GIPE-PUNE-OIIOI2 - DSpace@GIPE

THE. BANK CAPITALISM OF YOUNG BENGAL 139
revolutionary character . From 1322 institutions in 1920
the number of Japanese banks went down to 955 in
1929. In Italy during 1926-30 nearly 450 deposit banks
have eitheI' liquidated or merged.
Rationalisation in Bengali Bank.ing
In Bengal also the banks will have to think of adopting
measures by which they are enabled to improve their
risk-bearing capacity, undertake greater risks if need be
and thereby strengthen their positions as economic units
as well as inspire the increased confidence of the investors
and business men. They will have to rationalize their
resources and attempt unifications or consolidations, if
not of the latest type, at any rate, of the types familiar to
the world in the third and fourth quarters of the ninteenth
century.
Bank-concentration is a subject to which we have been
inviting the attention of our countrymen since the end of
1925. One may believe that the exigencies of practical
.business will compel several groups of our institutions to
see their way to enlarge their capital by some species of
pooling, merger, fusion or amalgamation among themselves.
32
In regard to this concentration or consolidation, of
course, the banks will have to seek the "natural affinities"
as their partners in the new formations. An outsider,
whether an "expert" or a "patriot," could hardly suggest
as to which bank in which district should come to terms
with this or that institution- in the same district or else-
32 Lewis: •. The Bank Consolidation Movement" in the American
Banlters' Association Journal (New York) for June •. 1926.