ious
than that of a private forger. But we have not yet realized, in our
minds or in our penal codes, that public vices ought to be punished at
least as vigorously as private crimes.

That, even as a desperate last resort for financing war, a flood of paper
money defeats its own object was conclusively proved a few years later
during the French Revolution. The French assignats "have taken their
place in history as the classical example of paper money made worthless
by over-issue. After their final collapse in 1796, French finance
reverted perforce to a metallic basis." So Mr. Hawtrey, a British
Treasury official, who has given us recently a lucid and sufficiently
detailed account of this extraordinary incident--extraordinary but no
longer singular, for the same course with the same results has been
pursued during and since the war of 1914-1918 by Russia and Poland, and
in a greater or less degree by most of the European belligerents.

The issue of French assignats began in 1789 because the assembly would
not vote adequate taxation, and Necker, the minister of finance, was
unable to borrow enough to cover the deficit. In the two years from
1789 to 1791, the public revenue was 470 millions, and the public
expenditures, 1719 millions, of livres. The deficit was covered by
assignats, or paper livres, bearing interest, in denominations varying
from 1000 to 5 livres. Thus the assignats may be regarded as a floating
debt currency. In November, 1791, the assignats were worth 52 per cent
of their face value. In June, 1792, after the declaration of war on
Austria, they rose to 57. After the victory of Valmy, in September,
they rose to 72 and remained there till December. In January, 1793, the
king was guillotined, and war was declared on England. By August, after
violent fluctuations, the assignat had fallen to 15 per cent of its
face value. Thereafter the laws enforcing the acceptance of assignats
were strengthened.

It became an offence to sell coin, or to differentiate between coin
and assignats in any transaction, or to refuse payment in
assignats, or to negotiate assignats at a discount. By a decree of
the 5th of September the death penalty itself was imposed. Here was
a forced currency indeed.[9]

[9] R. G. Hawtrey, _Currency and Credit_. Longmans Green & Co.,
London, 1919.

For a few months an artificial improvement was effected in the value of
the assignat by these ferocious measures;