*
Walter Zander survived the war in exile (England) from Germany and proceeded
to become a Zionist thereafter, probably not before being disillusioned
with currency issues. (I can't see why else he would turn his back on them
and plead for some sort of ecumenical world headquarters in Jerusalem as
I learned from a book I picked up a few minutes on the A'dam friday outdoor
book market. But his subject if not work is once again if not still a hot
current issue even though gold is no longer a foreground and limelight
player; that role is reserved for hype followers, wallowers and hollowers......anyway...see
for yourself........
Table of content:
1. The Monetary Chaos.
2. Disadvantages of Devaluation.
3. Disadvantages of Foreign Exchange
Legislation
4. Inadequacy of Compensation and
Clearing Agreements
5. Need for Stable Standards of
Value and for Removing Restrictons to Scttlement Operations.
6. Falsifying the Gold Standard
through Banknotes being Legal Tender.
7. Compulsory Acceptance a Relative
Novelty.
8 Compulsory Acceptance establishes
the Dependence of the Currency on the Central Bank.
9. Compulsory Acceptance a Condition
of every Inflation.
10. The Gold Standard as Gold for
account.
11. Is the Inconvertibility of
Notes incompatible with the abrogation of Compulsory Acceptance ?
12 Convertibility as Basis of Value
for Paper Means of Payment.
13. State Fiat as Basis of Value
for Paper Means of Paymeint ?
14. Confidence as a Basis of Value
for Paper Means of Payrnents ?
15. Acceptance by Fiscal Office
as Basis of Value for Paper Money.
16. Commercial Bills as Basis of
Value for Bianknotes.
17. Fiscal Foundation and Commercial
Bill as form of Clearing.
18. Redemptions or Clearing.
19. Examples of Clearing Money.
20. Abrogation of Foreign Exchange
legislation.
The practical realization of the
proposals.
a) Through international agreements
b) Through intra-State legislation.
c) through private initiative.
Tripod
tool Nedstat installed end of nov 98 but not correctly till july 99
File
created in nov, last changed in dec 98
poetpiet@hotbot.com
Go
see what else poetpiet can puzzle people with here
.......................or
here for instance........................
or
check the intro to this and other files in this first batch of guest appearances
concerning
all sorts of currency issues
for
reservations I have concerning (and my designs on) 'gold' standards
The subjoined study is the outcome
of a lecture delivered by the author on 8 March 1935 before the National
Institute of Geneva (Institute National Cenevois).
The devaluation of the belga, which
supervened in April 1935, is taken account of here. On the other hand,
the May 1935 crisis of the French franc took place after this study had
gone to press. It forms an additional link in the lengthening chain of
monetary difficulties and offers one more illustration of the dangers to
which every monetary system, even when supported by an enormous gold reserve,
is exposed under the rule of a forced rate for the notes of central banks.
The proposals so far made known for ending the French monetary crisis do
not suggest anything beyond what is implicit in the views generally current
to-day.
Berlin, 2 June 1935.
Dr.Walter ZANDER.
A way out of the monetary crisis
The States participating to-day
in the world economy may roughly be said to be divided into two groups.
One of these has abandoned the gold standard and has thus removed the foundations
of its currency. The other has introduced foreign exchange legislation
and has thereby abolished the freedom of settlement operations. The first
group includes more particularly England, the sterling bloc countries,
the United States, and Japan; the second group, Austria, Germany, Russia
and the great majority of the remaining countries. Placed between these
two groups, is the steadily disintegrating gold bloc. Italy left it for
all intents only recently and yesterday as it were Belgium followed suit.
If we bear in mind that since the War France and Poland had already devaluated
their currencies to a fraction of their pre-war parity, virtually Holland
and Switzerland alone may be said to uphold the pre-war monetary system.
However, even in thece two small countries, which represent but a tiny
fraction of the world economy, certain restrictions concerning the convertibility
of banknotes and the gold market have been introduced, and the general
uncertainty as to the future of currencies exerts a baleful influence in
these countries also.
2. Disadvantages of Devaluation.
Whether the abandonment of the
gold standard is sdvantageous to an economy, is decidedly problemstic.
In most cases the object aimed at as not been attained. So far as devaluation
is intended to stimulate exports, we should not forget that for most countries
the magnitude of heir export trade compared to that of their total trade
is comparatively insignificant. This alone renders it questionable to embark,
for the sake of the export trade, on measures which modify the basis of
a cational conomy as a whole. Moreover, such measures, if successful, may
be mitated by any other country, thus nullifying their favourable effect.
accordingly, the abandonment of the gold standard has led to «a race
for the worst currency», in which the most powerful States are participating.
It is obvious that in the long run such measures for the stimulation if
the export trade are bound to prove worthless. Moreover, devaluation does
not only affect the export trade of a country. On the contrary, it touches
every branch of an economy. This holds most especially of imports, since
these must become dearer to the precise extent that exports become cheaper.
So far as exporting, like in Germany for example, presupposes the importing
of raw materials, a portion of the anticipated gain is thus necessarily
lost. But, in general, import restrictions, so popular to-day in many countries,
lead eventually to a decline in exports, for the simple reason that in
the last resort exports can only be paid with imports. Furthermore,
money debts abroad are augmented by a devaluation of the currency. However,
what is of crucial importance is the fact that an abandonment of the gold
standard involves the devaluation of the entire savings of a country, particularly
as invested in savings banks, State loans, bonds, and mortgages. If the
effect of a general adjustrnent of prices to the fall in the value of money
is not visible at first or is deferred by artificial devices, eventually
prices always rise when a currency has been devaluated.
Thus while the intended advantage
for the export trade is emphatically dubious and at best only of passing
importance, the loss in savings and capital is certain and lasting.
