It seems to me that there is so far very little solid ground for any apprehension on the part of the business community that the recent development of banking evolution will tend to any damage to their interests.  The banks have grown in size with the growth of industry.  As industry has tended more and more to be worked by big battalions, it became necessary to have banking institutions with sufficiently large resources at their command to meet the great requirements of the huge industrial organisations that they had to serve.  Nevertheless, the tendency towards fewer banks and bigger figures has grown with extraordinary celerity, as the following table shows:—­

MOVEMENT OF ENGLISH JOINT-STOCK BANK DEPOSITS, ETC.,
SINCE 1886.

December No. of Number of Capital Deposit and Total 31st Banks Branches Paid up Current Liabilities
                                           Accounts
1886 109 1,547 L38,468,000 L299,195,000 L376,808,000 1891 106 2,245 43,406,000 391,842,000 486,632,000 1896 94 3,051 45,203,000 495,233,000 599,518,000 1901 74 3,935 46,631,000 584,841,000 698,150,000 1906 55 4,840 48,122,000 647,889,000 782,353,000 1911 44 5,417 47,265,000 748,641,000 885,069,000 1916 35 5,993 48,237,000 1,154,877,000 1,316,220,000

This table is taken from the annual banking numbers of the Economist.  It will be noticed that in 1886 there were in England 109 joint-stock banks with 1547 offices, whose accounts were tabulated in the Economist’s annual review.  Their total paid-up capital was 38-1/2 millions, their deposit and current accounts were just under 300 millions, and their total liabilities were 377 millions.  In the course of thirty years the 109 banks had shrunk by the process of amalgamation and absorption to thirty-five, that is to say, they had been divided by three; the number of their offices, however, had been multiplied by nearly four, while their deposit accounts had grown from 300 millions to 1155, and their total liabilities from 377 to 1316 millions.  By the amalgamations announced at the end of 1917, and that of the County of Westminster with Parr’s announced on February 1st, the number of joint stock banks will be reduced to 32.  The picture would be still more striking if the figures of the private banks were included, since their number has been reduced, since 1891, from 37 to 6.  These figures are eloquent of the manner in which the number of individual banks has been reduced, while the extent of the banking accommodation given to the community has enormously grown, so that the power wielded by each individual bank has increased by the force of both these processes.