ABSTRACT
WHAT IS STABILISATION? 99 be borne in mind that pre-war stability was not the result of monetary stability. On the contrary, monetary stability itself was the result of the more fundamental stability of political and economic conditions between 1815 and 1914. Although the Nineteenth Century had its wars and revolutions, their extent could not be compared with either that of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars or with that of the Great War and the upheaval that followed it. The economic situation was characterised by a process of comparatively slow evolution. There were relatively few jumps and jerks in the progress of the economic system to unsettle equilibrium and to cause monetary instability. But for these conditions of fundamental equilibrium it would have been impossible to maintain the stability of the financial superstructure for any length of time.
