to-mouth business opportunism led us then. . . . But I must be allowed to remark with respect that it is not enough for a principle to be shown to be logically indefeasible in the seclusion of the economist's study. We have to take the world as it is. The principle must—be brought down into the hurly-burly of the market place and proved in operation there, through the medium of the heart and mind of ordinary men, in conflict with their opposing interests, their changing purposes, their unruly passions and their defective wills. That, to my mind, is where Professor Cassel's devaluation proposal falls short. It may have all the merits claimed for it, but if it fails to take sufficient account of human nature, or, shall I say, of human nature as we know it in these Islands, it is doomed to nullity. To suppose that a people so conservative by instinct, so tenacious of custom, so careful of tradition, could be induced to trample on their monetary past and to relinquish the dearly purchased gold standard, which rightly or wrongly they believe to be bound up with the prestige of their national credit and their supremacy in international finance, is to live in a world of illusion."
Apart from these questions of conservative sentiment, on the great importance of which
