Currency question -- Great Britain; Finance -- Great Britain; World War, 1914-1918 -- Economic aspects -- Great Britain
When Mr Webb comes to the question of the dangers resulting from
monopoly, he finds that they lie chiefly in a restriction of
facilities, and in raising the price exacted for them, and that in
both respects the danger appears to be great. There is, he says, every
reason to expect that the banker, as the nearest approach to the
"economic man," will take the opportunity of raising his charges
either by increasing the frequency and the rate of the commission
exacted for the keeping of a small account, or by reducing the rate of
interest allowed on balances, or adopting the common London practice
of refusing it altogether. "The banker, who is not in business for his
health, may be expected, on this side of his enterprise, to pursue the
policy of 'charging all that the traffic will bear.' It would probably
pay the banker actually to refuse small accounts, and to penalise the
employment of cheques for small sums. This would be a social loss."
With regard to the other side of his business, lending to the
borrowers, Mr Webb thinks it need not be assumed that the monopolist
banker will actually lend less, because he will seek at all times to
employ all the capital or credit that he can safely dispose of, but Mr
Webb thinks that he is likely, as the result of being relieved of the
fear of competition; to feel free to be more arbitrary in his choice
of borrowers, and therefore able to indulge in discrimination against
persons or kinds of business that he may dislike; that he will raise
his charges generally for all accommodation, again, theoretically
to "all that the traffic will bear"; and, finally, that in times of
stress with regard to all applicants, and at all times with regard to
any applicant who was "in a tight place," that he will extort as the
price of indispensable help a theoretically unlimited ransom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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