But even if the reason for abandoning
the gold standard, as in the case of the United States, is the desire to
devaluate capital savings,—that is, if it is intended thereby to adjust
the claims of creditors to fallen prices and to the shrunken turnover of
the debtors—the success is neverthelesa more than doubtful. For what is
decisive for the value of a claim ia not so much its magnitude as the business
turnover of the debtor. Everything depends therefore on increasing trade
and this is nowise assured by attacking the rights of creditore, to say
nothing of the moral and economic disorganisation which this creates.
The heavy depletions on the capital
market, the abrogation of the rights of creditors, the menace to State
credit, and t'he decline in the standard of living, represent drawbacks
which ultimately outweigh the transitory advantages.
3. Disadvantages of Foreign Exchange
Legislation
The injuriousness of foreign exchange
legislation is even more patent. Everybody agrees, and the President of
the Reichsbank, Dr. Schacht, has repeatedly expressed himself to this effect,
that foreign exchange legislation constitutes a great evil, even though
in most quarters such legislation is considered inevitable. Foreign exchange
legislation places obstacles in the way of settlement operations. These
obstacles in turn, hamper trade. But every decline in trading leads necessarily
to a decline in well-being, as the latter, in our age of the division of
labour, depends on commerce. Everything therefore that obstructs trading
tends to intensify want and unemployment.
4. Inadequacy of Compensation
and Clearing Agreements
All attempts to surmount the difficulties
involved in foreign exchange le gisla ti on have hitherto proved abortive.
This is esp ecially true o f the different forms of compeneatory trading
and is evident as regards its earlier developments. It could happen then,
for instance, that an instrument manufacturer had to accept in exchange
coffee and was thus compelled to become a produce dealer. In principle,
later development left matters unchanged. It is the very esscnce of a compensatory
transaction that there is, properly speaking no money; payment involved
and that the goods themselves have to fulfil this function. That is, every
such tranaaction represenb a barter operation. Whilst it is agreed that
movements of goods (in the broadest sense) underly all settlements, nevertheless
as much as fifteen centuries ago the Roman emperor Justinian explained
in his Corpus Juris why barter operations are necessarily inferior to monetary
transactions. And yet the distinguishing mark of the present-day international
compensatory trade is the abandonment of the monetary system and the falling
back on barter. It is evident that a form of economy which the Corpus Juris
deemed obsolete, must be unequal to the task of conducting efficiently
the exchange of goods in our highly developed age. A serious effort should
therefore be made to Te instate the system of monetary settlements in international
transactions.
Similarly with so-called clearing
agreements between countries. These have now become very common, but they
cannot remove the difficultios arisjng from foreign «change legislation,
for apart from the fact that in most cases, as between Germany and Switzerland,
they have led to a considerable dislocation of trade, they are necessarily
confined to transactions between two countries, while the realities of
life demand freedom of movement in every direction and rebel against bilateral
arrangements. They lack therefore the necessary fungibility and the attempts
to supersede the monetary system in this way have hence failed. The League
of Nations Committee for inquiring into international clearing agreements
has accordingly drawn attention recently to their disadvantages and recommended
their abolition.
5. Need for Stable Standards
of Value and for Removing Restricdons
to Settlement Operations.
Shrinkage of international and
of intra-national trade, want and unemployment, heavy investment losses,
and a general uncertainty and loss of confidence, characte~rise the present
situation in most countries. It is imperative to create once more reliable
and stable standards of value and to secure the removal of the impediments
to settlement operations between countries. The solution of these closely
related problems has become a question of life and death for our social
order.
6. Falsifying the Gold Standard
through Banknotes being Legal Tender.
Whatever the monetary system of
a country, it is essential that the measure of value should be clearly
and unequivocally determined. Thus where there is a gold currency, a silver
currency, or an index currency, the value should be measured by gold, silver,
and the index respectively. This basis of measuring economic values, and
therefore of any monetary system, is destroyed when in the case of a gold
or silver currency the notes of the bank of issue are made legal tender,
for this compels everybody to accept these notes in payment regardless
of their real value. Compulsory acceptance renders it even impossible to
measure the notes by the unit of value and thus to ascertain their value
within the country. Indeed. it establishes a legal fiction on the basis
of which note and unit of value are identical. For this reason, the names
of the units of value— e.g., the terms dollar, mark, pound—become ambiguous
in that they mean now a fixed weight of go1d and then the note of a bank
of issue. Accordingly, the measure of value, on the unambiguity of which
everything depends, comes to have two definitions This rcnders impossible
any real measurement and thus the whole monetary system is falsified.
This falsification is generally
hidden from the public 90 long as the central bank is legally obliged to
redeem its notes. This, however, only masks the reality, since convertibility
introduces in the measurement of value an alien element. Indeed, the fact
that convertibility becomes a decisive factor, shows how the whole problem
has assumed a different complexion.
Where convertibility is suspended,
we have only a pure paper currency, this despite strenuous legislative
and administrative efforts to keep the valuee of the paper at a certain
definite level, for what counts now is no longer the value of the gold,
but the question whether the note of the central bank, measured by gold,
changes its value. In fact, the system that has been in general use
sincc the beginning ot the World War, including thc so-called gold standard
or nominal gold currencies, mag be described as paper currency.
7. Compulsory Acceptance a Relative
Novelty.
Although the compulsory acceptance
of banknotes appears to-day so natural that most people cannot imagine
a means of payment not having that character, this system ha~ in reality
only come into general use in recent times. Here
are two illustrations: Par. 2 of the Cerman
Bank Law of 1875, provided: Payments statutorily required to be made
in money need not be accepted when tendered in banknotes and the constituent
States cannot enact such an obligation for the State treasuries.
This provision was only replaced
by its converse in 1909. Article 3 of the Act of 1 June 1909 decreed: The
notes of the Reichsbank are legal tender. The course of development
was similar in Switzerland. Here article 39 of the Federal Constitution
of 1874 prohibited once for all the compulsory acceptance of banknotes.
However, already in 1891 the Constitution was amended and they became legal
tender in 1914.
