PART III THE RETURN TO GOLD 289

point—that was the difficult problem—were wejustified in putting our own interests first?

As events have turned out, we have got therelief we needed, and, at the same time, theclaims of honour have been, in the judgementof the whole world, satisfied to the utmost. Forthe step was not taken until it was unavoidable.In the course of a few weeks the Bank of Eng-land paid out £200,000,000 in gold or itsequivalent, which was about half the totalclaims of foreigners on London , and did thisat a time when the sums which London hadre-lent abroad were largely frozen. No bankercould do more. Out of the ashes the City ofLondon will rise with undiminished honour.For she has played the game up to the limitsof quixotry, even at the risk of driving British trade almost to a standstill.

No wonder, then, that we feel some exuber-ance at the release, that Stock Exchange pricessoar, and that the dry bones of industry arestirred. For if the sterling exchange is de-preciated by, say, 2 5 per cent, this does as muchto restrict our imports as a tariff of that amount;but whereas a tariff could not help our exports,and might hurt them, the depreciation of ster-ling affords them a bounty of the same 25 percent by which it aids the home producer againstimports.

In many lines of trade the British manu-facturer to-day must be the cheapest producerin the world in terms of gold. We gain theseadvantages without a cut of wages and without