UPSET TO CONTROL OF DOLLAR

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 234, 1 July 1939, Page 11

UPSET TO CONTROL OF DOLLAR

Situation Described As Very Serious

PRESIDENT’S HURRIED RETURN (Received June 30, 11 p.m.) WASHINGTON, June 29. The Senate and House of Representatives committees gave Mr. Roosevelt the advantage over his Congressional foes tonight by voting to restore his power to devalue the dollar and continue his foreign- silver purchase policy, but the matter is certain to provoke a" fight in the Senate tomorrow when the Bill is introduced for ratification. There is a possibility ot a filibuster when the President’s monetary powers expire, which will be at midnight tomorrow. The indications point sharply to a temporary defeat for the Administration on the Monetary Bill, but there' is every prospect that a two-billion dollars stabilization fund will be renewed before the session ends. The President’s remaining power to devalue the dollar may be less certain of reinstatement, however, should it lapse. Upon the strongest urgings from Mr. Roosevelt when he hurriedly returned to Washington today from Hyde Park, the Administration leaders worked feverishly into the night trying to break the jam holding up this measure Also the 1,808,300,000 dollar relief Bill for the 1940 Works Progress Administration is left with only 24 hours of life unless new legislation is enacted.

The Senate and House committees announced at midnight that they had reached a compromise agreement over the relief Bill and predicted that their report would be accepted by both Houses tomorrow.

Endangering Agreement

The Washington correspondent of the “New York Times” says that the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. H. Morgenthau, commenting on the withdrawal by the Senate of the President’s power to devalue the dollar, said it might endanger the tripartite agreement 'with Britain and France.

Furthermore, said Mr. Morgenthau, if the entire Monetary Bill fails to complete its passage through Congress by tomorrow, the two billion-dollar stabilization fund would revert to the general funds of the Treasury and before it could afterward be tised in any international monetary 'stabilization undertaking, or as a weapon against competitive devaluation of currencies, it would have to be re-established by new legislation. He added that he considered the situation to be “serious, very serious.”