The A B C of the foreign exchanges
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| The A B C of the foreign exchanges |
Introduction:
The substance is here reproduced of a short course of lectures on the Foreign Exchanges, which the writer was invited to deliver in the early part of the current year before the members of the Institute of Bankers, and which were afterwards published in the Journal of the Institute.
To justify their reappearance in the book- form a few words of explanation appear necessary. It is manifest, in view of the able and exhaustive treatment that the abstract theory has received in the well-known treatise by Mr Goschen, and in other standard works, that it would tend to no useful purpose to serve up a mere
Hchauffi of those general principles which are already familiar to all educated men; and that simply to say over again what has been much better saying before would be only trifling with the reader. More than this is required, and more have been attempted.
Hchauffi of those general principles which are already familiar to all educated men; and that simply to say over again what has been much better saying before would be only trifling with the reader. More than this is required, and more have been attempted.
The difficulties inherent to the study of the ex- changes (and that there are difficulties will scarcely be denied) are ascribable, not to a failure to grasp the import of the few simple propositions that form the basis of the science, but to the perplexity attendant on the application of abstract principles to the solution of problems encountered in the merchant's every-day experience.
What the man of business wants is a theory so stated and so illustrated as to be capable of being easily adapted to actual use — a theory which, by enabling him to understand why a particular rate has risen or fallen in the past, may help him to judge for himself whether it is likely to rise or to fall in the immediate future. Bearing these requirements in mind, the writer (who has gained his experience at first-hand) has endeavoured to render his exposition as practical as possible, and, at the risk of overburdening it with technicalities, has illustrated each successive step by reference to actual transactions and by numerous instances derived from the course of the exchanges. As he writes, too, for busy men, he has also aimed at the plain directness of statement, in order that he who runs may read, and, reading, understand.
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