NORMAL EXCHANGES 27 
effects this adaptation with greater elasticity than any other 
form of regulation. For this reason the phenomenon of 
the exchange has seemed to many people to be a manifes- 
tation of some spontaneous force making for equilibrium 
which is in some sort natural and on the whole beneficent. 
We have seen above how far this opinion rests on a 
study of the facts. But it has also not escaped us that in a 
market in which the exchange fluctuates without limit and 
is subject to all the impulses of speculators, iz is very far 
[from being governed solely by economic factors and in particular 
by the balance of accounts, and we have noted the serious dis- 
turbances which may be caused by exchange fluctuations 
ending in unlimited depreciation. 
A respect for the “natural” forces which create economic 
phenomena should not therefore go so far as to make us con- 
sider as necessary those irregular fluctuations of the ex- 
change which occur where there is no common monetary 
basis with the other countries. It would indeed be strange if 
the system of stable exchanges which existed before the war, 
namely, of exchanges restricted within the limits of the gold 
points, should nowadays cease to be considered as normal. 
Moreover, surely it would be “natural” in a world in 
which transactions are carried out between all countries, 
however far distant from each other, that settlements should 
take place on a monetary basis common to all countries. 
It would therefore seem that if there were substituted for 
national currencies a single currency for the whole world 
and if therefore the entire volume of currency available in 
every country were international in character, the problem of the 
exchange would no longer arise; even if this method of clear- 
ing still continued to exist between certain markets, the 
extreme rates would be limited by the cost of a registered 
letter. Thus, for instance, in the absence of a gold circula- 
tion sufficient to form a single universal currency, it is 
easy to imagine the existence of a single fiduciary currency 
issued by an international organ. It will be seen after re- 
ferring to the chapter devoted to the study of the idea of 
currency and of a monetary standard that an international 
fiduciary currency issued limited in quantity would 
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