GOLD STANDARD

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 7 August 1925, Page 5

GOLD STANDARD

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ADVANTAGES ENUMERATED,

STATEMENT BY CHANCELLOR,

8Y CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION —COPYRIGHT LONDON, Aug. 5.

The House of Commons, after a vigorous defence of the gold standard by the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Winston Churchill), read a second time the Appropriation Bill. Mr. H. 1L Lees-Smith (Labour) attacked the return to the gold standard as premature, and blamed it for increasing unemployment. He. complained that there was no decrease in internal prices to correspond with the increase in external prices. He added: “Everybody knows the Australian Government was told to raise money' in New York, and not here.” Mr Churchill said that no responsible party had challenged the principle of the "gold standard. “If we had not taken this action,” lie said, “the rest of the Empire would have taken it without us, and the outcome would have been a gold standard, not of the pound sterling, but of the dollar.” Among the solid and remarkable factors to be considered as consequences of the gold standard, Mr. Churchill mentioned that the capital issues for domestic purposes for the first six months 0f*1925 exceeded bv more than double ‘the similar issues for the first six months of 1924. The sterling recovered tiaritv with the gold dollar and established the equilibrium of Australian and South African currencies, the Bank of England’s gold increased from £8,000,000 to £9,000,000. and the general money rate eased. The general tendency in foreign countries towards stabilisation increased. For instance, India could now consider a sterling rate at which to stabilise the rupee. Mr. Churchill added that the coal subsidy was very objectionable, but it was greatly prelerable to a veiled subsidy on exports.