Modern banking

The present edition follows hard on the heels of the fourth edition, mainly because the work of the Radcliffe Committee has changed the needs of students and other readers. It is possible that a radical reconstruction of the book will be desirable when time has allowed the full repercussions of the Radcliffe Report to be seen, but if examination candidates in 1960 and 1961 were to be helped, a less ambitious revision had to be undertaken at once.
The principal changes are in Chapters 1, 4, 5, 6, and 12. In successive editions a number of minor changes in Chapter I have cumulatively altered its tone, and this process has been taken much further in this latest revision. Chapters 4 and 5 have been substantially reconstructed, to reflect the view of English central banking adopted by the Radcliffe Committee. Its Report has made the speculative concluding Chapter (12) of the fourth edition unnecessary, and I have replaced it by a brief guide to the Committee's Report and Evidence. The moves towards convertibility of the pound have made possible a great simplification of Chapter 6.