U.S. MONETARY POLICY.
The latest message of President Roosevelt with regard to the monetary and currency policy has only become known at the moment of writing these notes, and I prefer to defer a careful examination of the President's proposals until they have been more perfectly comprehended in the Money Market here. In so far as they indicate a return sooner or later to some kind of gold standard, the effect in the long run may be favourable ; but it should be clearly understood that at present there is no such effective return, and until there has been some return to exchange stability all over the world there can be no great revival of international trade activity. The other point which the general public should clearly under- stand is that this question of monetary and currency policy is not something of a merely academic character, but one which directly affects the trade of the country. Even the man in the street can understand that high American tariffs may have adversely affected the trade of other countries with the United States, but the man in the street does not find it so easy to discern the connexion between currency and exchange regulations and the volume of trade between nation and nation. It is unfortunately true that one of the after- effects of the War seems to be an excess of nationalism in many countries, the effect of which is to restrict the activity and prosperity of the trade of the world as a whole.
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