Strauss was much nearer the truth when he said "no rate, however low, will tempt borrowing for the purpose of purchasing a commodity whose price is believed too high": and the appalling distress in which the world has lately been plunged was much more due to the bungling of politicians in this hemisphere than to the price of money in the other. If the other countries of the world had been in a normal condition with their industry and finance working smoothly and in good health, no action or inaction with regard to its rate of rediscount on the part of the United States Federal Reserve Board could have plunged them into "the most appalling distress" for nearly two years.
