[1] The Macmillan Committee was formed in 1929 by Royal Command 3897,[1] and it was tasked with determining whether the contemporary banking and financial system was helping or hindering British trade and industry.
[2] Scottish lawyer Hugh Pattison Macmillan was named as its chairman, although due to his lack of economic or financial expertise, he largely "remained in the background".
[3] Other members of the committee included Ernest Bevin, Lord Bradbury, R. H. Brand, Theodore Gregory, John Maynard Keynes, and Reginald McKenna.
However the committee insisted that monetary policy should be concerned with 'the maintenance of the parity of the foreign exchanges before the avoidance of the credit cycle and the stability of the price level.'
[5] The report was largely authored by Keynes, and it recommended several Keynesian policies such as nationalization of the Bank of England (which later happened in 1946) and government regulation of international trade.