they owed us or were prepared to lend to us, in order to help London to regulate and check the crisis which had been begun in America, the effect of this action was that gold poured into London from no less than seventeen other countries. Thus, though the gold basis of the currency systems of other countries was not as sure and solid as that of England, it was so to a sufficient point to secure that, at least in times of crisis and when sufficient pressure was applied, the principle of convertibility was allowed to work and the gold, when demanded, was surrendered to those who had claims for it and was allowed to leave the country and go to the place where it could be more usefully employed.
This gold backing to our monetary system and that of other countries in effect provided that all the great trading and financial countries were working with the same money. The nations coined the gold into coins of varying denominations and varying fineness, but the same metal was behind the monetary systems of all.
From this fact there came the great advantage that price levels were kept more or less in agreement in one country and another. If prices rose faster here than in other countries,
