Currency question -- Great Britain; Finance -- Great Britain; World War, 1914-1918 -- Economic aspects -- Great Britain
Moreover, Mr Webb's point about what he calls disinterested
management--that is to say, the management of banks by officers whose
remuneration bears no relation to the profit made on each piece of
business transacted--is one of the matters in which English banking
seems likely at least to be modified. Sir Charles Addis, in the
article already referred to, calls attention in a very striking
passage to the efficiency of the administration of German and English
banks, and makes a comparison between the remuneration given to the
banking boards of the two countries. The passage is as follows:--
"Scarcely second in importance to the financial strength of a
bank is the efficiency of its administration. The German board of
direction is composed, to an extent unknown in England, of men
possessed of professional and technical knowledge. No one who has
been present at a meeting of German bank directors in Berlin, when
some foreign enterprise has been under consideration, can have
failed to be impressed by the animation with which it was
discussed, and by the expert and comparative knowledge displayed
by individual directors of the enterprise itself and of the
conditions prevailing in the foreign country in which it was
proposed to undertake it. He may have been led to reflect ruefully
upon the different reception his project met with in his own
country. He will recall the meeting of the London board; the
difficulty of withdrawing its members even temporarily from their
country pursuits and their obvious anxiety to lose no time in
returning to them; most of them old men, many of them long retired
from business; some of them ex-Government officials and the like,
who have never been in business; a few ornamental titled persons;
only one or two here and there who have no train to catch and are
willing to discuss the matter in hand with attention, and, it may
be, with understanding.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account