Finance 77 



our knowledge of trade-openings abroad, and to such men 

 shall be given the far more genuine honour of being 

 deemed wortliy of financial assistance, cautious at first, 

 but generous when the chances are satisfactory, to go and 

 make good for themselves and the Empire against our 

 competitors overseas. 



Firstly, we want all our readers interested in such an 

 idea to secure a copy of this December issue of the 

 Round Table, to study carefully the information it con- 

 tains and which we cannot reproduce here. To encourage 

 them to do so, however, we will dangle before their eyes the 

 following notes, regretting, as we do so, that the article 

 was not written twenty years ago and more, when we were 

 trying to make good, and to make bricks without straw, in 

 the Tropics. Had we known as much then as we do now, 

 in all probability Tropical Life would never have been 

 started, but knowing, even at the time, how and why we 

 failed, we have been trying ever since to help others to 

 avoid the breakers that we got upset over. After this we 

 will begin quoting : — 



" There has been developed," the Round Table tells 

 us, p. 44, " a far closer connection between banking and 

 industry in Germany than in this country, and many func- 

 tions are performed by German banks which would be 

 considered in this country to be outside the sphere of legiti- 

 mate banking. These functions include the tasks of acting 

 as close financial advisers and even controllers of many 

 industrial concerns, of carrying through reorganization and 

 promotions of industrial companies, of issuing industrial 

 securities, of encouraging new ventures, and of syndicate 

 business of every description," in a word, to save the trade 

 pioneer from the clutches of the company-promoter. Since 

 this country has no institution to do this, then the sooner 

 one, and more than one, are formed, the more likely shall 

 we be to win the coming trade war against our enemy 

 competitors. 



Such institutions bring into existence an organization 

 in trade that is altogether lacking at present, and in so 

 doing they effect economies by avoiding overlapping and 

 the wasteful competition of rival promoters. German 

 banks can be truly said to finance men with brains. In 

 this country, if such men (or women) write books — books, 

 that is, which are deemed worth reading — we buy them by 

 the million, and yet if in other lines of thought, as of trade, 

 invention, and agriculture, a man equally gifted, perhaps 

 far more so, were to plead for a little financial help, the 



