The Paper Moneys of Europe Part 2

The cessation of increase in the currency should not be achieved merely by restricting the issue of legal tender. Such a step, if unaccompanied by other measures, would be apt to aggravate the situation by causing a monetary crisis. It is necessary to attack the causes which lead to the necessity for the additional currency.

The chief cause in most countries is that the governments, finding themselves unable to meet their expenditures out of revenue, have been tempted to resort to the artificial creation of fresh purchasing power, either by the direct issue of additional legal-tender money or more frequently by obtaining--especially from the banks of issue, which in some cases are unable and in others unwilling to refuse them--credits which must themselves be satisfied in legal-tender money. We say, therefore, that governments must limit their expenditure to their revenue.

Here again we have excellent doctrines and good practical advice from these financial experts to the governments which appointed them. But the doctrines have remained unapplied, and the advice has been honored in the breach instead of in the observance.

WISE COUNSEL IGNORED

I pa.s.s next to the resolutions proposed by the commission on international trade and adopted unanimously by the conference, from which the first two paragraphs will be quoted:

The International Financial Conference affirms that the first condition for the resumption of international trade is the restoration of real peace, the conclusion of the wars which are still being waged and the a.s.sured maintenance of peace for the future. The continuance of the atmosphere of war and of preparations for war is fatal to the development of that mutual trust which is essential to the resumption of normal trading relations. The security of internal conditions is scarcely less important, as foreign trade cannot prosper in a country whose internal conditions do not inspire confidence. The conference trusts that the League of Nations will lose no opportunity to secure the full restoration and continued maintenance of peace.

The International Financial Conference affirms that the improvement of the financial position largely depends on the general restoration as soon as possible of good will between the various nations; and in particular it indorses the declaration of the Supreme Council of the eighth March last "that the States which have been created or enlarged as a result of the war should at once reestablish full and friendly cooperation and arrange for the unrestricted interchange of commodities in order that the essential unity of European economic life may not be impaired by the erection of artificial economic barriers."

Here again there is a full recognition of the fact that peace is necessary to the renewal of prosperity, and that the atmosphere of war preparations is fatal to the growth of trade. But neither the League of Nations nor the Supreme Council, so far as I am aware, has made any effective response to these appeals.

Fourthly and lastly, I come to the commission on international credits.

This commission pa.s.sed a number of resolutions, all of which were adopted unanimously by the conference; but it will suffice to cite the first two:

The conference recognizes in the first place that the difficulties which at present lie in the way of international credit operations arise almost exclusively out of the disturbance caused by the war, and that the normal working of financial markets cannot be completely reestablished unless peaceful relations are restored between all peoples and the outstanding financial questions resulting from the war are made the subject of a definite settlement which is put into execution.

The conference is, moreover, of opinion that the revival of credit requires as primary conditions the restoration of order in public finance, the cessation of inflation, the purging of currencies, and the freedom of commercial transactions. The resolutions of the commission on international credits are therefore based on the resolutions of the other commissions.

My argument then is fully endorsed by the experts at Brussels. All the facts and figures set forth in the voluminous records of that remarkable conference indicate the urgency of peace and disarmament. A year has pa.s.sed.

The Brussels recommendations have been ignored, and conditions in Europe as regards its currencies, debts, trade and credit have deteriorated. The Naval limitations proposed by Mr. Hughes at Washington, even if they are ratified, will give practically no relief to Europe.