8 Compulsory Acceptance
establishes the Dependence of
the Currency on the Central Bank.
The statutory obligation to accept
the notes of the central bank in settlement operations involves not only
the falsification of the basis of the currency. It also makes the fate
of the currency dependent on that of the central bank and frequently on
that of the banking system generally. If for any reason the central bank
can no longer redeem its notes or maintain their parity—that is, if the
market rate of the bonds it issues falls—then, owing to the legal equivalence
between the notes of this bank and the legal standard of value, the calculation
of values generally will be prejudicially affected. Thus it was in the
main the situation of the Bank of England, which led in 1931 to the abandonment
of the gold standard and, similarly, it was the National Bank of Belgium
that suggestcd in 1935 the devaluation of the currency. Almost a century
ago Lord Overstone grasped this interdependence -when he said that
if
he ruined his private bank, he would be ruined, but that if the Bank of
England committed a great blunder, the Bank could save itself, but the
whole of the community might have to suffer grievously.
9. Compulsory Acceptance a Condition
of every Inflation.
Moreover, compulsory acceptallce
for banknotes forms the legal and c onceptual basis o f every in f la ti
on . In the absence of such an obligation, bank crashes, with all their
dire consequences, may occur, but never an inflation, for the destruction
of the standard of value and the falsifying of all monetary relations,
which are the mark of every inflation, can never result from the collapse
of a single bank. This confusion is only possible when a legal equivalence
has been established between the notea of this bank and the standard of
value. It was compulsory acceptance that brought forth the ominous slogan
of the German inflation period: "One mark is as good as another" ("Mark
gleicht Mark"). History has not known an inflation not due to the legal
obligation to accept.
10. The Gold Standard as Gold for
account.
If, then, the pre-conditions of
an inflation are to be eliminated and a reliable and stable currency is
to be assured, if more especially the gold standard is to be restored,
the falsification introduced in recent decades must be eradicated and the
earlier separation between standard of value and rneans of payment must
be re-established. A compulsory exchange rate excludes a stable and safe
currency. No wonder the distinguished German historian Niebuhr stigmatised
compulsory acceptance as a legislative provision both ridiculous
and abominable (Nachgelassene Schrilten nichtphilologischen Inhalts,
1842, p. 485 ff.)
The re~introduction of the gold
standard in Cermany in October 1923, aftemthe inflation, offers an impressive
and instructive illustration. The notes of the Reichsbank, which were legal
tender, had completely collapsed and their value could only be stated in
astronomical fractions. At long last it was decided to introduce calculating
in gold value. First, taxes were thus calculated. Then a new institute
of issue, the Rentenbank was founded, whose accountancy basis was to be
gold units. There was, and this cannot be too strongly insisted on, no
legal obligation for the public to accept the ncw notes in payment, and
these notes have to this day never been legal tender. They have therefore
never been identified with the unit of value, which was then the gold mark.
The system, which lasted from the passing of the inflation in the autumn
of 1923 until the introduction of the new Bank Act in the surnmer of 1924
(which Act formed part of the series of Dawes Acts), was therefore a pure
system of calculating in gold units which was not falsified by any compulsory
acceptance.
A similar example, although confined to one domain only, is offered by
China which recently adopted a gold unit for its cu~toms charges. By a
decree of the Minister of Finance of 15 January 1930, counting in dlver
in the department of maritirne customs, the most important for the Chinese
budget, was replaced by counting in gold. The basis for these calculations
in gold is a weight of 60,1866 centigrammes of fine gold and represents
the customs gold unit. This customs unit is esclusively a calculating unit
and the decree specifically provides that the payment of duties rnay, as
before, be made in local means of payment, that is in silver dollars and
in banknotes. Of course, these are only accepted in payment at the current
eschangc rate, this being measured by the customs gold unit.
In conformity with the foregoing illustrations, it is therefore auggested
here to introduce generally (whilst abrogating the statutory obligation
to accept the notes of a central bank) calculating in gold value and thus
to re-establish the conditions esisting until 1909 in Germany and until
1914 in Switzerland,
I I . Is the Inconvertibility
of Notes incompatible with the abrogation of Compulsory Acceptance ?
It might be objected that before
the War compulsory acceptance could be dispensed with because then, unlike
now, the notes could at any time be converted into gold. The objection
does not hold, for convertibility is not of decisive importance, as will
transpire from what follows.
12 Convertibility as Basis of
Value for Paper Means of Payment.
It is generally believed that
the value of banknotes resides in their being convertible into metallic
currency. banknotes being considered in the main a substitute for gold
or silver. Already Adam Smith, in a famoue passage in his Wealth of
Nations (bk. 2, ch. 2), declared that all paper money represented only
gold or silver. Similarly, the Bullion Report of the British Parliament
of 1810, which was very strongly influenced by Ricardo, espressed itself
to the same effect. Probably not a single theory in the whole domain of
political economy has evoked such universal assent.
It is therefore natural that this view whould have been incorporated in
legislative enactments. Since paper money is regarded as a substitute for
gold or silver, it must be at any time convertible into these. Banknotes
and convertibility are therefore interdopendent conceptions and hence all
bank acts the world over contain definite provisions concerning convertibility,
metallic cover, and the ratio of the notes isaued to the current gold reserve.
Indeed, every monetary claim is hence regarded as being in the last resort
a claim for payment in gold, although there is no necessary connection
between this and a gold ctandard, for a gold standard primariiy presupposes,
apart from calculating in gold, that a creditor cannot refuse acceptance
of a payment in gold, i.e., that there is a general obligation to accept
gold. but by no means the right of a creditor to insist in any and all
circumstances, directly or indirectly, on being paid in gold.
Firmly based. on the one hand, as seems the general conviction that convertibility
is necessary (and practically everywhere the ratio of the gold cover is
deemed to be of the utmost importance), there is, on the other, no doubt
that to-day most banknotes have becorne legally, or at least actually.
inconvertible, without thereby losing all their value. In fact, for some
notes there exist to-day no provisions of redemption, and yet they possess
value. Accordingly. there must be, apart from convertibility, another basis
for the value of paper means of payment.
