"A 'sound' banker, alas! is not one who foresees danger and avoids it, but one who, when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional and orthodox way along with his fellows, so that no one can really blame him."
"The City of London considered that it was under an obligation of honour to make every possible effort to maintain the value of money in terms of which it had accepted large deposits from foreigners, even though the result of this was to place an intolerable strain on British industry."
"Moreover, this progressive deterioration in the value of money through history is not an accident, and has had behind it two great driving forces—the impecuniosity of governments and the superior political influence of the debtor class."
"Before the war these medium fortunes had already begun to suffer some loss (as compared with the summit of their prosperity in the middle nineties) from the rise in prices and also in the rate of interest. But the monetary events which have accompanied and have followed the war have taken from them "