EXIT THE MARK

Evening Star, Issue 18252, 17 April 1923, Page 7

EXIT THE MARK

The disappearance of the _ mark as a lerious monetary guarantee is forecasted by M. Jules Descarnps, in an important article in a Paris newspaper, says the Paris correspondent of ‘ Tlie Times.’ Germany' is now thinking in terms of gold, and is fixing prices, obtaining credits, and conducting exchanges on the permanent gold standard. The raising of tho dollar loan is interpreted as a preliminary step toward tho abandonment of gigantic issues of worthless paper money, and the establishment of a new financial order.

Germany has 5,000,000.000,000 paper marks in circulation compared with 122,000,000,000 last year. The unusual steadiness of the mark since the occupation of the Ruhr is due, says M. Descamps, to tho Reiohsbank’s price-fixing in accordance with policy, but behind the screen the mark continues to depreciate. New monetary systems are being adopted by agriculturists, who pay wages In kind. Leases and property are transferred at prices calculated in real goods. Industrialists pay workers partly in foodstuffs and other necessaries.

Hanover and Westphalia regard the quintal of coal as a monetary unit. Odenburg and Mecklenbnrg-Schwerin have issued bonds reckoned in barley. Tho Baden gasworks guarantees a loan in coal. All these are temporary expedients. The real goal is the adoption of the gold standard.