GREAT BRITAIN AND GOLD.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20898, 4 July 1933, Page 9

GREAT BRITAIN AND GOLD.

DEFENCE OF CURRENCY. NEED FOR REGULATION. ! rsi'l'm ,\s'Mjr|,\Tlin'- 'Y F.I.r.i'TJUC TKJ.BGfJ A f'JJ COTY tf )G HT. > (Received July ?>, 7 p.m.) LONDON. July 3. The ' Daily Telegraph" learns that Great Britain is issuing a declaration simultaneously with that of the gold bloc, asserting a determination to defend Great Britain's currencies at any cost. The British declaration emphasises (1) The imdesirabilitv of States entering into currency competition in order to acquire a temporary advantage in international trade. (2) The need for regulating cun" ' to smooth out, as far as resources permit, the fluctuation in the exchange due to .speculative influences. DECLARATION OF THE POWERS.

THE ULTIMATE OBJECTIVE. LONDON. July 2. The text of the gold declaration concludes:— "The Governments subscribing to this declaration, whose countries are not on the gold standard, recognise the importance of the declaration without prejudicing their own future ratios in gold, and reiterate that the ultimate objective of their currency policy is to bring back an international standard based on gold, under proper conditions. The Government of each non-gold country agrees to adopt effective measures to limit exchange speculation, the other signatory Governments undertaking to co-operate with the same end in view. Each Government agrees to ask its central bank to co-operate with other central banks in limiting speculation, and. at the proper time, reinaugurating an international gold standard."

AMERICAN CURRENC Y ATTITUDE. i ROOSEVELT'S STATEMENT. PERMANENT STABILISATION IN VIEW. (Received July 4, 1.25 a.m.) LONDON, July 3. Mr Cordell Hull (leader of the American delegation) has issued President Roosevelt's statement on currencies, as follows: "I regard it as a catastrophe, amounting to a world tragedy, if the conference, which has been called to bring permanent financial stability and greater prosperity, should, before any serious effort has been made to consider this problem, allow itself to be diverted by purely artificial and temporary proposals affecting the monetary exchange of only a few nations. Diversion of this nature shows a singular lack of proportion, and a failure to remember the larger purposes for which the conference was assembled. "Our broad purpose is the permanent stabilisation of every nation's currency. America seeks the kind of dollar which a generation hence will have the same purchasing and debt-paying power as the dollar value we hope to attain in the near future. That objective means more to the good of other nations than a fixed ratio for month or two in terms of the £ or the franc. "Gold or gold and silver can well continue to be the metallic reserve behind the currencies, but this is not the time to dissipate gold reserves. Temporary fixing of the exchanges will not assure the restoration of world trade. We must rather mitigate the existing embargoes."