I think it would be wise to teach the people that the currency of the country is in reality based upon the wealth of the country, and not upon an extraneous thing like the capricious production of gold. This would assist it to grasp more easily currency problems. What would be the state of this country with a mountain of gold and no wealth? Currency being issued on a basis of wealth, it is issued on something solid and durable. A certain London evening newspaper wrote in this wise several months after the outbreak of the war: “The puzzled public which draw its cheques and accepts the cheques of others with a firm and pathetic belief in the value of ‘a scrap of paper,’ was a little scared at first when the value of securities tumbled down and it had to accept notes in place of its accustomed solid coin. People began to ask whether the alleged wealth of the country was supported by anything solid at all, or whether we had not been living on a fiction. Fortunately, time has proved that it is very substantial indeed.” Quite so. The wealth of this country is the most substantial possession the country has. But, all the same, there are many fallacies in the above passage. The public were not puzzled, and there is no pathos in its belief in the value of cheques. It was not scared, even for a moment, when it had to accept notes, no more scared than it has been when it has received Bank of England notes. It took them with inquisitiveness, but also readily and gladly. People did not ask if the wealth of the country was “alleged” and whether it was a fiction, and I think it is foolish to put ideas into the heads of the public which originally were never there.