13. State Fiat as Basis of Value
for Paper Means of Payment ?
All eyes are tumed towards the
State to see whether, by its fiat, it is able to confer value on valueless
ipaper. It becomes, however, quickly manifest that the power of the State
is strictly limited in this sphere. All large-scale monetary devaluations
known to history have referred to means of payment the value of which rested
on a State fiat, This holds, for example of the notes which the Scotchman
John Law issued in France at the beginning of the eighteenth century and
even more so of the assignats of the French Revolution. In both instances
acceptance was at first not compulsory. But presently the obligation to
accept them was decreed and soon re-inforced by penalties. On 11 April
1793 the French Government prohibited the use of all,metallic money on
pains of six years in chains, and in September of the same year the decrying—
that is, the verbal discrediting of the assignats—became punishable with
death and the confiscation of property.
These drastic measures proves,
however, unavailing, The exchange value of the assignats declined steadily.
At the close of 1793 it was only 22% and in 1795 it had fallen to under
1 %. Not so dramatic, but n o t less impressive and instructive,
were the experiences during the two great American monetary devaluations
on the occasion of the war of liberation and of the civil wars. There,
too, the fiat of the State was unable to prevent devaluation.
But by far the greatest financial
catastrophe of odern times was the German post-war inflation. It is cornmon
knowledge that the legal obligation to accept the banknotes of the Reiahabank
could not prevent their complete collapse and it is most significant that
the notes of the Rentenbank which succeeded in stopping the inflation,
hae never been legal tender.
Nor was it different in the case of the Austrian and Russinn inflations.
Nowhere,
in fact, has the power of the State bcen able to prevent devaluation.
But
this was not only the fate of weak States crushed by defeat. France and
Italy, both victors in the World War, had to suffer heavy devaluations
which annihilated more than four-fifth of the value of their currency.
It
cannot be therefore the State's fiat which confers oalue on inconvertible
paper money.
14. Confidence as a Basis of
Value for Paper Loans of Payments ?
Not even confidence and national
enthusiasm, revolutionary determination and rdigious belief, can accomplish
this in the long run. One example may suffice. When during the French Revolution
in April 1793 the above-mentioned currency law was promulgated, the whole
population of Metz assembled on the Place de la Légalité,
took a solemn oath in the presence of the garrison, the National Guard,
and the administrative and the judiciary staff, not to draw any distinction
between the face value of the paper money and silver. Similarly, from Toulon,
where analogous ceremonies took place, the Government received a report
stating that the population would carry out the law with the religious
respect (respect religieux) due to it. However, after a few days the workmen
at the arsenal of Toulon petitioned that they might have their wages paid
in silver, for, they declared, u try as we may, we cannot live otherwise"
(See Marion, Histoire financiere de la France, vol. 3, p. 47, Paris, 1921.)
Even the powers of the soul
cannot, therefore, permanently confer value on paper money.
15.
Acceptance by Fiscal Offices as Basis of Value for Paper Money.
The value of inconvertible paper
meang of payment has a different basis, clearly revealed, in the history
of German finance. Thua during the nineteenth century geveral German States
issued paper money the value of which did not lie in ib convertibility,
but in that the State agreed to accept at its pay offices the notes it
issued at their face value, regard less of their rate of exchange. German
financial science called this the taxation foundation (Steuerfundation).
This acceptance by the State, should
not be confused with the current bligation to a«ept, for under the
regime of compulsory acceptance the axation offices, following the universal
custom, accept notea at their actual and not at their nominal value. Thus
the notes of the Bank of England are worth no more at the English fiscal
office than anywhere else. The State accepts them at their paper value
and not at the valw of the gold pound. Compulsory acceptance and taxation
foundation are herefore fundamentally different, The basis of value of
this paper money lay in that it was accepted at the fiscal offices of the
issuing uthority at its norninal value and, accordingly, thia obligation
to accept as the important element in the wording of the warrants. Thus
the Saxon fiscal notes simply read:— In conformity with the edict of
1 October 1818, this will be accepted at the Royal fiscal offices, and
the Prussian money orders of 1835 and 1856 contain, besides the alue of
the order, only the statement: "Of full value in all payments".
Similarly in most other countries. It is true that in many cases, as in
Baden, Austria, and Wurttemberg, there was, in addition to the obligaion
to accept by the fiscal offices that is, to the fiscal foundation a nore
or less widely current obligation to redeem the warrants. However, here
also the fiscal foundation was of prime importance and redemption constituted
only a kind of supplementary guarantee. This is al ready expressed in the
order of the two undertakings on the notes. Thus we ead on the Baden paper
money of 1849: Paper money of the Grand-Duke of Baden, which all Baden
fiscal offices accept in payments at its full nominal value i.e., as equivalent
to he gross silver money struck at the country's standard of coinagc and
exchangeable at sight for gross silver coins at the redemption office at
Karlsruhe. Likewise,
in the Reich Act concerning the issue of Reich fiscal office notes of 30
April 1874, § 5. we read: Federal fiscal notes are accepted at
their nominal value in payment~ made to all fiscal offices of the Reich
and all constituent States They re redeemable at any time on demand for
cash by the Reich's Central 'iscal Office on the Reich's account. In
both cases therefore the fiscal foundation comes first. It covers all fiscal
offices, whilst the notes can only be redeemed at one fiscal office.
The Wurttemberg Act of I July 1849
makes this relation still plainer. article 2, par. 1, provides:
This paper money is accepted
at its nominal value in payment at all fiscal offices of the State, as
also at the tax collecting offices. These officea are instructed to redeem
on demand this money, as far as the available funds permit, and in amounts
not under twenty gulden at a time.
