THE ALBERTA BONDS

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21866, 20 August 1936, Page 8

THE ALBERTA BONDS

TO THE EDITOR OFgTHS PRESS. Sir, —Mr D. C. Davie’s letter on this subject has a reference to the point raised by me as to the nature of “real money.” He says, “Any money that is issued under the laws of a sovereign State with the full confidence of the people behind it, is ‘real money,’ irrespective of whether it is issued as a bankers’ loan or issued by government decree as public credit.” This does not fully meet my difficulty. As things stand at present, money, whether issued by banks or governments, is issued under a system which makes it possible to make certain, payments in gold, where and when the occasion demands it. That the occasions for this may be rare does not alter the fact, nor would it be possible to obtain the “full confidence of the people’.’ unless this contingency were allowed for. Any government that issued money in excess of this standard would merely depreciate its currency. I am fully aware of the anomalies and absurdities that this involves, and I gave the instance of French municipal credit as showing that some kind of supplementary money might have its

place and use. But I still fail to see that this can, in all respects, have the same value and. utility as the other. I wish to retain an open mind oh these questions, hut it seems obvious to me that no country can issue money which will be accepted abroad until some universal standard is decided upon. In the same issue as Mr D. C. Davie’s letter, we have a complaining that owing to lack of finance book shelves could not be provided for a school library. There was plenty of timber, plenty of labour, plenty of food and clothing for the workers, and yet the work could not be done. This is surely an indication thgf some improvement is wanted in cur financial system, but we shall not make real progress towards a solution until all the difficulties of the problem are faced and overcome,—Yours, etc., ANALYST. August 19, 1936. .