THE BRETTON WOODS SCHEME
SIR,—Under the 1925 gold standard, thin country could suspend gold payments or devalue sterling to any extent, at will. We could lose gold. Acceptance of the Bretton Woods scheme would oblige us to solicit permission of an international board, on which our American trade rivals would exercise the casting vote, for any devaluation in excess of so per cent. We should, moreover, have to win back the gold equiva'ent lost over a period of two or three years, or suffer heavy and, perhaps, penal charges.
A bankrupt was treated as a criminal in Dickens's day, but it is in- conceivable that in 1944 the Chancellor of the world's greatest debtor nation should uphold publicly an agreement containing unashamedly penal clauses against a debtor condition, and refuse in Parliament even to enquire into alternatives. Aurum et inutile, summi materiem mall. It is a pity Sir John Anderson does not study Horace.—Yours faithfully,
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