FINANCIAL 
79 
FINANCIAL NOTES 
The Saga of a Bank 
If Snorri Sturluson or Hans Christian Andersen 
had been asked to write about the adventures of a 
bank, they could not have acquitted the task bet¬ 
ter than has Julius Schovelin in his extensive saga 
of Den Danske Landmandsbanken published in 
Copenhagen coincident with the fiftieth anniversary. 
It is a remarkable book to have been written about 
a bank. With kindly Danish humor and charac¬ 
terization the sagaman describes how the idea of a 
bank for the farmers was conceived by three gen¬ 
tlemen meeting on a railroad train, and develops 
the biographies of the principal men who went into 
the making of the institution up to the point, 186 
pages later, or halfway through the book, when, as 
in the Icelandic sagas, he finally comes to the birth 
of his hero, Landmandsbanken, at the Hotel 
Phoenix in Copenhagen, October 5, 1871. As in 
the old sagas also, verse is interspersed in the 
prose; balance sheets take the place of swords 
in the action, but personalities are never over¬ 
shadowed by statistics. The latter half of the vol¬ 
ume is a history of the two generations of directors 
of the bank, Isak Gliickstadt, the father, and 
Emil Gliickstadt, the son. Purely material mat¬ 
ters are relegated to charts at the end of the 
book, which show an early steady growth followed 
by the rapid rise in the last ten years. The total 
balance sheet places the bank slightly in the lead 
of the two great Swedish banks which are its chief 
rivals in the Scandinavian North. A somewhat 
humorous comparison is drawn between little Den¬ 
mark and its infant prodigy. The volume is 
adorned with vignettes and handsomely printed 
and bound. 
General Conditions Static 
Financial conditions in the Scandinavian coun¬ 
tries cannot yet be called rosy. Hearst’s Business 
Weather Map has added Denmark to the black 
list of countries where conditions are declining. 
N. L. Andersen, American Commercial Attache, 
notes that the production of iron, timber, and 
paper shows marked improvement, with less 
change in dairying and fisheries. The textiles are 
still hard hit by German competition. Idle ton¬ 
nage, however, has decreased. The relatively 
small demand for capital in Sweden has helped to 
lower the official rate of interest from 6 to 5 y 2 %, 
or the same level as British and French discounts. 
Some current Swedish stock quotations are: Asea 
36, Metallverken 35, Grangesberg 245, Kredit- 
banken 281, Gasaccumulator 26, Separator 70, 
Svenska Lloyd 28. 
Norwegian Readjustment 
A correspondent in Andresens Bank reports 
that while the export of timber products in Nor¬ 
way has improved, as well as packing and chem¬ 
ical products, these exports were taken mainly 
from existing stocks. As the business men fear 
that an unforeseen improvement in the rate of 
Norwegian kroner may tend to diminish the de¬ 
mand for Norwegian products, industries are 
not working to capacity, and the number of un¬ 
employed is increasing. Timber driving in the 
woods is considerably reduced this winter because 
of the timber stocks laid up in the factories. 
The most remarkable financial development is 
the reduction in the amount of circulating notes. 
Advances from private banks fell from 3,953,681,- 
000 kroner at the end of August to 3,741,674,000 
at the end of October. Deposits in the same period 
were reduced from 3,340,330,000 to 3,274,831,000. 
Under these circumstances some of the minor 
banks have had difficulty in obtaining sufficient 
liquid means, but the Bank of Norway and other 
large banks have come to their relief. The Bank 
of Norway is still keeping a high rate of discount, 
6y 2 %, in spite of the fact that Sweden and Den¬ 
mark both have 5y 2 %. 
Warburg Speaks 
Paul M. Warburg, Chairman of the International 
Acceptance Bank, has returned from a visit to 
Europe, where he met Scandinavian bankers in 
Copenhagen. At the annual meeting of the Amer¬ 
ican Acceptance Council, he vividly urged Amer¬ 
ica to encourage the financial reorganization of 
Europe. Our Federal Reserve System, he said, 
in spite of its critics, has proved a tower of 
strength and helped to keep intact the solid foun¬ 
dation of our banking system. 
Our True Interests 
In a brilliant preface, reviewing Europe’s need 
of American finance, Alvin W. Krech, President of 
the Equitable Trust Company of New York, quotes 
the famous words of Talleyrand, “The direct in¬ 
terests of my country are never in opposition to 
the true interests of the world.” This is published 
by the Equitable in a comprehensive historical 
sketch, Currency Inflation and Public Debt , by 
Edwin R. A. Seligman, Professor of Political Econ¬ 
omy in Columbia University. 
The Intangibles 
Mr. Yanderlip’s suggestion to apply the allied 
debt to the rehabilitation of Europe through hydro¬ 
electric development and educational institutions 
has aroused nation-wide discussion. In a recent 
address on “The Size of Our Job,” G. A. O’Reilly, 
Vice-President of the Irving National Bank, de¬ 
clared, “The problem is not to be solved on any 
chartered accountant basis. We must include ele¬ 
ments of helpfulness which cannot be seen or 
measured dr named or demonstrated, the intangi¬ 
bles.” _ 
Live Wires 
Lloyd George has praised in unprecedented 
terms the economic memoranda prepared for the 
League of Nations by the great Swedish econo¬ 
mist, Professor Gustav Cassel. 
In London, the Swedish Chamber of Commerce 
of the United Kingdom has christened its hand¬ 
some new four-story building in the city. 
The headquarters of Reymersholmsbolaget have 
been moved from Stockholm to Halsingborg. 
A Dutch house is offering 50,000,000 kroner first 
mortgage 7% bonds of Norsk Hydro. 
Chandler P. Andersen, a New York lawyer, 
will represent America in arbitrating at The 
Hague the claim of the “Christiania group.” 
Svensk Handelstidning computes that Russian 
gold melted down in Sweden amounts to $31,200,- 
000. Recent Swedish exports to Russia include 
locomotives, motor pumps, separators, and grain. 
Grangesberg reduced its dividend from 18 to 15 
per cent. Old Privilege. 
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