The Polish mark can be bought for about three cents and the Austrian crown for less than two cents, but they cannot be sold at all.

The German mark is worth less than four cents on the exchanges.

In most of the other countries of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe the real position is nearly as bad.

The currency of Italy has fallen to little more than a halt of its nominal value in spite of its being still subject to some degree of regulation; French currency maintains an uncertain market; and even sterling is seriously diminished in present value and impaired in its future prospects.
But while these currencies enjoy a precarious value abroad, they have never entirely lost, not even in Russia, their purchasing power at home.
A sentiment of trust in the legal money of the State is so deeply implanted in the citizens of all countries that they cannot but believe that some day this money must recover a part at least of its former value.

To their minds it appears that value is inherent in money as such, and they do not apprehend that the real wealth, which this money might have stood for, has been dissipated once and for all.