Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of lectures in volume 2 (1956-2009)
- Contributors to opening chapters
- The benefactor Joseph Fisher
- The lectures
- The lecturers
- 1 1904 – Commercial education
- 2 1906 – Commercial character
- 3 1908 – The influence of commerce on civilization
- 4 1910 – Banking as a factor in the development of trade and commerce
- 5 1912 – Australian company law, and some sidelights on modern commerce
- 6 1914 – Problems of transportation, and their relation to Australian trade and commerce
- 7 1917 – War finance: Loans, paper money and taxation
- 8 1919 – The humanizing of commerce and industry
- 9 1921 – Currency and prices in Australia
- 10 1923 – Money, credit and exchange
- 11 1925 – The Guilds
- 12 1927 – The financial and economic position of Australia
- 13 1929 – Public finance in relation to commerce
- 14 1930 – Current problems in international finance
- 15 1932 – Australia's share in international recovery
- 16 1934 – Gold standard or goods standard
- 17 1936 – Some economic effects of the Australian tariff
- 18 1938 – Australian economic progress against a world background
- 19 1940 – Economic coordination
- 20 1942 – The Australian economy during War
- 21 1942 – Problems of a high employment economy
- 22 1946 – Necessary principles for satisfactory agricultural development in Australia
- 23 1948 – The importance of the iron and steel industry
- 24 1950 – The economic consequences of scientific research
- 25 1952 – Australian agricultural policy
- 26 1954 – The economics of Federal-State finance
16 - 1934 – Gold standard or goods standard
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of lectures in volume 2 (1956-2009)
- Contributors to opening chapters
- The benefactor Joseph Fisher
- The lectures
- The lecturers
- 1 1904 – Commercial education
- 2 1906 – Commercial character
- 3 1908 – The influence of commerce on civilization
- 4 1910 – Banking as a factor in the development of trade and commerce
- 5 1912 – Australian company law, and some sidelights on modern commerce
- 6 1914 – Problems of transportation, and their relation to Australian trade and commerce
- 7 1917 – War finance: Loans, paper money and taxation
- 8 1919 – The humanizing of commerce and industry
- 9 1921 – Currency and prices in Australia
- 10 1923 – Money, credit and exchange
- 11 1925 – The Guilds
- 12 1927 – The financial and economic position of Australia
- 13 1929 – Public finance in relation to commerce
- 14 1930 – Current problems in international finance
- 15 1932 – Australia's share in international recovery
- 16 1934 – Gold standard or goods standard
- 17 1936 – Some economic effects of the Australian tariff
- 18 1938 – Australian economic progress against a world background
- 19 1940 – Economic coordination
- 20 1942 – The Australian economy during War
- 21 1942 – Problems of a high employment economy
- 22 1946 – Necessary principles for satisfactory agricultural development in Australia
- 23 1948 – The importance of the iron and steel industry
- 24 1950 – The economic consequences of scientific research
- 25 1952 – Australian agricultural policy
- 26 1954 – The economics of Federal-State finance
Summary
In recent years there has been a remarkable change in the attitude of business men towards the problem of the price level. In 1928 Sir Josiah Stamp wrote:
“With business men there is still a sneaking feeling that references to the price level or index numbers are academic and highbrow, not practical or immediate … And yet it is the most bitterly practical of all questions.”
To-day, in English-speaking countries, the price level has come to be the chief preoccupation. Indeed, there are many business men who are beginning to have a sneaking feeling that perhaps it is the gold standard which is academic and highbrow.
It is easy enough to understand the impatience of the Anglo-Saxon world with the gold standard. It has about it something of the logic and precision which appeals to the Latin rather than to the Anglo Saxon temperament. Your Anglo-Saxon distrusts a solution which appears simple, and looks askance at logical arguments, feeling, perhaps, how inadequate is logic to grapple with the problems of a complex world.
Perhaps it is for this reason that the Latin countries – France, Italy, Switzerland, and Belgium – continue to cling, with Holland, to the beautiful simplicity of the gold standard, while the Anglo-Saxons have started off on a voyage to discover a new currency. It may not be merely a coincidence that the countries which have lightly set out on this quest are those which have had less experience of inflation.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Australia's Economy in its International ContextThe Joseph Fisher Lectures, pp. 391 - 416Publisher: The University of Adelaide PressPrint publication year: 2009