ESSAYS IN PERSUASION

PART

I46

Seldom in modern history has the gap be-tween the two been so wide and so difficult tobridge. Unless we bend our wills and ourintelligences, energised by a conviction that thisdiagnosis is right, to find a solution along theselines, then, if the diagnosis is right, the slumpmay pass over into a depression, accompaniedby a sagging price level, which might last foryears, with untold damage to the materialwealth and to the social stability of everycountry alike. Only if we seriously seek asolution, will the optimism of my openingsentences be confirmed—at least for the nearerfuture.

It is beyond the scope of this essay to indicatelines of future policy. But no one can take thefirst step except the central banking authoritiesof the chief creditor countries; nor can any oneCentral Bank do enough acting in isolation.Resolute action by the Federal Reserve Banks of the United States, the Bank of France, andthe Bank of England might do much more thanmost people, mistaking symptoms or aggravat-ing circumstances for the disease itself, willreadily believe. In every way the most effect-ive remedy would be that the Central Banks ofthese three great creditor nations should jointogether in a bold scheme to restore confidenceto the international long-term loan market;which would serve to revive enterprise andactivity everywhere, and to restore prices andprofits, so that in due course the wheels of theworld’s commerce would go round again. And