-especially from
the banks of issue, which in some cases are unable and in others
unwilling to refuse them--credits which must themselves be
satisfied in legal-tender money. We say, therefore, that
governments must limit their expenditure to their revenue.

Here again we have excellent doctrines and good practical advice from
these financial experts to the governments which appointed them. But
the doctrines have remained unapplied, and the advice has been honored
in the breach instead of in the observance.

WISE COUNSEL IGNORED

I pass next to the resolutions proposed by the commission on
international trade and adopted unanimously by the conference, from
which the first two paragraphs will be quoted:

The International Financial Conference affirms that the first
condition for the resumption of international trade is the
restoration of real peace, the conclusion of the wars which are
still being waged and the assured maintenance of peace for the
future. The continuance of the atmosphere of war and of
preparations for war is fatal to the development of that mutual
trust which is essential to the resumption of normal trading
relations. The security of internal conditions is scarcely less
important, as foreign trade cannot prosper in a country whose
internal conditions do not inspire confidence. The conference
trusts that the League of Nations will lose no opportunity to
secure the full restoration and continued maintenance of peace.

The International Financial Conference affirms that the improvement
of the financial position largely depends on the general
restoration as soon as possible of good will between the various
nations; and in particular it indorses the declaration of the
Supreme Council of the eighth March last "that the States which
have been created or enlarged as a result of the war should at once
reestablish full and friendly cooperation and arrange for the
unrestricted interchange of commodities in order that the essential
unity of European economic life may not be impaired by the erection
of artificial economic barriers."

Here again there is a full recognition of the fact that peace is
necessary to the renewal of prosperity, and that the atmosphere of war
preparations is fatal to the growth of trade. But neither the League of
Nations nor the Supreme Council, so far as I am aware, has made any