OFF THE GOLD STANDARD [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—I have read with great interest the splendid explana- tions, "Off the Gold Standard," by Mr. Hartley Withers, in No. 5,387 of your valuable paper. And yet one cannot but say that your correspondent seems to judge the situation in England with some, optimism, although there is -little cause for optimism, as we have seen the first bad effects of currency depreciation. For the £ sterling has lost 23 per cent. of its value since you went off the gold standard, which means that the inflation has started already !
In England, of course, people cannot realize what the word " inflation " really means, as they have not gone through it. But they may know it one day when they will find out that a couple of £1,000 notes or more is just enough to buy a loaf of bread or twenty cigarettes.
And will the British Budget stand as it is The German experience is that " inflation " will knock the bottom out of any Budget. It should be noted that inflation will not do away with reparations nor with Protection, nor with the technical progress which in its galloping advance has destroyed the balance of international trade and industry. Nor will inflation do away with the abnormalities in the present dis- tribution of international capital nor with the poisoning of the political atmosphere, and least of all will it restore that shaken confidence which has put England into such difficulties.
It would therefore be best, both for England and the world, if the English currency were put in order as soon as possible on its gold basis, and if the unavoidable adjustment of costs in English industry were to be effected by open methods ; that is to say, by lower wages and further economies instead of by concealed methods. We know that events in England have come to the help of inflationists in other countries, including our own. All the more needful is it to recognize that inflation does not save and purge, but only postpones matters to make them worse, in England as in every country.
Instead of an International Gold Conference (that might be useful to U.S.A. and France, or probably to some Indian nabobs, but not to a country that has been pushed off the gold standard) an International Conference for Peace Treaty Revisions under the lead of Britain should be asked for, as it is obvious now, even for very short-sighted people, that the whole trouble in the world, including the depression of trade, derives from the Treaty of Versailles.—I am, Sir, &c., HANS LANGE (lately in Oshogbo, Nigeria).
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