Here the claim to redeem notes
is conditional on means being available, According to the clear wording
of the Act, the notes are in principle only covered by the fiscal foundation,
.
Later, this principle waa further developed in the Rentenbank notes of
1923. Here no provision at all wasimade for direct redemption. Apart from
utilising them in connection with public pay offices, the holder had only
a claim to convert them into annuity "bonds" which fact has delayed no
important part in practice. Lately in recent years the fiscal foundation
haa been most conspicuously exemplified in the fiscal warrants of 1932,
altkough these are not intended to be means of payment proper. They cannot
be, either directly or indirectly, converted into ready money. Nor can
they be exchanged for securities. No redemption fund exists nor repayments
or amortisation. Their value is entirely due to their being accepted by
the fiscal offices at the indicated value, regardless of their exchange
rate.
From the Saxon pay office notes to the fiscal ~warrant6 of the Reich, the
same principle of a fiacal foundation is evident.
16. Commercial Bills as Basis
of Value for Banknote.
The principle of the commercial
bill for the Scottish banknotes corresponds to that of the fiscal foundation
for State paper money. Whilst English banknotes have their origin in the
receipts given by the London goldsmiths for gold deposited with them (which
means that redemption is of their essence), the Scottish notes have a different
history. In the latter case, the banks gave in exchange for commercial
bills round sums in notes of small denominations, expressing themselves
at the same time ready to accept the notes they had thus issued, in payment
at their face value for the commercial bills they had discounted. Thus
the basis of the value of the English notes was the gold deposited, whereas
the value of the Scottish notes was based on goods sold as expressed in
commercial bills.
It is true that the Scottish banknotes were also redeemable in precious
metal, very much as was frequently the case with the State paper money,
but redemption played an indifferent part in practice. By means of a so-called
option clause the banks frequently reserved to themselves the right of
postponing the redemption of the notes several months after they had been
preaented. Thus they could wait until the commercial bills had matured.
When, on the withdrawal of the bills, the notes flowed back, they disappeared
from circulation and the question of their redemption did not arise. So
far as the bill debtors redeemed their debts in coin or other means of
payment and not in the notes of the bank, the bank, without drawing on
its resenes, acquired thereby the neceseary means of redeeming any floating
notes.
Ultimately, in any case, the value of these notes lay in their being cepted
by the bank that had issued them.
17. Fiscal Foundation and Commercial
Bill as form of Clearing.
The fiscal foundation for State
paper money and the principle of the commercial bill for ;banknotes are
therefore basically related. In both stances acceptance by the issuer at
their nominal value, regardless of 1e exchange rate of the pa~per, is decisive.
The significance of this cceptance (or reflux) is manifest If, for example,
the State pays an fficial with such a warrant, if the official paases this
warrant on to his aker in payment for bread, and if, lastly, the baker
liquidates his tax ebt with it. the baker clears his debt to the State
with the warrant that e official had passed on to him. In the last resort
we have here a clearing process, i.e., a balancing of mutual obligations.
And these settlelents, unlike in barter or in modern international compensatory
transctions, are not made without resorting to money. On the contrary,
the exchange is operated by means of a clearing process cancelling the
mutual claims through our monetary system.
An inconvertible paper means of payment assumes therefore a reflux. represents,
in fact, clearing certificate and derives its value from the exchange of
economic services. This indicates consequently the limit issues of
unredeemable notes. Since the value of freely quoted money, for instance
of the Reich pay notes of 1874 or of the Rentenbank notes, determined by
supply and demand, no more notes may be issued than there is a demand for,
that is, than must flow back to the issuing centre. Thus in the case of
State paper money, the aggregate sum to be issued just depend on the aggregate
tax claims due or all but due. Within this limit issues are always justifiable.
If, however, this limit is exceeded by irculating paper money representing
tax claims in the distant future, appreciation will inevitably follow,
even if the State should promise to accept the notes at their face value
in the future.
Similarly with banknotes. In principle,
only short-term obligations '~ould be admitted as cover. The nearer the
due date of the bill, the reater is the demand for means of payment in
order to redeem it and he more assured is the value of the banknotes issued
in connection with he bill. The more distant the due date and the less
assured the payment, he more in jeopardy are the notes having such a basis.
Rightly, there ore many bank acts, among them that of Germany, expressly
provide that only sound commercial bills f~lling due within three months
at most may be discounted by banks of issue. Indeed, experience teaches
that long-dated financial bills hvoe hurled whole monetary systems into
the abyss.
18. Redemption or Clearing.
There exist accordingly, two entirely
independent and wholly different foundations whereon the value of papcr
means of payment may be based: redeemability in precious metal and clearing.
There is no third possibility.
Thus all paper means of payment in every country may be to-day actually
resolved into these two elementa of value. Insofar as notes can be really
exchanged for gold, their value may be attributed to this. So far, however,
as there is no redemption and there is an inadequate metallic cover, only
clearing can confer value on the notes, and this either by clearing against
commercial bills or against fiscal claims. Moreover, in order to extend
the facilitiea for clearing and thus to increase their value, many countries,
at a time when banknotes were not legsl tender, introduoed in addition
a tas foundation for the bank-notes, atatutorily obliging public pay offices
to accept them. (See, e.g., the Federal Act concerning the Swiss National
Bank of 6 October 1905, article 23.)
The difference between the two elements of value, convertibility and clearing,
which latter means here the clearing of taxes due, is well exemplified
in the Bank of England. Here, aince the Peel's Act, the note circulation
is divided into a so-called fiduciary and non-fiduciary issue. The latter
must have a 100% gold cover. It reflects the pure idea of convertibility.
The fiduciary isaue however, which at present amounts to 260 million pounds,
is based excluaively on "an eternal debt of the English State". It is not
covered by any redemption fund. It rather embodies the idea of a fiscal
foundation.
How, then are these two elements of value related ? Although in the public
mind the idea of convertibility predominates, what is actually of decisive
importance for the properity of a country is clearing.
