Page:Bankers and Credit (1924).pdf/216

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their relative share, and hence is known as inflation, while any decrease increases their relative share and hence is called sound finance." This passage appears to mean that in the interest of creditors the Bank of England continually works to reduce the amount of currency in the country. If so, its effort has been singularly futile, seeing that at the end of 1869 (as shown in Bagehot's Lombard Street) its own note issue was £33,250,000 and at the end of 1913 it had grown to £52,250,000, to say nothing of its expansion to £144,000,000 at the end of 1922. Surely the Professor might have asked some office boy in the City a few elementary facts about what happens there, before making assertions that are so amazingly incorrect. Can this really be the system on which our greatest scientific minds conduct investigations?

A scheme with some theoretical attractions was worked out by Mr. Henry Lowenfeld in a book called Back to Prosperity published in 1923 (Effingham Wilson). He proposes that "a Corporation should be formed, composed exclusively of bankers, representatives of the entire banking interests of the country. The Government should authorize this Corporation to issue the 'money' of the country and should make that 'money' the exclusive legal