BRETTON WOODS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26228, 12 August 1946, Page 2

BRETTON WOODS

Sir,—lt is not a little surprising that such an indefatigable exponent of Douglas Credit as “ Truth ” should be so indiscreet as to agree that the Bretton Woods plan would use gold to prevent a country from devaluing its curency at will. For the Douglasites have always strenuously maintained, in the face of all reason and experience, that additional notes could not devalue a currency, but actually increased the amount of money, and moreover, that gold had only an imaginary value. It is precisely for the purpose of stabilising the curency that some plan founded on gold is necessary to the wageworkers. For' when a country devalues its currency to enable its goods to compete with foreign goods on the world market, prices on the home market increase in terms of that curency, and the same wages buy less goods. Then the workers are compelled to submit to a lower standard of living. It is this power to lower the real value of wages, behind the backs of the workers that the Bretton Woods plan would reduce immeasurably and keep within strict limits.—l am, etc., Balclutha August 4. H. Gow.