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. 2] The chief of these was the project agitated in the years 1911–1913 to hold an international conference on the high cost of living. Those most interested in this proposed conference hoped to see, as one of its results, a study of plans for stabilizing monetary units. This proposed conference was the subject of a special message to Congress in 1912 by President Taft. A bill "for the purpose of considering plans to be submitted to the various Governments for an international inquiry into the high cost of living, its extent, causes, effects, and possible remedies," was passed by the Senate and reported favorably by the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives. Unfortunately it was not reached on the House Calendar before adjournment, March 4, 1913. It was never revived in the next Congress—not because of opposition but because of the preoccupation of the new administration and of Congress with matters of greater importance, or so regarded.

The proposed conference was favored by a number of leading statesmen and financiers in this country and in England, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan. In the Report of the House of Representatives' Committee on Foreign Affairs on this subject 106 prominent men in the United States were mentioned by name as favoring the project, 27 in Great Britain, 35 in France, 13 in Germany, 7 in Austria, 2 in Canada, 2 in Japan, 4 in Switzerland, 3 in Italy, 7 in Belgium, 3 in Holland, 3 in Denmark.

These included Governor (now President) Wilson, the American Secretaries of Commerce and Labor, of War, and of the Treasury, Senator (now President) Poincare, Signor (now Premier) Nitti, Baron Sakatani, former Minister of Finance of Japan, Lord Courtney of England, many Chambers of Commerce and other organizations in this and other countries. After the failure of the project in the United States, but before the Great War burst upon us, the plan came near being