Money: Toward Paper Gold

An accord arrived at in Stockholm last weekend moved the international monetary system another uneasy step away from disaster. Nine of the top ten financial powers of the non-Communist world reached agreement on the form of a new kind of international money — paper gold — to supplement dollars, pounds and real gold in bank rolling world trade and investment. France refused to go along.

Some agreement was crucial as part of the effort to restore confidence in monetary arrangements, lately shaken by the gold crisis and buffeted by wrangles over the future role of gold in global finance. What...