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Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 109, 4 November 1939, Page 12

printed paper money which have wrecked other controlled currency

efforts,

There have beeni many such efforts—economic history is streAvn with the wreckage. Mr. Semple may be literally correct : in saying that "there are no records of any country having since obtained control over currency and credit so that they reflect the wealth of the people"; but there have been many attempts at such control. Chinese philosophers expounded the theory 2000 years 8.C., Kubla Khan tried it, other nations had their experiences, some private, some linked with the State. One of the most spectacular was the experience of the American States in the War of Independence and after. The Continental Congress authorised the issue of 2,000,000 dollars' worth of bills of credit a week after the battle of Bunker Hill.- Then more followed, and, as the currency depreciated, more and more. Congress made every effort to avert depreciation. It resolved: \

That any person who shall hereafter be so lost to,all virtue and regard for his country as to refuse to receive said bills in payment or obstruct or discourage the currency or circulation thereof;. ....shall be deemed, published, and treated as an enemy in this country and precluded from all trade or intercourse with '.the inhabitants of these colonies.

But the. .Continental'-.currency' could not be saved. Eventually the American people received one silver dollar for every forty of paper; and the English language gained an expressive phrase—"not worth a Continental." Some experiments have been less disastrous, according to the circumstances in which they were made and the wisdom with which they were checked. But in the mass of experience there is ample to justify tiie statement of Bastable, a modern authority, on the legal and economic factors in monetary control.

A currency system is never an arbitrary creation; it must grow slowly out of the habits and customs of the community, and must subserve its" economic needs. No sudden change at the caprice of the State is likely to continue. Further, it is clear that no Government can determine the results of its interference; these will depend on. the existing conditions and will conform, to economic law. Monetary history is rich in examples of the failure of legal enactment to direct the course of events^ and the disasters that have followed on the ill-advised measures of public authority.