Journal Article The British Finance Act, 1920 Get access Rufus S. Tucker Rufus S. Tucker Harvard University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 35, Issue 1, November 1920, Pages 167–170, https://doi.org/10.2307/1883575 Published: 01 November 1920

Rise of prices and wages, 433. — Synchronism with changes in the United States, 434. — Currency inflation and prices keep step, 434. — Government borrowing no cause of currency expansion, 435. — Bank notes expanded but deemed secure, 437. — Rise of interest rate, 439. — Rising market expected to continue, 441. — Criticisms and forebodings, 442.

IN the field of currency and banking the past six months have been a period of standing fast. Policies previously adopted have been on the whole maintained. Money rates have been firm on a high level in most countries, moderate or low in a few others. Recently a few increases have occurred. In central and eastern Europe inflation has continued rampant. In Belgium, Italy, and Spain there has been further currency expansion. Generally elsewhere, expansion has either slowed down, or contraction has begun to appear where, as in Japan and America, the business reaction has gone farthest. Restrictions on gold movements have not been modified, except to tighten them where, as in Spain and Argentina, the exchanges have moved strongly against a country and threatened to cause gold export. Gold movements have been of slight significance for currency purposes, chiefly swelling the reserves of the United States, Japan, and Argentina, which were already abundantly supplied. No obvious progress has been made toward solving the currency problems left by the war inconvertible paper, fluctuating price levels, dislocated exchanges. The critical related problems of increased production and normalized trade are equally unsolved. The turn of the year in most countries is a season of marked financial strain. This year it is complicated by the reaction in business which has now been in progress for several months almost throughout the world. Cuba and South American countries have experienced financial panics, such as Japan suffered last spring. Elsewhere the liquidation has been more orderly, though painful enough. Meanwhile, the serious damage to the world's economic machinery has not been made good: some parts have been replaced; Belgium has made good strides toward resuming normal activities; and France has accomplished some reconstruction; but in several lands the whole mechanism is rusting out or deteriorating further for lack of proper repairs and use. There have been good harvests; much quiet constructive work has been taking place; but, taking the world as a whole, it may be doubted whether the aggregate productive forces are more effective than they were a year ago. A turning point in a world cycle of prosperity and depression may have been reached last spring; a more fundamental turning point, from declining to increasing productivity, seems to lie ahead. Before I92I is far advanced new developments must be expected. World conditions are still fundamentally so abnormal that pre-war experience affords only moderate aid in forecasting these developments. Far more than before the war, they depend upon government policies, national and international action, and the judgment of men of finance upon measures which will best facilitate the essential readjustments. It is therefore pertinent to review an outstanding event of the autumn -the International Financial Conference which sat at Brussels from September 24 to October 8.1 Proposed last January in memorials submitted simultaneously to leading governments; approved by those governments with varying degrees of caution or enthusiasm; called by the Council of the League of Nations; successively postponed from May to July, and from July to September the Conference finally assembled, grappled seriously with the world's financial problems, and reached certain unanimous conclusions. Eighty-six delegates were present, representing 39 nations containing three-fourths of the world's population and including practically all the important countries except Russia, Turkey, Mexico, and Chile.2 The representatives were in the main leading bankers and treasury officials, who attended as experts and not as spokesmen of [existing] official policy. Invaluable preliminary spade work had been done by the Secretariat of the League of Nations, assisted by eminent economists, in providing statistical and other evidence, and economic analyses, bearing upon conditions and prospects. It was therefore a workable body, representative, able, informed. Despite considerable advance skepticism as to its potentialities, and a deal of sneering while it was in session, the Conference seems fully to have justified its existence, and to have made a genuine and considerable contribution toward solving theworld's economic riddle.

A MONG the evil legacies of the war is a serious derangement of the world's currency and banking. There has been general inflation of credit and currency. The world's banking reserves have been redistributed. In most countries bank loans, deposits, and circulation have increased out of proportion to gold and silver reserves, or in the face of declining reserves, and reserve ratios have accordingly fallen heavily. Several important countries have effectually departed from the gold standard and are experiencing the characteristic effects of an inconvertible currency regime. In no small measure as a result of these currency and banking influences, world prices have risen astonishingly; relations between price levels of different countries have been disrupted and continue unstable; and international exchange is utterly deranged and subject to extreme fluctuations. In turn, international trade and finance have become highly uncertain and speculative. During the war economic and financial policies were determined by military considerations and the probable effects were not always frankly faced. Now hostilities have ceased. It is pertinent to inquire not merely where we stand but whither we are going. How far did these war-time tendencies progress ? Are they continuing ? If not, have they been merely checked, or is good progress being made in regaining a normal status ? In what respect is the post-war normal to differ from the pre-war position ? These questions press for answer, the more because, through exchange rates and price changes, the currency and banking situation is intimately linked with all the problems of labor unrest, international trade, the financing of reconstruction, and the enforcement of the terms of peace. Statistics of central banks and of new government issues here afford valuable evidence. Hence in recent SUPPLEMENTS we have reviewed selected statistics of the Bank of France, the Bank of England, British currency notes, and the federal reserve banks. Here, more briefly, similar data are considered for other leading countries of the world, and tendencies during the war and since Armistice Day I9I8 are summarized. For such a survey recent issues of the Federal Reserve Bulletin contribute illuminating material,' and the weekly summaries of central bank statements published in the London Economist are invaluable. A preliminary word is needed, however, on the precise significance, in this connection, of these statistics of central banks.

Treatises of the past decade, 209. — Economic history has been studied by periods, 213. — The genetic point of view, 214. — The content of economic history, 217. — Need of a synthesis of development, 218. — Dependence of economic history on history and economics, 220. — Conclusion, 224.

Journal Article Usher, Introduction to the Industrial History of England Get access N. S. B. Gras N. S. B. Gras University of Minnesota Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 34, Issue 3, May 1920, Pages 532–537, https://doi.org/10.2307/1883365 Published: 01 May 1920

Journal Article The Literature of Guild Socialism Get access Niles H. Carpenter Niles H. Carpenter Harvard University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 34, Issue 4, August 1920, Pages 763–776, https://doi.org/10.2307/1885166 Published: 01 August 1920