U.S.A. SILVER

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 August 1934, Page 12

U.S.A. SILVER

TREASURY’S INITIAL PROFIT.

(by CABIX—P2ESB ASSN. —COPYBIGHT.]

WASHINGTON, August 10

Tho United States Treasury to-night disclosed that certificates are being printed against the silver that is hold in the •general fifhd on the basis of full monetary value of one dollar twenty-nine cents per ounce. Approximately sixty-two million ounces of silver have been acquired in various ways, including foreign war debt payments, at a cost of about 46,900,000 dollars, and this quantity of silver is affected by the programme that has been announced in a formal statement. ± The face value of the certificates to be issued against the 62 million ounces of silver will be about eighty million dollars, so the formal statement said, instead of the actual _cost price of the metal (nearly 47 million dollars), as had been previously understood. Other silver certificates also will be issued against the metal that has been acquired under the Silver Purchase Act, including the nationalisation ot silver at the full value of one dollar twentv-nino cents an ounce. Although, for the present, they are being only, in an amount, equal to Jhe cost of the • metal,, the.se* latter certificates printed from the seigniorage otsjlyer will be retained for the’present by the Treasury, as a profit, but they can put into circulation is desired under the terms of the law. RISING FOOD COSTS.

WASHINGTON, August 11. General rains in western sections of the United States during the past 24 hours, have relieved the acute hea,, and have perhaps aided some of the crops, but the major crisis still ex--ISThe U.S. Agricultural Department officials admitted to-day that, while the Government is still greatly concerned, and is extending aid impoverished farmers, the problem ot rising food costs has become all imP °Mr n Wallace has issued a statement frankly telling the public that higher prices could be expectetd m the autumn and the winter, and he intimated that it might be necessary for the Government to institute drastic regulations in order to prevent profiteering Mr Wallace also admitted that A.A.A. Crop curtailment programme must be “materially modified so as to prevent a food shortage. The Weather Bureau to-day issued charts showing that the current year is the hottest and driest by far for the 70 years during which the Bureau has operated. ALUMINIUM WORKS IDLE.

PITTSBURGH, August 11.

Six of the plants of the Aluminium Corporation of America, which is owned and controlled by the Mellon family, closed to-day, through a strike by fifteen thousand operatives. The strikers are demanding the recognition of their Union under the N.R.A., also higher wages and shorter hours. Peaceful picketing has been started at three of the plants here, and at the others in Missouri and in Tennessee, for a long-drawn-out battle.

WODEHOUSE INCOME TAX.

NEW YORK, August 11.

A tax lien, amounting to over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, has been filed with the Federal Court here against tl;e English author, P. G. Wodehouse. The lists show that one hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars of income tax has long been overdue and unpaid, and the remainder consists of penalties and of unspecified amounts on which taxes have been levied; but it is assumed that they represent the proceeds from the Wodehouse. novels, (published in Amereica, and from motion pictures.