that Germany was driving us out of the markets of the world because the mark was falling in value, and that more inflation was the statesman-like prescription?
I think there was a feeling among us men in the street, especially those of us who were hoary headed and old-fashioned, that the British pound of which we had been perhaps ridiculously proud, had suffered a most unworthy outrage at the hands of politicians who ought never to have been allowed to meddle with it, and that it was due to the British pound's dignity to try to put it back to something like its old purchasing power, and at least to make it once more a gold certificate and not a mere Governmental shin plaster, with its value at the mercy of political dishonesty and cowardice. It was only by bringing back the gold standard that we could hope to give to our money that degree of steadiness in value that had won our confidence before the war and had encouraged us to lend or invest it in the expectation that when it was repaid or we turned the investment into money again, the money would not cheat its owners by fetching only half as much as before, because the Government had debased it by making too much of it.
Steadiness was what we wanted in the buying
