FIRST CALL UP.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 43, 20 February 1940, Page 7

FIRST CALL UP.

BRITISH DOLLARS. Investors Must Sell Stocks To] Government. MOBILISING- SECURITIES. United Press Association. —Copyright. (Received 1.30 p.m.) LONDON, February 19. A Treasury order announces the first call-up of Britain's dollars. It compels investors in the United Kingdom with holdings in 60 nominated United States railway and industrial undertakings to sell them to the Government for cash, which it is hoped to reinvest in British Government stocks. It is believed that a sum of £. 24,000,000 is involved. Saturday's Wall Street prices will be paid at an exchange rate of 4 dollars 3i cents to the pound. A message from New York says: It is felt that the sequestration of British investors' holdings in America may portend an expansion of British purchases in the United States, says the Washington correspondent of the "New York Times."

The sequestration is generally welcomed, as it is felt that liquidation by the Bank of England will be far more orderly than by small holders. There is no hint of a shortage of dollar exchange, as the large British balances are constantly replenished by steady sales of gold and securities.

The mobilisation of American securities has not affected the stock market appreciably, says a New York cable. Some of the securities which have been mobilised have firmed, however.