The International Monetary Fund

Abstract

Whatever plans are proposed for mutual currency accommodation, it seems likely that thoughts will revert to the I.M.F. Intercurrency accommodation may be accepted as a matter of principle up to a point, especially to deal with scares and capital flights; but if too great a strain is placed upon it, there will be resistance. After all, the I.M.F. was devised to deal with precisely this set of problems. Its authors certainly thought that they were setting up a flexible instrument which could be adapted, as needs arose, to deal with changing situations. Twenty years have passed since Bretton Woods. They did not regard the Articles of Agreement as a kind of Ark of Covenant which could never be changed. If asked in 1944 when the time would be ripe for a systematic review of the Articles, they might have well said, ‘in about ten years from now’. But twenty years have gone by.