By Robert Row

Late in 1932, about a year after the financial crisis that rocked Britain to its foundations and heralded the great depression of the thirties, George Bernard Shaw said at a Fabian meeting in London: „You may remember the eloquence with which Mr. Ramsay MacDonald begged the nation to defend the gold standard. They all rallied ‘round the gold standard and gave Mr. MacDonald a big majority. They were told that as long as they stuck to the gold standard the trade of England was safe.“ Yet „Mr. MacDonald, who had been hailed as the man who saved the nation by keeping it on the gold standard, was then hailed as the man who saved the nation by taking it off the gold standard.“

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