We wish we had space to describe in detail what
must take place if a month hence the Morning Post repeats its shock to bankers and gold standard men, and announces that gold can be produced at half-price from mercury, and that a large gold factory had been started in Berlin with plant capable of turning out five million pounds worth of gold a day, and that it • is now awaiting orders. One can imagine the scene in the City. The Bank Directors, pale and bewildered, would, no doubt, meet at the Mansion House and call to each other, and to the Governor of the Bank of England : " Men and brothers, what shall we do to be saved ? " If the same question is asked at the Treasury, they will surely at once tell the holders of the National Debt that unless they assent to a reduction of their stock by 50 per cent. they will be paid off in the new mercurial gold. Surely, instead of perturbing commerce and industry with the menace of dear money, our gold standard men had better try to realize what it means to be at the mercy of a chemical experiment, and endeavour to think out a plan for getting a real, and not a sham, " stable basis " for credit and currency.
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