Many critics have foretold disaster from the inadequacy of the gold reserves against the liabilities in the Post Office Savings Bank. The Post Office Savings Bank and the joint stock banks perform distinct functions. The Savings Bank does not lend. It does not transform wealth into liquid currency. It is a huge State safe, where public savings are kept in safety, and it performs the functions of the old silver teapot in the household. Being a purely State or National institution, it is a national liability. It has behind it the entire wealth of the nation, and it is absolutely safe unless the nation be swallowed up in the seas. And if it were swallowed up the depositors would not need their money. Gold, after all, performs but limited functions. It is becoming less necessary in the internal economy of the State owing to the growth of cheques. Gold is merely a symbol, and we should not bow before it in abject obeisance. It is even becoming of less importance in its international functions, and I think the European war will lessen its importance still further. European nations have collected it more for war purposes than for commercial. This has been the case with Germany, which, in the consciousness of its determination to fight for world dominion, amassed the gold as a war chest. This gold is not in circulation, but is lying idle in the Reichsbank, in order that the Government may flood the country with various sorts of paper currency. This paper currency will in time be so inflated as to become greatly depreciated. This is the danger run, the danger of inflation and depreciation, yet we never dream of the inflation of our cheque currency, because it grows and contracts with our output of wealth. The depreciation of paper currency is evidence often that a nation is living beyond its income. We know the fate awaiting the individual when he “outruns the constable.” In order to avoid insolvency he must live more frugally, live well within his income, and liquidate his debts. Then, in time, he will be free and will not live in dread of his creditors. If a nation lived within itself, built a huge rampart around itself, and had no commercial intercourse with other nations, if it could live a happy, contented community, on its own resources, then an inflated currency would have no ill effects. It would not necessarily bring bankruptcy and ruin. It would be like a private individual living on his own resources and on the fruits of his own labour, interchanging nothing with his neighbours. Such a hermit would be indebted to no man. He would depend on nature alone, and if nature failed him, or sickness overtook him, then he would die.