26 SEPTEMBER 1931, Page 1

News of the Week Sterlin g G REAT BRITAIN, battered by the

War through which her credit, her system of Free Trade, her banking institutions, all combined to early her and helped to carry her Allies, struggled back on to the Gold Standard in 1925, the only European belligerent with undepreciated money. On Monday, September 21st, 1931, she was compelled to step down off it and the pound sterling has to-day neither the prestige nor the value abroad that it had last week. What this means, and the serious implica- tions, are known to many of our readers, but there ,must also be many to whom all the financial news of each day is little more than bewildering fog. To-day, therefore, we publish not only a leading article dealing with the broader bearings of the situation and our columns on Finance in which is analysed the opinion prevailing in expert and closely affected circles in the City, but also the first of two articles by Mr. Hartley Withers, who explains in the simplest and most lucid manner what it is that has gone wrong, how it went wrong, and what it means for us all.