Already before the War the tendency to crush out individuality was
becoming stronger and stronger, the private firms of manufacturers were
being squeezed out by highly organised combines, or tempted by high
prices offered to hand over their businesses to them. In banking,
similarly, the absorption and amalgamation of smaller banks has been
going on with startling rapidity. The personal relationship between the
customer and the banker, who would grant loans and overdrafts because he
knew the character and position of the borrower in each case, will no
longer exist. The business was safe enough when the manager of a country
bank probably knew whether a customer's butcher's bills were becoming
excessive. Now everything must be referred to London for decision
according to some fixed general rule. The convenience and the
accommodation of the man with a small account count for very little. A
more serious question is the effect which these amalgamations may have
on the relations between bankers and those who are engaged in
manufacturing business.

The old personal relationship between the mill-owner and his employees,
when his garden adjoined the mill yard, when they spoke of him by his
Christian name, and he knew their family affairs and was ready to help
in time of difficulty and distress and to take a lead in any local
effort or support any local charity, has been rapidly disappearing.
There still are, however, many employers to whom the happiness and
welfare of their workpeople is a matter of deepest concern. They have a
human interest in them, and take a pride in improving the conditions of
their life. They have other aims than simply securing as big a dividend
as possible for the eager shareholders of a huge combine. It is, no
doubt, usually large employers of labour who are thus able and willing
to make provision for the welfare of the people in their employ. Some