ABSTRACT

the United States. What is more, in the United States the increase of the public debt was partly offset by a decrease in private indebtedness and through the repatriation of external pre-war debts. If there was one country, therefore, which could afford to restore its currency to its pre-war value it was the United States. For considerations of prestige and in pursuance of century-old traditions, the British authorities never even considered the idea of fixing a definite value of sterling below its pre-war parity with the dollar, although the changed situation would have amply justified such a policy.