Stabilization of Exchanges

Report Outline
Moves for Postwar Currency Stabilization
Foreign Exchange and the Gold Standard 1914–1939
Proposals for World Monetary Cooperation

Moves for Postwar Currency Stabilization

One of the first substantial achievements of the postwar period in the international field is likely to be a stabilization of the external value of the currencies of the United Nations and of the defeated powers as well. Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau announced, as long ago as April 1, 1943, that letters had been sent to all members of the United Nations inviting them to send experts to Washington for consultations on postwar problems of foreign exchange. An American plan of currency stabilization, offered as a basis of discussion, was made public on April 6; a widely differing British plan was given official publication in London on April 8.

It has been suggested, and with much cogency [said a Treasury statement accompanying the American plan], that the task of assuring the defeat of the Axis powers would be made easier if the victims of aggression, actual and potential, could have greater assurance that a victory of the United Nations will not mean in the economic sphere a repetition of the exchange instability and monetary collapse that followed the last war …The people must know that we at last recognize the fundamental truth that prosperity, like peace, is indivisible.

Secretary Morgenthau said, August 20, that international monetary cooperation after the war was essential “if we are to avoid the collapse of some monetary systems, to prevent the disruption of foreign exchanges, and to facilitate the restoration and balanced growth of international trade.”