The idea of convertibility makea the quantity of means of payment basically
dependent on the gold reserve available at any time. This ia an entirely
impracticable principle All attacks on the gold standard, directed against
thia principle, which more eapecially combat the creditor s right to claim
from his debtor directly or indirectly gold, are to that extent justified.
For there ia never a possibility of meeting all liabilities by gold payments.
This holds both of international obligations and of domestic paymenta.
It was therefore of momentous importance and evinced profound insight,
when Milhaud in hia great work, A Gold Truce, called for a universal gold
truce.
Whether a country possesses a gold reserve, depends alwaya more or ess
on chance. Accordingly, the amount of the means of payment in irculation
should never, not even under the moat orthodox gold atandard ystem, be
determined by the size of the gold reserve. The economic life of a country
would have otherwise to shrink regularly with the shrinkage of ta gold
reserve in reality, the exchange of goods remains a neccesity and possible,
even it there is no gold reserve at all. On the other hand, as the cases
of France and the United States to-day show, not even the largest gold
reserve of a central bank can-save a people from widespread unemployment
and poverty, whilst a monetary system intelligently based on mutual clearing,
can provide a people with work and wealth, even in he absence of any store
of gold.
I9. Examples of Clearing Money.
The diverse possibilities of issuing
inconvertible means of payment based on the idea of clearing can only be
adumbrated here. In the first place, we may mention the inconvertible and
freely quokd state paper money described above. In most countries to-day
this ic ~o be found in a more or less disguised form. Besides States, local
~uthorities may also issue clearing notes for the imposts they are entitled
to raise. Thus in the nineteenth century Hanover city issued notee which
~romoted most effectively the tow s prosperity.
In the economic sphere, railways enter primarily into account aa centres
for the issue of special railway clearing notes. In Germany there is the
noteworthy case of the Leipzig-Dresden Railwag founded by Friedrich List.
This Railway issued in the thirties of the last century railway money to
the amount of 500.000 thalers and this money, to the general satisfaction,
freely circulated until the establishment of the Reich. After the World
War, the Cerman Federal Railway also repeatedly issued its own means of
payment, most of which exhibited the character of goods ~~arrants, i.e.,
they were based on the principle of clearing Naturally, other undertakings,
for whose goods or services there is a general and constant demand, would
also benefit by such facilities.
The clearing principle is most particularly useful in international settlements.
Thus leading firms might issue purchasing certificates. For instance, certificates
accepted at their face value by the 1. G. Farben Company or by Siemens,
could be disposed of in London, Cape Town, and generally. To make the certificates
more widely acceptable, whole groups of undertakings concerned with agriculture,
export, or the tourist traffic, m;ght agree to issue purchasing certificates
jointly. Issues might also be undertaiken by special foreign trade banks,
whose clients would bind themselves to accept the certificates in payments
up to a certain amount. Lastly, work provision banks might similarly
be established to combat unemployment within countries; For particulars
on this subject, the reader is referred to the valuable works of Milhaud
and Beckerath published in 1933 and 1934. I
am proud to present these works along with this one (see intro)
The central banks existing at present in most countries ought not to oppose
the issue of such means of payment. In this connection we need not examine
here whether these banks have fulfilled the hopes placed in them or have
not rather aggravated all financial catastrophes, such as inflations and
deflations. In any case, so long aa private enterprise exists at all, mutual
clearing cannot be monopolised by a single central undertaking. The
idea of à monopoly is most closely associated with the idea of convertibility.
The
issue of clearing warrants, which neither affect the store of gold nor
are able, since they are freely quoted, to modify the average price, cannot
in principle be restricted to central banks. It ought rather, within the
limits drawn by the State, to be allowed to develop freely.
20. Abrogation of Foreign Exchange
Legislation.
Once it is recogniact that the
value of inconvertible, paper money depends on the likelihood of the issuer
clearing it. the way is open to abolish obligatory acceptance and to re-establish
the gold standard. This, in turn, would facilitate the abrogation of foreign
exchange legislation, for this, too, is based in the last resort on the
idea of convertibility and of obligatory acceptance. In every country foreign
exchange legislation is in the main identical. The endless number of laws,
regulations, and principles may be reduced to the following three aims:
(a) Retention of gold;
(b) Retention of foreign means
of payment (foreign exchange proper); and
(c) Restriction of payment abroad.
Compared with these, all other provisions are of aecondary importance.
And these three aima may be reduced to one, namely the seizure of gold.
The retention of foreign means of payment and the restriction of paymenb
abroad are only means towards attaining that one object. The foreign means
of payment are seized because they are regarded as substitutea for gold
and becauae it is anticipated that by their redemption or, at least, by
their being sold on the international market, gold might be obtained in
eschange.
Inversely, payments abroad
are restricted as far as possible because it is feared that through the
efflux of means of payment the gold reserve might be drained and the maintenance
of the parity be thereby endangered. The idea that gold is not only
the standard of value but ultimately the sole and supreme means of pagment
lies therefore at the root of this type of legislation. Hence the efflux
of gold and the associated threat to the redemption fund have been invariably
the direct cause of the enacting of foreign exchange legidation.
Here also the obligation to accept the notes of the central bank plays
a special part. Thus whilst the State may leave to their fate the freely
quoted notes of a private bank, without the monetary unit being affected
by the bank's exchange losses, the statutory obligation to accept the notes
of the central bank implies that they are identified with the country's
standard of value. A loss in exchange in the case of the latter involves
therefote a modification in the monetary basis itself. Accordingly, the
State is compelled to maintain the parity of the notes of the central bank
so long as it is bent on saving its standard of value from fluctuations.
