CONFIDENCE IN STERLING

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28481, 10 January 1958, Page 11

CONFIDENCE IN STERLING

U.S. Recession “Main Threat”

(Rec. 11.30 p.m.) LONDON, January 8. The “Financial Times’* Mid today that the American recession, which limits the world's supply of dollars, was now the main single threat to international confidence in sterling. In a leading article emphasising the problem facing the Government of avoiding “another sterling crisis this summer” the newspaper said there were serious disadvantages to the policies so far suggested to deal with the capital weakness of the sterling area. The newspaper Mid: "Perhaps another way out is suggested by the speech Sir David Eccles. the President of the Board of Trade, made recently in the United States. "He said then that Europe, the Commonwealth and the United States could merge their economic interests in such a way as to achieve the efficiency of coordination of the Communist Moe. "From the American point of view the sterling area Is an international asset to the maintenance of the economic prosperity of the free world. -Any devaluation of sterling, with its world-wide repercussions on the under-developed areas, would be a' major economic victory for communism. “It would be entirely reaeonsble for the United States to offer not just some further loans, which might do relatively little good, but a joint effort to provide tor the future of the sterling system. “No-one could expect such a merging of economic policies to be achieved to the couroe of a few weeks or months,” the newspaper said. “The mere statement that the United States regarded the support of sterling as an American national interest—as It is, although the United States Ims not always seen it to this way—would go a long way to remove the psychological anxieties which seem to come so hard to each summer season.”

U.S. Military Stockpile

(Rec. 8 p.m.) WASHINGTON. January 8.

The Office of Defence Mobilisation said yesterday that the United States military stockpiling programme was more than 91 per cent complete to dollar terms.

It Mid the goal was to snaM a three-year supply of strategic materials which would be needed in time of war. In its semi-annual report to Congreas, the Office of Defence Mobilisation Mid the goals tor 63 of the 78 stockpile items were attained by June 30, 1957. Some progress had been made since, a spokesman said. As a result the Government planned to spend lew than 300.000,000 dollars to the future to acquire the 13 materials for wjiich a three-year supply had not yet been built up. "The stockpile position for muscovite block and film mica is still not satisfactory,” said the report. Of asbestos, it declared: “Potential shortages of amosite asbestos to an emergency remain a major concern.*’

AIR RADIO

Tests Made From New Zealand (Rec. 10 p.m.) NEW YORK, January g. A push-button device enabling a pilot to establish contact with a station without the use of a radio telephone is being tested by Pan American World Airways to cooperation with the New Zealand Government. Announcing this today the New York office of PA. A. Mid the device was called the "Auto Alert." When the button was pushed automatic switching caused the aircraft's radio to send out distinctive tone and identification signals on two frequencies constantly monitored by ground stations. The signals continued until the pilot spoke into his radio-tele-phone. / were taking • the *1 between Fiji: sWsnnl and •“’•tend, the