that it has a great body of informed opinion upon its side when it states 
that the time has come to establish a new relationship between the Bank 
sad the State. The constitution of the Bank should be such aa to ensure 
that, while the fullest use is made of expert knowledge and practical 
experience, the Bank shall be directly under public control, and that 
its governing body shall be responsible not merely, as at present, to 
individuals, but to the community. The Labour Party proposes, 
therefore, that the government of the Bank of England shall be vested 
in the hands of a public corporation, and shall contain representatives 
of the Treasury, the Board of Trade, Industry, Labour and the 
Co-operative Movement. 
Banking Policy and Public Needs 
The Bank of England is the citadel of the banking system, and 
its control by a public authority will go far to ensure that banking 
policy is brought into conformity with public needs. It is also, however, 
of urgent importance to extend banking facilities to persons of small 
means, to ensure that the available supply of credit and savings shall 
be used for purposes of national advantage, and to secure stability 
both of the exhanges and of the purchasing power of money. The 
last problem, a world problem rather than a national problem, was 
discussed at length by the Genoa Conference, and a Labour Govern- 
ment will do all in its power to implement the proposal there advanced 
for periodical meetings of representatives of the Central Banks of 
different countries with a view to the general maintenance of stable 
gold prices. The simplest and most practicable method of providing that 
puitable banking facilities are brought within the reach of every section 
of the population consists in the further development of Co-operative and 
Municipal Banks. Such banks have already rendered conspicuous 
services, and the Labour Party will make every effort to promote 
their extension. It observes, moreover, with grave concern the 
present diversion of a considerable proportion of the national credit 
and national savings into enterprises which, frem a public point of 
view, are at best useless, and, at worst, mischievous. It holds that 
any sane method of allocating them among different undertakings 
should be based on qualitative, as weil as quantitative, considerations, 
and that services of national importance must be adequately financed 
before resources are placed at the disposal of enterprises concerned 
with luxuries or amusements. A Labour Government, if returned 
to power, will set on foot the investigations that are necessary in order 
to ensure that such policy shall be carried into effect with the least 
practicable delay. 
The Nationalisation of the Coal Industry 
In planning the machinery through which nationalised industries 
are to be administered, the Labour Party will have regard to the need 
of securing full scope for individual initiative and business experience, 
freedom from needless red tape, the utmost possible elasticity and 
decentralisation compatible with the efficiency of the service, and, subject 
always to final control by the representatives of the community, the