The identification of the monetary unit with the notes of the central bank
has, lastly, created another source of danger which has repeatedly acted
as a decisive factor in the introduction of foreign exchange legislation,
namely its close association with certain large-scale banks at home. Thus
the collapse of the Kreditanstalt in Austria and the Darmstadt Bank in
Germany instigated the introduction of foreign exchange legialation in
those countries. Of itself there existed no direct connection between these
banka and the monetary standard, and the example of Sweden, which did not
rush to the aid of the collapsed Krueger undertakings, shows that in such
emergencies other methods may be applied than those chosen by Austria and
Germany. However, where through the olbligation to accecpt the notes of
a given bank a statutory bridge has been built between the banking system
and the national currency, the temptation will always exist to shift the
difficulties of the banks onto the shoulders of the currency.
All these problems assume a very different complexion if we take inconvertible
means of payment to be what they really are, namely means of clearing in
relation to an issuer A fundamentally inconvertible note, the value of
which lies in the issuer accepting it and which therefore really involves
no claim to payment m gold but a claim to the services of the issuer, can
never lead to a reduction in the gold reserve. A State paper money based
on such principles cou~d be freely allowed to go abroad without this prejudicially
affecting the currency. It could never entail liabilities in precious metal.
On the contrary, it would necessarily lead to goods being exported and
may be accordingly even followed by an influs of gold or foreign cxchange
What matters is that the means of payment shall not be legal tender; in
other words, that it must be accepted by the issuer at its face value.
With this condition satisfied and the above-mentioned limit to issues being
respected, even the heaviest losses on foreign bourses would involve no
danger, for the lower the market rate falls, the greater the temptation
would be to acquire the warrants, inasmuch as the issuer has to redeem
them at their nominal value, the loss being thus converted into a gain.
Everybody therefore who has to meet his obligation with these warrants,—in
our example the taxpayer,—will try to benefit by each fall and thereby
produce a steady demand which has the peculiarity of rising as the market
rate falls This necessary demand provides the floating power that imparts
value to inconvertible paper money. Such a means of payment need not dread
the throwing open of frontiers. In the words of a Swiss writer, it will
"like a carrier pigeon", return always to its point of departure and necessarily
lead to a demand for home products abroad, in this way furthering the export
trade.
Since such a clearing warrant has by definition a free market rate and
is therefore not linked to the currency unit, the latter cannot be affected
by any fluctuations in the value of the former.
For clearing warrants of the type described, foreign eschange legislation
ceases to have any meaning, for any atipulations relating to convertible
money would lose their point. In all countries, therefore, sound clearing
warranta should be freed from their fetters, since they were only imposed
on them on account of the unsound ones, and thus at last bestow on the
present the freedom of movement denied them to-day because of the past.
That
is, foreign exchange legislation should be abrogated at least for sound
warrants. Given this first step and the basis for a new economic structure
is laid. Further progress will be thereby facilitated, for in most countries
the inconvertible notes could be without difficulty converted into State
paper money, thua investing the present state of things in this matter
with its proper form. Shoula, however, one or another central bank have
transgressed the limits that would apply to a fiscal foundation, it will
not be difficult to remedy this, without fettering a country's general
economic life by foreign exchange legislation.
Nor can it be objected that the national economy requires foreign exchange
and can therefore not be satisfied with clearing transactions, for, to
begin with, we should remember that probably in all countries depending
on foreign exchange, the supply of the latter has shrunk despite the most
stringent legislation and that therefore the object aimed at has not been
fully attained. But a more important point is that both commercial and
financial debts, according to firmly and universally established vieuws,
can only be liquidated by the goods or services of the debtor, and it is
just these that are offered by clearing warrants. It must be therefore
possible to start again payment operations on this basis. So far as the
importing of raw materialg is in question, this is not challenged. A clearing
warrant, unhampered by foreign exchange legislation and made out in gold
units, is a fully utilisable means of payment so long as there ia a demand
on the world market for the goods and services of the issuing country.
If this condition is not satisfied, then foreign exchange legisla tion
also would be of no avail. If an exchange of goods is actually impracticable,
that is, if the country no longer plays a part in the world economy,—no
debt can possibly be liquidated. This holds equally of commercial and financial
debts. No one can expect that a country possessing no gold, should pay
in gold. Every creditor should therefore recognise that a debtor can
only offer a lien on his goods and services.
Years ago the Economic Committee of the League of Nations espressed the
same idea when it said that creditor countries must either agree thst debtor
countries may directly or indirectly redeem their obligationa in goods
or services or they muat be resigned to not receiving any payments. The
clearing warrants described here indicate the way in which even heavy liabilities
may be in time honestly liquidated, to the common advantage of creditors
and debtors.
Once the banknotes that had become inconvertible have been s~perseded by
clearing warrants, the free gold market can be at last re-established.
So soon as gold has been divested of the property ascribed to it of being
the exclusive means of payment and representing the core of money claims,
it becomes again a commodity like any other. Its free movement no longer
causes alarm and may therefore the better fulfil the function of a standard
of value And this completes the circle of our proposals, for the free gold
market which here appears as the result of clearing, at the same time presupposes
it. since Ihe various means of payment can only be reliably valued when
gold may be freely moved.
It follows, lastly, that under
the system above outlined there would be no objection to gold coins being
minted for private firms and this not, as seems to be the intention at
present in France, as a form of note cover, but for immediate circulation
with a view to measuring by them at any time the value of all other means
of payment.
21 . Summary.
Accordingly, we propose:
1 The introduction of unambiguously
determined gold units of account as a monetary basis, e.g.:
I mark = 1/2 790 kg. fine gold.
I franc = y kg. fine
gold,
I £
= z kg. fine gold.
2. The transformation of the whole
monetary system on the basis of a gold unit of account.
3. The abolition of the statutory
obligation of accoptance for the notes of the central banks.
4. The removal of the monopoly
of the central banka and ita replaccment by general regulations concerning
the issue of means of payment.
5. The abrogation of foreign exchange
legislation and the re-establishment of a free gold market.
6. The unrestricted right to mint
gold coins.
