It is difficult to say how far the events of the war have contributed to the agitation for the substitution for gold of some other form of international currency. It would seem at first sight that the position of gold at the centre of the credit system has been shaken owing to the fact that in Sweden and some other neutral countries the obligation to receive gold in payment for goods has been for the time being abrogated. The critics of the gold standard are thus enabled to say, "See what has happened to your theory of the universal acceptability of gold. Here are countries which refuse to accept any more gold in payment for goods. They say, 'We do not want your gold any more. We want something that we can eat or make into clothes to put on our backs.'" This is certainly an extremely curious development that is one of the by-products of war's economic lessons. But I do not feel quite sure that it has really taught us anything new. All that has ever been claimed for gold is that it is universally acceptable when men are buying and selling together under more or less normal circumstances. It has always been recognised that a shipwrecked crew on a desert island would be unlikely to exchange the coco-nuts or fish or any other commodities likely to sustain life which they could find, for any gold which happened to be in the possession of any of them, except with a view to their being possibly picked up by a passing ship, and returning to conditions under which gold would reassume its old privilege of acceptability.