INVESTORS SAFE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 56, 8 March 1937, Page 9

INVESTORS SAFE

FRENCH DEFENCE LOAN

VARIATIONS IN CURRENCY

BIG SUM WANTED

Walled Tress' Association—By Electric Tele-

graph—Copyright.)

PARIS, March 6.

The issue of the defence loan which was announced following yesterday's Cabinet meeting has been postponed at least until March 10 owing to the necessity of modifying technicalities of the monetary law regarding free negotiation of, gold and clarifying the position. The experts managing the exchange fund expected the essential measures to be passed by March 9.

Accordingly a broadcast ■by President Lebrun, which was to have been made tomorrow night as a "solemn appeal to the nation" to support the loan, has been postponed- It will be the first time that any President has broadcast such an appeal. The loan bonds will guarantee compensating the holders of gold for every decline in the franc. No French Government has given such a guarantee since the 1926 crisis. PERMANENT SOLUTION. M. Blum, in a' broadcast address tonight, explained that the measures aimed at permanently solving a situation in which mere expedients were dangerous and devaluation disastrous. He pointed out that the Government expected the repatriation of imported capital. The loan was being issued in francs, pounds, and dollars, which are the currencies of the Powers which signed the.monetary agreement in October. -The investor will thereby be protected against variations of currencies and could -be repaid in the | most advantageous of them. M. Blum pointed out that the Government required £200,000,000, which was normal in at crisis. As half that amount corresponded with the extraordinary armaments credits it had been decided to ■'cover them by loan.