Page:Hints About Investments (1926).pdf/217

 in the full balance-sheet as set out by the bank, the investments were subdivided into War Loans and other securities of or guaranteed by the British Government, which account for 51¾ millions of the total, the balance of a million and a half being composed of "Colonial Government securities, British Corporation stocks and other investments." As a matter of interest and guidance for the public it would be kind of the banks to tell us exactly what investments they hold, instead of leaving us wondering what those "other investments" mean.

The items which I summarized as "shares in other banks," amounting to nearly three millions, consist in fact of shares in the Westminster Foreign Bank (£1,080,000), an institution founded to carry the Westminster's prestige and services abroad, and in the Ulster Bank £1,911,706.

It will be noted that by far the largest item £122 millions out of a total of £308½ millions—is made up of Advances to Customers. Those hundred and twenty-two millions are the means by which the bank gives the most direct assistance to the country's industry, and the large total shows how a shareholder in one bank is able to feel that he owns part of a machine which distributes credit to thousands of borrowers in different parts of