February 17, 1945

It is to be hoped that the bill on the Bretton Woods agreements now introduced in Congress will be considered in an open-minded and nonpartisan spirit. Special provisions added by the bill will need to be examined in addition to those of the Bretton Woods agreements themselves. The main question to be asked now is whether, under the bill as drawn, Congress will be free to consider particular provisions of the Bretton Woods agreements on their individual merits.

March 15, 1945

This newspaper received a letter from Robert Boothby, which it published on March 4, and a second letter, which it published on March 14, referring to the Bretton Woods agreements. Mr. Boothby is a Member of Parliament and chairman of the Monetary Policy Committee in London.

March 17. 1945

March 25, 1945

The research committee of the group of outstanding business men known as the Committee for Economic Development has published a statement on the Bretton Woods proposals. This statement reads like a compromise arrived at in order to obtain agreement from all fourteen members of the committee. As often happen with such compromises, the position taken lacks clarity and embodies some inner contradictions.

April 7, 1945

Winter, 1944/45

Freedom of trade, in the eyes of Adam Smith and his nineteenth-century successors in the liberal tradition, meant freedom from government interference. All that the “classical” economists asked of governments in the field of international trade was that they should permit it to occur. They wanted a removal of prohibitions and of nearly all tariffs. But they did not ask for positive “encouragement” or artificial stimulants. They were as much opposed to bounties as they were to barriers.

November 21, 1967

The devaluation of the British pound from $2.80 to $2.40 is not only another declaration of bankruptcy by Great Britain; it is another revelation of the bankruptcy of the international money system concocted at Bretton Woods, N.H., in 1944.

March 23, 1969

The international monetary system set up at Bretton Woods In 1944 is on the verge of breaking down.