To defeat infl ation and to fully rein in the purchasing power of workers, fi scal austerity was to be supplemented by monetary austerity. Th e latter meant a direct and deliberate credit contraction through an increase in interest rates, which would defl ate prices and in turn boost confi dence in the value of the currency. Th is was the core of the socalled policy of “dear money” (Resolution VII, Commission on Currency and Exchange, Brussels 1920, vol. 1, 19). Vissering declared: “the purchasing power of money [can], by way of remedy, be forced up somewhat by making money scarce” (Verbatim Record, Brussels 1920, vol. 2, 45).

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 757