10 JANUARY 1920, Page 22

The Paper Pound of 1797-1821. With an Introduction by Edwin

Camila. (P. S. King. 60. net.)—Professor Cannan has done well to edit this convenient reprint of the "Bullion Report," the Report of the Select Committee of 1810 on the High Price of Gold Bullion, with a short history of the depreciation of the currency during the Napoleonic Wars. The Select Committee of 1810 declared that the adverse exchanges were due in no small degree to the excess of paper money, and they advocated a return to cash payments within two years. Their conclubions have been utterly disregarded by the Treasury since 1914, and we are now saddled with a far greater mass of paper money than our forefathers had, with the result that the pound sterling is worth barely sixteen shillings in New York and prices have been excessively inflated. The "'Bullion Report" is well worth reading as a plain statement of the case against unlimited Treasury notes.