of an artificially regulated standard, but it could not be tampered with and had proved reliable in practice."
Since his tract on Monetary Reform was published by Mr. Keynes, England, against his advice, has gone back to the gold standard under which, on his showing, so near an approach to price stability was secured in the century before the war. The reasons that he brought forward for proposing to establish what he calls an artificially regulated standard are highly interesting and ingenious, but did not convince the great body of banking and business opinion. Nevertheless the work that he and many others have done in calling attention to the evil effects of violent price fluctuations on our economic and social life has by no means been without effect. The working of the gold standard will be watched from this point of view in a new spirit of criticism by the public and will be guided with the help of a revised chart by the authorities of the central banks. It is thus fairly safe to assume that the era of wide fluctuations in the prices of goods is over for the time being and perhaps even to hope that it may never return. If this be so, then the task of the careful investor need not be complicated by the effort to provide against reduction in real income by a rise in prices
