ATTACK AND DEFENCE

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 33, 7 August 1925, Page 7

ATTACK AND DEFENCE

EFFECTS OF ADOPTION

EQUILIBRIUM RESTORED.

(UNITES PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPMIOM.) IKSVIEB'S rELIOKAM.) LONDON, sth August. The House of Commons, after a vigorous defence of the gold standard by Mr. Churchill, Chancellor of the Exchequer* read' a second time the Appropriation" Bill.

Professor H. B. Lees Smith attacked the return to the gold standard as premature, and blamed it for the increasing unemployment. He complained that there was no decrease in internal to correspond with the increase in- external prices. He added-: "Everybody knows that the Australian Government has been told to raise money in New York, and not here." . (Mr. Churchill said no responsible party bad challenged the principle of the gold standard. He proceeded: "If wo had not taken this action, the rest of the Empire would have taken it without us, and the outcome would have been a gold standard, not jof the pound sterling, but.of the dollar." Amofig the solid and remarkable factors to be considered as consequences of the gold standard, Mr. Churchill mentioned that capital issues for domestic purposes in the first six months of 1925 were more than double the similar issues in the first six months of 1924. Sterling had recovered parity with the gold dollar, and had established the equilibrium of the Australian and South African currencies. The Bank of England's gold had increased by eight or nine millions, the general money rate had eased, and the general tendency in foreign countries towards stabilisation had increased. For instance, India could now consider the stealing rate at which to stabilise the rupee. Mr. Churchill added that the coal subsidy was very objectionable, but was greatly preferable to a veiled subsidy on exports.