ABSTRACT
The American Banking System is almost the antithesis of the British System. It is operated over a vaster expanse of country and on a much larger financial scale. Quite apart from the lack of unity and control in the constitution and operations of the Federal Reserve Board itself, the banks of the American system have a freedom in their working that is not permitted to British banks. The descriptions of Professors Irving Fisher and Luther A. Harr as to the state of chaos and confusion in the Federal Reserve Board are not overstated. The narrative here given of the circumstances leading to the American collapse of 1929 is not that usually presented to British readers. The spirit of the dollar stabilisation policy was shortly to be revived in an unexpected quarter, the Report of the British Macmillan Commission on Banking and Currency.
