Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- General Introduction
- Editorial Foreword
- Preface
- Introduction to New Edition
- Notes on Further Reading
- Corrections to this Edition
- I THE TREATY OF PEACE
- II INFLATION AND DEFLATION
- 1 INFLATION (1919)
- 2 SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF CHANGES IN THE VALUE OF MONEY (1923)
- 3 THE FRENCH FRANC (1926, 1928)
- 4 CAN LLOYD GEORGE DO IT? (1929)
- 5 THE GREAT SLUMP OF 1930 (DECEMBER 1930)
- 6 ECONOMY (1931)
- 7 THE CONSEQUENCES TO THE BANKS OF THE COLLAPSE OF MONEY VALUES (AUGUST 1931)
- III THE RETURN TO THE GOLD STANDARD
- IV POLITICS
- V THE FUTURE
- VI LATER ESSAYS
- Index
3 - THE FRENCH FRANC (1926, 1928)
from II - INFLATION AND DEFLATION
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- General Introduction
- Editorial Foreword
- Preface
- Introduction to New Edition
- Notes on Further Reading
- Corrections to this Edition
- I THE TREATY OF PEACE
- II INFLATION AND DEFLATION
- 1 INFLATION (1919)
- 2 SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF CHANGES IN THE VALUE OF MONEY (1923)
- 3 THE FRENCH FRANC (1926, 1928)
- 4 CAN LLOYD GEORGE DO IT? (1929)
- 5 THE GREAT SLUMP OF 1930 (DECEMBER 1930)
- 6 ECONOMY (1931)
- 7 THE CONSEQUENCES TO THE BANKS OF THE COLLAPSE OF MONEY VALUES (AUGUST 1931)
- III THE RETURN TO THE GOLD STANDARD
- IV POLITICS
- V THE FUTURE
- VI LATER ESSAYS
- Index
Summary
First published in the Nation and Athenaeum, 9 January 1926, with the title ‘The French Franc: An Open Letter to the French Minister of Finance (whoever he is or may be)’. This essay was republished in France as part of a collection entitled Réflexions sur le franc et sur quelques autres sujets (1928).
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE FRENCH MINISTER OF FINANCE (WHOEVER HE IS OR MAY BE) (January 1926)
Monsieur—When I read in my daily paper the daily projects of yourself and your predecessors to draft new budgets and to fund old debts, I get the impression that Paris discusses very little what seems to me in London to be the technical analysis of your problem. May I, therefore, divert your attention for a moment from your Sisyphean task of rolling budgets up Parliament Hill back to certain fundamental calculations?
I have written about the French franc many times in recent years, and I do not find that I have changed my mind. More than two years ago I wrote: ‘The level of the franc is going to be settled in the long run, not by speculation or the balance of trade, or even the outcome of the Ruhr adventure, but by the proportion of his earned income which the French taxpayer will permit to be taken from him to pay the claims of the French rentier.’ I still think that this is the root idea from which your plans ought to develop.
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- Information
- The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes , pp. 76 - 85Publisher: Royal Economic SocietyPrint publication year: 1978