Tariffs and Gold Hoarding

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 7062, 23 January 1933, Page 7

Tariffs and Gold Hoarding

Per Press Association

HASTINGS, Last Night.

The Governor-General attended the Napier Chamber of Commerce Jubilee dinner at Napier last evening, the function being held in conjunction with the “New Napier" Carnival which is being held at the present time. Speaking on tho subject of tho gold standard and overproduction, his Excellency stated that if there wore a plentiful supply of gold or whatever might be tho token or medium of world commodity exchange and if, in thi3 absonco of national tariffs, bounties and cartels, cheapness wero allowed free play, local surpluses would flow naturally (to where thero is scarcity and be bought freely with a plentiful currency. “Tho extraordinary factor," die continued, “ particularly marked on the Continent of Europe is that with the fall in tho open world market prices the demand has not increased as it inevitably would have done under normal conditions and universal freedom of trade. “But for the man-made impediments imposed in the supposed national interests the cheapness of food would have increased its consumption and facilitated tho absorption of the world’s output. Similarly there is said to be no actual deficiency of tho rocognised medium of exchange—gold—but the aggregation of over CO per cent, of what is normally employed in the international exchange in tho coffers of two nations in tho world not only reduces commodity values in terms of gold but clogs the wheels of international exchange and incidentally prevents an equitable .settlement of old-standing international obligations. “In the meantime the old-fashioned clumsy system of the barter of one commodity for another is being attempted in several countries and bimetallism is being advocated in many quarters. ’ ’ Continuing, his Excellency said an international readjustment was pressing and inevitable unless economic adversity and a serious lowering of the general scale of living were to become normal instead of temporary world factors, and that needed to be recognised and acted upon at tho forthcoming International Conference. Such a readjustment would dispel from the minds of efficient and alert primary producers the bogey of overproduction and the fear that their occupation was becoming permanently unprofitable. •