THE MONETARY CRISIS 79 
total amount of the bank notes stamped under the law 
of February 25th, 1919, and one-half of the amount of 
those current accounts and Treasury bills of the Austro- 
Hungarian Bank which were taken over by the State,” 
unless “complete bank cover subject to private legal 
liability was available for these media of payment.” 
Moreover, in the event this restriction on the note issue 
was strictly observed. In addition, the Finance Minister 
was entitled under the law of February 25th, 1919, to 
prohibit the Bank of Issue from increasing its deposit 
accounts.l 
The stamped notes of the Austro-Hungarian Bank 
soon gave place to Treasury notes (the transition occurred 
between July 1919 and the middle of 1920), and the law 
of April 10th, 1919, which officially created the Czech 
crown, also created a State “Banking Department,” which 
was provisionally to perform the normal tasks of a Bank 
of Issue 2 and, in particular, keep up a sufficient circula- 
tion but within the limits laid down in the law of February 
25th, 1919. On April 26th, 1920, this office absorbed 
the Foreign Exchange Control Office which had been 
created at the end of 1916 by the Dual Monarchy and 
had become a Czech institution on January 30th, 1919. 
The project of an external loan, which was also con- 
tained in the law of April 10th, 1919, could not be real- 
ised.3 But after an appeal to the public, and with the help 
of a large gold loan and a voluntary collection, a small 
stock of yellow metal was got together to the value of 
about §8 million Swiss francs. Moreover, in pursuance of 
1See A. Piot, “La couronne tchéco-slovaque,” th. Paris, 1923. It 
should further be observed that, with the process of stamping, hoarded 
notes were first brought to light and then eliminated, so that the real note 
issue may have been changed even less than the above-mentioned figures 
indicate. 
2 The statutes of the future Bank of Issue were promulgated under a 
law of April 24th, 1920, but it has not yet been established (see Piot, op. cit., 
p- 83 et seq.). 
3 Czechoslovakia only obtained through the help of Mr. Hoover a credit 
of 51 million dollars for the purchase of foodstuffs in America. The other 
Begotiesions in particular those with Italy, France and Sweden, broke 
own.