THE BANKERS' THREAT.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sm,—Your recent predictions regarding the disastrous results which the threatened increase of the Bank Rate would produce have been speedily fulfilled during the past week. Urgent messages have been sent out by various trade organizations, warning their members to stop buying goods except for actual and immediate needs. In all directions buyers arc being cautioned to limit their purchases as far as possible, and to carry no stocks. The mere psychological effects of this increased Bank Rate agitation with the object of a speedy return to the gold standard has been sufficient to create alarm throughout the industrial and commercial world, which will result in a further slackening of production, and an increase in the numbers of the unemployed.
That. any sane man should harbour the delusion that by inflating all debts and making credit dearer trade can be improved seems incredible ! This cry against the evils of currency inflation is entirely misleading and serves to hide the ruinous policy now being pursued. The real inflationists arc the self-styled ". sound currency " advocates—the gold metal maniacs—whose chief aim is to increase the values of their
securities bY.inflating debts ! These people would be the first to denounce any scientific method of stabilizing the curiencY- such as that now proposed, for example, by Professor Maynard Keynes, and suggested by me as far back as.1893.
The world's moncymongeiS are not interested in aninvari able unit of value, but in establishing a. currency system which they can alternately raise. and depress; and with each movement of Which they are enabled to 'collect vast fortunes from the investing public ! flow much longer are the people expected to submit to such a flagrantly unjust system, .which places their lives and fortunes at the mercy of a gang of international money dealers ?—I , am, Sir; &C.,
Previous page
