ple's credit. Was there ever greater lunacy in
public affairs?

"Suppose that instead of issuing credit in the shape of bonds of large
denomination, the Council issued it in notes of small denominations of
pounds and shillings. Does anyone mean to assert that that credit
which is eagerly purchased by a banker would be refused by a
bricklayer or stonemason? Supposing the London County Council was
empowered to issue its credit in one-pound notes, as well as large
amounts, and supposing it was compulsory that these notes were good
in payment of rates. Is there any question as to their being
acceptable? The plan is so simple and so safe that at first it seems
amazing it should have been so long out of employment."[761]

"Of course gold will drain off abroad--if the foreigners don't follow
in our footsteps at once. If the demonetised gold is withdrawn--well,
we can have a new currency by nationalising the railways and paying
the shareholders 'in current coin'" (which means in unconvertible
notes), "not in redeemable, interest-bearing bonds. So long as solid
wealth rests behind our issue, our financial policy is sound. Of
course, the railway and other shareholders will want fresh
investments; they won't find them, because no man will pay interest to
usurers when he can monetise his credit at the mere cost of banking
and exchange. They must therefore spend it, and the currency will
never be restricted henceforward. And this national ownership of
exchange can be operated to compel every monopolist to sell his
monopoly to the nation."[762]

This insane project is called by the writer, "A scientific way to
Socialism."[763]

Surely science is the most abused word in modern language. The
creation of money by unlimited issues of paper secured by the national
possessions was tried on the grandest scale at the French Revolution.
The "assignats" were secured on the national domains, and their
security seemed absolute to the revolutionaries. The great Mirabeau
had stated on September 27, 1790: "Our assignats are not ordinary
paper money. They are a new creation for which there is no precedent.
What constitutes the value of metal money? Its intrinsic value. Now I
ask you: Does paper which represents the foremost of the possessions
of a nation such as France not possess all the characteristics of
intrinsic and generally accepted value which metal money
possesses?"[764] The "assignats" speedily fell to a discount, although
dealing in