Note 41 — Chapter IV · ALTERNATIVE AIMS IN MONETARY POLICY

I cannot criticise the work, in his second term of office (1922), of Dr. Rasin, now fallen by the hand of an assassin, without reference to his great achievement during his first term (1919) in rescuing his country’s currency from the surrounding chaos. The stamping of the Austrian notes and the levy on holders of titles to money which accompanied it was the only drastic, courageous, and successful measure of finance carried through anywhere in Europe at that epoch; the story of it from Dr. Rasin’s own pen can be read in his The Financial Policy of Czecho-Slovakia. Before he had finished other influences became dominant. But, when in 1922 this austere and disinterested Minister returned to office, he missed, in my judgment, his opportunity. He could have completed his task by establishing the currency on a fixed and stable basis, instead of which he used his great authority to disorder trade by a futile process of Deflation.