THE BUSINESS OF FINANCE
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SUL—In 1918 in the midst of war when the Inflation, which is almost a necessary consequence of war, was creating an unfounded sense of prosperity, Mr. Hartley Withers in his little book on The Business of Finance, wrote as follows : " There are now-a-days very many schemes for making man- kind rich and happy, by increasing the amount of money in its pocket. . . . All who are interested in the sanity and sense with which finance is conducted will have to do their best to impress on those whose economic education is deficient, that you do not make people really any better off by plastering the world with promises to pay."
Mr. Hartley Withers has proved to be a true prophet. We have been assailed by swarms of inflationists, reflationists, bimetallist, silverites, technoeracians, and managed cur- rency supporters. They are as numerous as locusts and are as destructive to credit as locusts are to agriculture.
Committees formed of men of acknowledged authority and eminence have framed and published reports based on a careful study of facts and figures and have given their advice. The Report of the Gold Delegation at Geneva, endorsed as it was by the directorate of the Bank of International Settle- ments, has now received a further endorsement from the Committee on the Draft Agenda of the World Economic Conference. But it is hopeless to look for the sanity of the electorate on difficult questions of finance unless they read 'these Reports. The public are assailed with proposals which are not new but have been tried and condemned by experience. The story of the French assignats, the American grc:enbacks and bimetallism, Mr. Bryan's " cross of gold," and the mad inflation of the German mark, have all shown us the road to ruin. The World Economic Conference is to most this year and will no doubt give to the recommendations of the economic experts, the weight and authority due to Imowleikge and experience.
But we live in a democratic age, when the Mari in the Street, whether he be old or young, clamours for the imme- diate adoption of dangerous measures which in his ignorance he believes to be new. May I therefore support Mr. Hartley Withers' fourteen-year-old plea for sanity and akik your readers to study the admirable reports I have mentioned ? The man who consults an acknowledged specialist and then takes the advice of a quack doctor deserves his inevitable
fate.—I am, Sir, &c., GRAHAM BOWER.
IItfkl Alexandra,. Vernet,le- - •
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