then changed those for 500
Roumanian lei, returned to Poland again and only received 8,000 marks
at the re-exchange. At Berlin they looked very disparagingly at the
Polish money and offered him 280 German marks for the lot. He changed
this for 11 florins in Amsterdam, for which when he reached Antwerp he
received 40 Belgian francs. His 10 pounds lingered tentatively over
the abyss of a nothing.

The title of this story should be "Exchange is no robbery."

A golden or at least a paper rule for merchants dealing with foreign
firms is "pay them when the exchange is most in your favour." But the
foreign firm under these circumstances, having expected to get so much,
gets in reality so much less. It is not surprising then that trade is
sticky.

We hear much of the efforts of Governments and financiers to regulate
the exchanges, but nothing comes of it. The only obvious cure is a
Utopian one: institute one currency for Europe in the name of the
League of Nations.

Let us have "League of Nations gold currency." But to have that the
resources of Europe must be pooled. We are not ready for that.

LETTERS OF TRAVEL

IX. FROM PRAGUE

Czecho-slovakia is the watchdog of the new peace in Central Europe.
She is the strongest new power, and is manifestly the best governed
State which has arisen out of the ruins of the old. The new Bohemia
(for Czecho-Slovakia is truly Bohemia) is a much more credible
resurrection than the new Poland. One London daily refused to believe
in the existence of Czecho-Slovakia for a long while. "Unless I see
it," said the editor, "I will not be convinced." But Czecho-Slovakia
is quite convincing--and is much less of a Frankenstein than
Jugo-slavia. The Czechs are no doubt obscurely placed in Europe, but
the traveller when he gets to their country--not the "seacoast of
Bohemia"--will find that they make good showing.

Prague is a fine old city on the rolling Moldau--what a fine name,
suggestive of rolling boulders down from the hills! Ancient Prague has
this river for its moat. It rises on heights from old bridges to the
royal palace and cathedral of the old kings of Bohemia. The new city
has yet to be built. It will be on the level ground below, where there
is to-day an agglomeration of shops and hotels as yet unworthy of the
capital of a great new State. Here up above is all that is worth
while, though seen from the battlements, the new below, especially on a
cloudy day w