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.
