90 MODERN MONETARY SYSTEMS with that object, to balance the budget. It involved an external loan (650 million gold crowns) which had been considered necessary chiefly in order to assist the Govern- ment in meeting the immediate deficits, but it contained no explicit provision for making the crown convertible. The scheme included the creation of a new Bank of Austria, with the task of re-establishing normal conditions in the issue of notes, with a cover in gold or stable foreign currencies, beginning at 209, and rising at the end of 15 years to 33%. The new Bank of Austria was created on November 14th, 1922; the printing of notes was stopped on November 18th, 1922 ; credits were immediately placed at the disposal of the Austrian Government,! and enabled the Bank to be provided immediately with the means of making foreign payments—a necessary step in order to Support the exchange. The exchange, which had fallen to oroooco14 on New York, was henceforward maintained at this rate, which is equivalent to the new parity of approximately 14,000 paper crowns to the gold crown. With the revival of confidence abroad and at home in the currency which had again become a medium of saving, #his process of stabilisation caused the repatriation of capital and a flow of foreign investments, which soon took the form of an abundant supply of foreign exchange on the Vienna marker? During 1923 the Government stopped throwing foreign currencies on the market; the National Bank of Austria on the contrary bought up the surplus of foreign currencies over market requirements, and this both increased its reserves and prevented the crown from rising above the fixed parity; the Bank did not hesitate to make further increases in the note issue in order to make such purchases? 1 These credits were obtained by means of Treasury bills issued up to 60 million gold crowns to be covered by stable foreign currencies, and by 70 millions from abroad, 50 millions being taken out of the remainder of certain advances already made by France, Italy and Czechoslovakia. 2 See Sixth Report of the Commissioner General of the League of Nations at Vienna of July 9th, 1923. 3 See Seventh and Eighth Reports of the Commissioner General of the League of Nations at Vienna.