They had to operate, however, in old-fashioned ways with only primitive tools and sources of information at their disposal. Economic statistics had only just begun to be collected. The bankers communicated by mail—at a time when a letter from New York to London took a week to arrive—or, in situations of real urgency, by cable. It was only in the very last stages of the drama that they could even contact one another on the telephone, and then only with some difficulty.
