Page:Bankers and Credit (1924).pdf/283

 paper currency regulated to keep prices steady. Until that far-off day arrives, we shall most of us agree that the gold standard, with all its faults, carried an immeasurable advantage in that under it the action of the Government was confined to the purely mechanical business of coinage. It also provided a machinery for international payments under which trade between nations was carried on with an ease and confidence which seem now almost incredible.

If then we want the gold standard restored, do we want the old pre-war gold standard, or a new one to be arrived at by a process of "devaluation?" The devaluation plan has high theoretical authority behind it, but as far as England is concerned our bankers have pronounced strongly in favour of the old pre-war standard, and even in countries like France and italy the necessity for devaluation has not yet been admitted by those who guide their financial destinies. As to England even Professor Cassel now seems to think that it might be as well for us to restore the old standard.

The question was discussed with admirable clearness by Sir Charles Addis, Chairman of the London Committee of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and a