Such then were the chief blessings that the gold standard gave to us and to other countries that used it:—
1. Stability of prices at home.
2. Parallel movements in our prices and those of other gold using countries.
3. A limit on fluctuations in rates of exchange.
Stability of prices was by no means perfect; but the fluctuations that happened all through the century before the war were not much more than a ripple on the surface as compared with the tidal waves of the war and after-war period. It is only since we have lost these benefits owing to the surrender of a currency based on gold and the adoption of one based on the whims of politicians and the insolvency of Governments that we have fully recognized the beauties of the system that our rulers and those of other countries thought it necessary to wreck.
This system was provided for us partly by the Government, but chiefly by our banking machinery. The Government minted for us gold and subsidiary coins which we used in retail transactions and the Government had, by the Bank of England Charter Act of 1844, settled the terms under which the Bank of
