In a sixpenny pamphlet, The Crisis, by Ernest Bevin and
C. D. H. Cole (The New Statesman and Nation), we have a lucid explanation of why we were forced off the gold standard, and of what it cost us to remain on so long. It is shown that while the world continues to mismanage its monetary affairs, we must choose between fluctuating exchanges and a fluctuating internal price-level, with all that that means in industrial confusion. We are therefore advised not to return to the gold standard, either at nominal or any other parity, until the world at large has returned to monetary sanity. British nationalists should welcome the possibility, pointed out by these Socialist writers, of putting the gold-hoarding countries into difficulties by rallying the rest of the world to a new sterling standard. But since we have been as' guilty of monetary mismanagement as the rest of the world, we are advised, in the most controversial section of this pamphlet, to institute social control of the banking system. If it were not for the title page, one could imagine this booklet being called " ' I Told You So,' by the author of • The Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill. The writers are, of course, strong political partisans.
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