I hold all idea of regulating the currency to be an absurdity; the very terms of regulating the currency and managing the currency I look upon to be an absurdity; the currency should regulate itself; it must be regulated by the trade and commerce of the world; I would neither allow the Bank of England nor any private banks to have what is called the management of the currency...
I should never contemplate any remedial measure, which left to the discretion of individuals to regulate the amount of currency by any principle or standard whatever... I should be sorry to trust the Bank of England again, having violated their principles [the Palmer ruke]; for I never trust the same parties twice on an affair of such magnitude (Q. 519, 520, 527)
cited in Development of British Monetary Orthodoxy 1797-1875, Frank W. Fetter, Cambridge, Mass.
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