The House in any case clearly liked the Washington visit
better than the proposal to borrow £200,000,000 for the Exchange Equalization Fund. There were many protests against allowing the Government to indulge in secret exchange operations which are much more likely now to result in losses than they were a year ago, and the expansionists, through Mr. Macmillan, raised their heads once more to murmur why the Govern- ment should borrow to gamble and not to develop industry. This was a better line of criticism than that chosen by Mr. Aneurin Bevan, who has sadly deteriorated in Parliamentary manner and reputation since the time when his fiercely sincere ejaculations made him a name in the last Parliament. When he hails the Exchange Account as a weapon in an exchange war with the United States his opinion is not only unrepresentative but also ridiculous. No Exchange Fund could attempt to control the dollar in these days, though what on earth this Exchange Fund is to control, except a most unlikely panic among the owners of short term money, nobody seems to know.
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