only in irksome re-"#trietions deterrent to. public inter~ fests. Critics of the existing system would appear to have been asleep during the war period, or at any rate sadly out of touch with current events, It was mainly dee to Danks of the United Kingdom, who were, on recount of their liquid position, able to respond so loyally to the War Loans, that successive insures were so satisfactorily taken up. No country in the world cun show a banking: mechanism of a finer grade; and a system which coped! x0 stlecessfully with the unparalleled exigencies of the decade uinee 1914 is not likely to be under= valued by responsible statesmen. The banks ave in every ease able und willing to foster industrial enterprise provided they ave given satisfactory cover, and. their rates ure extremely moderate, considering the risks Which ave incidental to all human ventures, It is a com: mon fallacy to confuse our great, Jointestock institutions with "eapitalists." The only money-lending capitalist nowadays is the man who uns a "moneylending, busines hix own account. A'"banker," like a "professor," ix'a somewhat clastic term, The {reat banks, however, which are owned by tens of thou rants of shareholders all over the Kingdom, are, so far from being inimical to the democratic ideal, the very embodiment of a de: mocracy, and! that one of the best, ecauve "their success "is entirely' Bound up with goodwill of the eon stituencies among whom they business, and their profits contingent pon the enterprise which they show.
The Seat in Byron.
The bad blood which permitted Byron when a youth to write to his mother from abroad, "I know yeu ate a given," and which on the very threshold of life caused him to blaspheme his native land and the friends of hix youth, was Scottish blood. eottish blocd when it ie bad can be very bad, and those who talk of hevetitary taints. wil Zvic what chance poor Byron had ith eh fates tt ove se 2 urandfathee, and' with "the. ff'the Gordons of Gight behind hint Those early wanderings in the Al: Danian highlands, his association with wild clansmen and. the Yali of the Mores, ate perhaps: counted for by the old clan feeling his blood. "All Hatrow's streams could not purge him into a decent, rottled Englishioan, Others this view of heredity snd Byron's "Scottish strain of feeling He certainly: shows teant pride in Gatedonta, bt here and. there' we fini a" evnfersion like this inthe 10th ennto of "Bon Suan!
And though, a¢ you renimber, wentht and Thynie, when" joveniis 1 ral eaktaa ae sone Fens 1 scoteh'a not illed the Scotchman in And ove "the Tond of Lady, Byron imputed that de-maniac quality in. Byron's strange! to the Scots Calvinism eng blamed to-day for the religious excesses of the melancholy Hebrides. There may be little in this, but it is noteworthy that no English poet since Milton has drawn 30 copiously on the Bible for the matter of his poetry. There were, however, causes of that temperimental derangement nearer to hand, On of the things which always strike readers of Byron is the poet's. sound and extensive knowledge of the Bible. It is said, and no doubt with truth, that this originated in the teaching of his Scots nurse at Aberdeen, May Gray, and was later carried on at the Grammar School. of Aberdeen.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.