(i) An open letter to the French Minister ofFinance (whoever he is or may be) (Jan. 1926)
Monsieur, —When I read in my daily paperthe daily projects of yourself and your predeces-sors to draft new budgets and to fund old debts,I get the impression that Paris discusses verylittle what seems to me in London to be thetechnical analysis of your problem. May I,therefore, divert your attention for a momentfrom your Sisyphean task of rolling budgets upParliament Hill back to certain fundamentalcalculations?
I have written about the French franc manytimes in recent years, and I do not find that Ihave changed my mind. More than two yearsago I wrote: “The level of the franc is goingto be settled in the long run, not by speculationor the balance of trade, or even the outcome ofthe Ruhr adventure, but by the proportion ofhis earned income which the French taxpayerwill permit to be taken from him to pay theclaims of the French rentier.” I still thinkthat this is the root idea from which your plansought to develop.
Now it is obvious that there are two methods