From ‘Phantom Gold’, The Spectator, 17 July 1915:
There is something about the sight of golden coins which excites the imagination. Was it for economic nations alone that the world settled upon gold as the universal token? What delight children take in counters made to represent sovereigns—small children who have certainly never possessed a real twenty shillings. They know the round yellow shams have no value, they do not think about spending them seriously, but they love to play with them nevertheless. There are analogous games which we all play with phantom counters from time to time. The counters represent nothing that we have, or have lost, or even expect to have; they represent our friends’ incomes. These tokens represent a very uncertain quantity. We are not a bit sure what our friends have to spend; we only know how, if we had what they have, we should spend it.
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