bility of our note issue and the international trade position of the country."
It will be noticed that in this and many other passages in the Committee's Report, it assumes that the right to export gold, which was ostensibly still existent during the war, would be maintained. This is an important point to bear in mind, because the trade depression of recent years is often laid at the door of the Cunliffe Committee and the policy that it is alleged to have recommended. In fact the right to export gold except under licence was abrogated by law in the Spring of 1919, and by this measure the whole basis of the policy of the Cunliffe Report was cut away.
The Committee proceeded to recommend that Government borrowings should cease at the earliest possible moment after the war, and that as soon as possible repayment should be begun of a large portion of the enormous amount of Government securities held by the banks. It accordingly recommended that at the earliest possible moment an adequate Sinking Fund should be provided out of revenue, so that there might be a regular annual reduction of capital liabilities, more especially of those which constitute the Floating Debt, and it went out of its way to remark that it was of the utmost importance that such repayment should not
