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THE RETURN TO GOLD

205

in a position to choose what its future standardis to be.

This discussion of the prospects of the sta-bility of gold has partly answered by anticipa-tion the second principal argument in favour ofthe restoration of an unqualified gold standard,namely that this is the only way of avoiding thedangers of a “managed” currency.

It is natural, after what we have experienced,that prudent people should desiderate a standardof value which is independent of Finance Minis-ters and State Banks . The present state ofaffairs has allowed to the ignorance and frivolityof statesmen an ample opportunity of bringingabout ruinous consequences in the economicfield. It is felt that the general level of economicand financial education amongst statesmen andbankers is hardly such as to render innovationsfeasible or safe; that, in fact, a chief object ofstabilising the exchanges is to strap downMinisters of Finance.

These are reasonable grounds of hesitation.But the experience on which they are based is byno means fair to the capacities of statesmen andbankers. The non-metallic standards of whichwe have experience have been anything ratherthan scientific experiments coolly carried out.They have been a last resort, involuntarilyadopted, as a result of war or inflationary taxa-tion, when the State finances were already brokenor the situation out of hand. Naturally in thesecircumstances such practices have been the ac-companiment and the prelude of disaster. But

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