estment of small sums of money in municipal enterprise,
offering a higher rate of interest on deposits than the banks can
supply."[708]

Many Socialists advocate that the municipalities should raise money by
issuing paper-money in unlimited quantities or that they should become
bankers, pay interest on deposits, and invest the savings of the poor
in highly speculative enterprises carried on without regard to economy
and expense, or to profit and loss. "Why pay in usury at all? Abolish
the gold monopoly by demonetising metals, and the sole remaining
argument against municipal trading disappears along with the most
crippling restriction under which public enterprise labours."[709]
"Credit notes would be of little use were the city's credit gone,
because the people would be afraid to take them. However valuable the
assets of a municipal authority might be--and municipal concerns are
usually far more substantial and sound than banking companies are--it
is public confidence that constitutes the first requisite, and this it
is the duty of all reformers to establish and maintain against the
assaults of those whose interest it is to break it down. The
institution of municipal savings banks under the protection of, and
subject to inspection by, the State would assist public authorities
and render them less dependent on the bankers; then when people had
become accustomed to thinking their city's credit at least equal to
that of the leading banks, a limited issue of notes might be
allowed."[710] Further proposals for "demonetising" gold and issuing
unlimited amounts of unconvertible notes, on the model of the
assignats of the French Revolution, will be found in Chapter XX.
"Some Socialist Views on Money, Banks, and Banking."[711]

These and many other dangerous experiments could easily be undertaken
by needy demagogues with fantastic ideas, if the supervision of
municipalities by the national Government were abolished. Therefore
the Independent Labour Party passed at the last Annual Conference the
following resolution: "That this Conference urges the Labour party in
Parliament to secure the extension of power to municipalities,
enabling them to undertake trading and the development of existing
municipal concerns, without the sanction of the Local Government
Board, and to use any profits accruing from same in such manner as may
be decided by the municipality, without the necessity of promoting
Parliamentary Bills."[712]

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