Russians Consider Gold Rouble

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30687, 1 March 1965, Page 13

Russians Consider Gold Rouble

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright> LONDON, Feb. 28. Sir George Bolton, one of Britain's leading bankers, has criticised the Labour Government for its relations with leaders of finance and industry. Sir George Bolton, chairman of the Bank of London and South America and a director of the Bank of England, said: “1 believe few would contradict me when I suggest that our Government is doing little to make the City—meaning finance and in-dustry-feel happy about the present or the future. “There is, for example, that little matter of a debt of 3000 million dollars which matures on May 31.” Eleven European, Japanese and American central banks jointly made 3000 million dollars available to the Bank of England last November when sterling was under pressure.

Sir George Bolton said there was “a conflict between the inherited belief of the Socialists that profits, interest and dividends are bad things, whereas the City knows that there is no escaping from the ultimate test of efficiency which underlies all industrial and financial organisation—the test is do they make a profit or not?”

An interesting phenomenon at the present moment was the spectacle of real Socialists, the Russians, investigate ing the profit motive in an endeavour to find an effi-

ciency test for the productive unit of a Russian planned economy.

The Russians were contemplating introducing a gold rouble.

“That Is going back to the 19th century with a vengeance,” Sir George Bolton said.