A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THE secret of devaluation was well kept—or was it, when so many people had been saying it would happen and happen on September 18th ? Whether that was leak- age or an intelligent guess I don't profess to know, but it might perfectly well have been the latter. Predictions that devaluation would come have been rife for months, and the probable moment for it to come, if come it did, would be after the Washington talks, the date of which had been fixed for some time. And since the announcement was almost certain to be made on a Sunday, as in 1931, September 18th was obviously indicated, the fact that it corresponded so closely to the September zoth of 1931 being one more small point in its favour. But such secrets are not always well kept. When Britain went off gold in 1931 I was at Geneva attending the Assembly of the League of Nations. It was a Sunday afternoon. I had been out somewhere for most of the day, and calling about tea-rime at the hotel where the British Delegation was staying I casually asked a delegate whom I happened to meet whether there was any news. " Well," he said, with impressive gravity, "there's some frightful news if it's true. There's a rumour that Britain's gone off gold." On that I rang up Sir Walter Layton, as he then was, at the News Chronicle office in London. " But," he said, " it's a dead secret till midnight." " Well," I rejoined, " it's not a dead secret here." Who were the purveyors of the news in Geneva ? The German delegation, of all people.
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