Page:Bankers and Credit (1924).pdf/160

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

accommodation, and otherwise coaxed and wheedled them back to business.

At about the same time a Treasury Minute was produced imposing a limit upon the fiduciary issue of Currency Notes, that is to say on the issue of Currency Notes which were not backed by gold or by Bank of England Notes, this limit being fixed at £320,000,000, in accordance with the recommendations of the Final Report of the Cunliffe Committee. The Treasury had no real power to control the note issue because holders of the Treasury Bills could at any time insist upon their repayment, and could thereby secure either Currency Notes or Bank of England notes or a credit at the Bank of England which they could turn into Currency Notes. Nevertheless the issue of this Minute and the raising of Bank Rate probably had a certain amount of psychological effect and brought home to men's minds a few facts which had been forgotten by many people engaged in finance, industry, commerce and politics; such as, that unlimited expansion of currency and credit was not part of the scheme of the universe, that British industry had worked before the war and with considerable success with a monetary system which had been limited by the amount of gold in the country and that the issue of unlimited paper money—