The practical realization of
the proposals.
a) Through international agreements
Everybody ia agreed that aomething
ahould be done to remove the monetary chaos and the obstacles to settlcment
operations, Here also hope is commonly centred in international conferences,
However the val ue o f such conferences for the solution of economic problems
is not great. Think in this connection of the World Economic Conference
of 1933. This was eagerly looked forward to by all peoples and yet, notwithstanding
careful preparation, produced virtually no practical results.
However, even if within the near future a monetary conference could be
arranged to meet and if, moreover, full agreement could be reached among
the participating States, the effect would be at best to re-establish the
parity between the monetary units and to impose an unconditional obligation
on the parties not to modify ddiberately this parity nor to change it without
the consent of the other contracting parties. But that would only dispose
of a comparativdy small part of the present difficulties, for only most
rarely—as in the United States recently—has the abandonment of the gold
standard been an arbitrary act. In by far the majority of instances, the
gold s~tandard was most reluctantly dropped. Heavy calls on credit institutes,
escessive claims on the central bank, a rising efflux of gold, and, finally,
the threatening imposs~bility, despite all efforts, of maintaining the
parity of the banknotes, were for tbe most part the really decisive factors
in the abandonment of the gold atandard. For such cases an international
agreement on monetary parities would offer no solution.
So long as the principle of central banks is retained and their notes,
being made legal tender, are identified with the standard of value, no
international agreement will be able to present the recurrcnce of presentday
conditions, for under this system the collapse of a single leading bank,
to say nothing of the collapse of the State finances, may render impossible
the maintenance of parity. However, even if, to meet such cases, the several
countries concluded a convention providing that the gold reserves of the
diverse central banks should be automatically mobilised to save the currency
of a country in need, a scarcely credible aupposition, even this would
be insufficient in hard caaes, for the magnitude of the monetary obligationa
maturing at any given moment would probably always exceed the quantity
of available gold.
It also remains a moot point how the problem of foreign exchange legislation
could be settled at such a conference, seeing that the granting of loans,
useful as these would be to thosc immediately concerned, in no way solv«
the problem. And yet without this, even a fresh determination of parities
would prove unsatisfactory. On the contrary, the objcct would be to rebuild
on a sound basis the entire system of international payment arrangements.
b) Through intra-State legislation.
From what precedes follows the
possibility that each several State, having made up its rnind, may, by
abolishing the obligstion to accept and recognising the reflux,principle,
re-establish for itself the gold standard and rescind its foreign exchange
legislation, This may seem fantastic. But the reader should remember the
German inflation period. Then, too, an escape without external assistance
appeared impossible. "The hole in the West" speculation on foreign bourses,
and similar obstacles, which Germans could not control, were quite generally
regarded as the causes of the depreciation of the mark, Eventually, when
things were at their worst, when in some parts of the Reich serious disorders
had broken out, and when external help was out of the question, the country
succeeded, by its own efforts, without the aid of any foreign Government,
without an international conference or convention, to stabilise the mark,
to safeguard it against all foreign speculation, and even after a few months
to abrogate the foreign exchange legislation then in force. To-day, as
at that time, the free resolve of any country may determine the fate of
its currency, The country that first finds the way out, that removes insecurity,
and at the same time re-establishes the freedom of monetary operations,
will march well ahead of the other countries. It may even be assumed that
a mighty stream of capital for long-term investment will pour into it from
all sides
c) through private initiative.
Even if, however, no State were
for the momen~ ready to proceed al on g this line, there remains the possibility
of finding a way out of the monetary chaos through private initiative or
at least to prepare the way for this. When in the eighteenth century the
national monetary units, because of alleged State needs, continually fluctuated
and when it was therefore impossible to rely on the value of currencies
for a measurable time even, Hamburg merchants, more particularly, discovered
a way out. By founding the famous Hamburger Girobank, they, following the
centuries' old Chinese Tael system, made themselves independent of the
debased State coinage by adopting as the basis of all their accounts an
unminted definite weight of silver in the place of State money. This weight,
called Mark Banko, contituted an unchangeable unit of calculation, which
came to be of the grea test service economically for the whole of Northern
Europe.
There can be no doubt that the application of the same principle, with
gold instead of silver as the basis naturally, might excercise a similarly
farreaching influence to-day. Just imagine that before the devaluation
of the Belgian franc, a Belgian undertaking of good repute had declared
itself ready to take up a long-term loan at its actual gold value, regardless
of the exchange rak of the franc. The crowd of would-be investors would
probably have broken through all barriers.
In this connection the proposed private calculation in gold should on no
account be linlced with the national monetary system. Accordingly, I do
not sugeest here the appending of gold clauses (gold dollar, gold pound,
or gold franc) to a country's currency unit, for experience teaches that
such clauses—which hold permanently before the statutory means of payment
its ideal as in a mirror—only rarely survive the fate of the national currency.
Thus in Belgium, when the franc was devaluated, the gold clauses were revoked
and only contracts in foreign currencies were left untouched. Private calculation
in gold, like the erstwhile Mark Banko system, should be independent of
the national currency. It should be therefore based on a separate unit,
for which a simple calculation in grammes of fine gold suggests itself
here. This would dso serve as a basis for an international calculating
unit, which has been widely desiderated for many decades.
All that would be demanded of the
State is not to prohibit calculating in gold. The State could never suffer
through this, for even if a Government should deem it espedient to devaluate
the national currency, as was frequently the case already in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, there can be no ground for imposing a devaluated
currency unit on those who had fredy agreed to use for their economic transactions
among themselves another and constant value basia. Investors in all countries
would joyfully welcome such a solution and there are not a few undertakings
which, under these conditions, would be decidedly ready to plsce long-term
loans at moderate interest rates. Once it is demonstrated, however, that
the monetary chaos, which seems to most men the work of an inscrutable
fate, may be overcome, the profoundly beneficent effect of this for the
peoples of the world will not fail to become apparent.