Page:Bankers and Credit (1924).pdf/148

 But such attempts to get gold, even if likely to be successful, would be quite futile for practical purposes, unless any gold so secured could be dealt with according to the desires of him who gets it. It is of no use to be able to take gold out of the Bank of England unless one can send it abroad, if this happens to be the cheapest method of paying a debt to a foreign creditor. For purposes of hoarding at home it might offer attractions to a few feeble-minded people; but the practical benefit of the gold standard is the fact that thereby you link your currency with those of other gold standard countries and in effect use the same currency as they do. When once the right to send gold abroad is taken away there is no link between the world's currencies, and variations in the price levels in different countries are no longer restrained by the fact that currency can move from one country to another, raising prices in the country to which it goes and lowering prices in the country which it leaves. And it also follows that when once the golden link is snapped, the prices of different currencies as expressed in one another through rates of exchange, can vary down to zero and up to an astronomical zenith.

It was generally admitted that the Government had no choice in making this regulation.