Current Literature
MONEY By Lord Desborough, K.G.
One small book on money is much like another. There is the name superficial comprehensiveness, the same timidity (varied occasionally by wild excess) in positive suggestion, the same absence of historical background. Lord Desborough's Money (Williams Lea, 6d.) is a merciful exception. It makes few points but it makes them thoroughly. Its remedies are courageous without being far-fetched, and it is attractively and forcibly illustrated. The quotations range indeed from John Locke and Ricardo to the late Lord Balfour, and from the Bible and Aristotle to the League of Nations Gold Delega- tion. Lord Desborough explains that money is a measure of value, but differs from other measures, yards, gallons, &c., in being in no way stable. Its origin is shown to rest on law, and its value not on any intrinsic quality but on quantity and limitation. For many centuries the world has hankered after what is theoretically unnecessary, a metallic basis, and the prosperity of all has accordingly come to depend on adequate supplies of the precious metals. Silver and gold were equal partners in the work until the nineteenth century, when England in 1816 closed its mints to silver, and when Germany began in 1873 the secession of the rest of the world. The present crisis is due to a shortage of metallic reserves and was foreseen by bimetallists in the 'eighties, though the fulfilment of their prophecies was postponed by the gold discoveries on the Rand. To avert collapse, silver should be restored at some legal ratio to gold, possibly twenty to one. Some of this, under summary, will have a familiar ring, nor will all of us accept the bimetallistic solution. But it will be healthy for economists, accustomed to shake hands over professional ambiguities, to be forced to take sides by Lord Desborough's uncompromising lucidity. The general public will be unreservedly grateful to one whom they have hitherto known best as a distinguished public servant and a magnificent athlete. They will hope that these ideas, the fruit of many years study and reflection, will be elaborated in a larger work.
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