Once Doubt Begins It Spreads Rapidly.

In Truth, The Gold Standard Is Already A Barbarous Relic. All Of Us, From The Governor Of The Bank Of England Downwards, Are Now Primarily Interested In Preserving The Stability Of Business, Prices, And Employment, And Are Not Likely, When The Choice Is Forced On Us, Deliberately To Sacrifice These To Outworn Dogma, Which Had Its Value Once, Of 3 Pounds, 17 Shill Ings, 10 1/2 Pence Per Ounce. Advocates Of The Ancient Standard Do Not Observe How Remote It Now Is From The Spirit And The Requirements Of The Age. A Regulated Nonmetallic Standard Has Slipped In Unnoticed. It Exists.

Lenin Is Said To Have Declared That The Best Way To Destroy The Capitalist System Was To Debauch The Currency. By A Continuing Process Of Inflation, Governments Can Confiscate, Secretly And Unobserved, An Important Part Of The Wealth Of Their Citizens. By This Method They Not Only Confiscate, But They Confiscate Arbitrarily; And, While The Process Impoverishes Many, It Actually Enriches Some. The Sight Of This Arbitrary Rearrangement Of Riches Strikes Not Only At Security, But At Confidence In The Equity Of The Existing Distribution Of Wealth.

Markets Can Remain Irrational Longer Than You Can Remain Solvent.

For At Least Another Hundred Years We Must Pretend To Ourselves And To Every One That Fair Is Foul And Foul Is Fair; For Foul Is Useful And Fair Is Not. Avarice And Usury And Precaution Must Be Our Gods For A Little Longer Still.

If The Treasury Were To Fill Old Bottles With Bank-notes, Bury Them At Suitable Depths In Disused Coal-mines Which Are Then Filled Up To The Surface With Town Rubbish, And Leave It To Private Enterprise On Well-tried Principles Of Laissez-faire To Dig The Notes Up Again (the Right To Do So Being Obtained, Of Course, By Tendering For Leases Of The Note-bearing Territory), There Need Be No More Unemployment And, With The Help Of Repercussions, The Real Income Of The Community, And Its Capital Wealth, Would Probably Become A Good Deal Greater Than It Actually Is.