rulers depreciated our currency, we put it back on its old gold basis as soon as we reasonably could. For the fact that gold has lost much of its pre-war buying power we can hardly be held responsible.
It is very true that if we attempt, in order to bring our currency up to its old gold value, to bring prices down by violent credit contraction and so take the heart out of our producers and traders, we shall be damaging ourselves more than could be expected by our reasonable creditors. In all these economic matters it is surely best to go very slowly. If we can induce our Governments to spend less than they get in revenue, and leave a balance for debt redemption, then at least we can be sure that there will be no new inflation on the war-time lines through faulty Government finance. Then as the volume of production and trade gradually grows it should slowly overtake the volume of money, restoring the value of the latter. Professor Cassel in his two Memoranda published under the title The World's Monetary Problems, expresses the opinion that is it a "particularly vain expectation" to suppose that the "general economic development will increase the genuine need for money so much as to match the present supply." He thinks that such a policy would
