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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2014
Two features of Canada's international economic position stand out so conspicuously that everyone is familiar with them. We are dependent upon foreign markets almost as completely as a country could be; and we depend upon an export surplus in markets overseas to pay for an import surplus from the United States. Our interest, therefore, lies in the freest possible access to the markets of other countries and in the unrestricted convertibility of world currencies at stable rates of exchange. During the inter-war years the attempt to secure stable exchange rates under the gold standard system failed, and thereafter restrictions upon international trade multiplied. The fact that the system broke down during a very severe depression has associated the gold standard with deflationary tendencies so strongly in the popular mind that, apart from any question of its merits, it is now impracticable to suggest its general restoration. Government experts have therefore been at work on a series of related plans for a new and improved international economic framework. By setting up an international monetary system which will not periodically collapse they hope to create an atmosphere in which nations will be willing to remove barriers to trade and in which international investment may revive. They design an international economic order within which nations may strive for a high level of employment and national income without being thwarted at once by the international consequences of expansion.
1 Reprinted in the Federal Reserve Bulletin, 01, 1944, pp. 37ff.Google Scholar
2 The British Treasury plan, usually attributed to Lord Keynes, was published on April 7, 1943. The American plan, drawn up by Dr. Harry White and his associates at the United States Treasury, was published at the same time. Both are reprinted in the Federal Reserve Bulletin, 07, 1943, pp. 501ff.Google Scholar A plan suggested by Canadian government experts was tabled in the House of Commons, July 12, 1943, by the Canadian Minister of Finance, the Hon. J. L. Ilsley. It is reprinted in the Federal Reserve Bulletin, 08, 1943, pp. 718ff.Google Scholar A revised draft of the American plan was released by the United States Treasury on Aug. 20, 1943 (see ibid., Sept., 1943, pp. 827ff.). A “Joint Statement by Experts on the Establishment of an International Monetary Fund” was issued on April 21, 1944. On that day, in the House of Commons at Ottawa, Prime Minister Mackenzie King made a statement on this “agreement on the principles” by “experts of the United Nations” (see Canada, House of Commons Debates, daily edition, 04 21, 1944, pp. 2, 291ff.Google Scholar) and at the same time Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau presented the “Joint Statement” to Committees of the United States Senate and House of Representatives. The “Joint Statement” together with Secretary Morgenthau's statement on that occasion is reprinted in the Federal Reserve Bulletin, 05, 1944, pp. 436ff.Google Scholar
3 W. C. Clark, “Post-war International Monetary Stabilization” (Address before Institute on Post-war Reconstruction, New York University, published in Postwar Goals and Economic Reconstruction, Series 11, No. 11, Dec. 15, 1943, pp. 209ff.).Google Scholar
4 Canada, House of Commons Debates, daily edition, 04 21, 1944, pp. 2, 291ff.Google Scholar
5 Commercial and Financial Chronicle, New York, 03 30, 1944, p. 1,338.Google Scholar
6 Lary, Hal. B. et al., The United States in the World Economy: The International Transactions of the United States During the Interwar Period (United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Economic Series no. 23, Washington, United States Government Printing Office, 1943).Google Scholar Changes in the supply of United States dollars are calculated from Table II.