But while acquitting President Roosevelt from any on• friendliness towards
other nations in the course which he pursued, the fact remains that the action taken may con• ceivably give to the United States a strategical advantage in any currency negotiations at the forthcoming Economic Conference, while for the moment it most certainly has intro- duced still further confusion _ and complications into the foreign exchange position which was already sufficiently con• fused and complicated. The City feels that it is all very well for President Roosevelt to urge that an increase in the present chaos and an addition to the number of countries off the gold standard might actually accelerate agreement on the part of all the nations to return to gold, but he seems to have over- looked the fact that still greater -difficulty may now be expe- rienced by every country in deciding such matters as the re- spective ratios of devaluation or, in other words, the different ratios to gold which may have to be adopted by the different countries: Until the outcome Of the preliminary Conferences at Washington has been more clearly revealed, it may be well, perhaps, to reserve further comment on this great problem of the future gold standards of the world and the ratios to be adopted by different countries. For the momentytherefore, it may be sufficient to emphasize the tremendous importance which attaches to this question of the stabilization of cur• rencies in the interests of world trade and of the additional importance which now attaches to the cancellation or drastic -revision of War Debts in view of the present disequilibrium of the trade balances.
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