NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21099, 5 February 1932, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE PUZZLE OF THE POUND. There was published in this column on January 26 an extract from a letter written by Lord Sands in which he asked what is one pound if it does not, represent so much gold. I n a subsequent communication to the Scotsman ho quoted tho following observations from "a very eminent financial authority" : "There is, as you affirm, a puzzle in tho problem of the value of inconvertible paper. Moreover, it is a puzzle which is not capable of solution by any cold economic reasoning. There is tho human factor: If the pound sterling had first been adopted last year as a standard or unit of value, our whole commercial and financial system would havo collapsed the moment paper was declared to be inconvertible. The pound sterling, however, is bitten into the popular mind. People do not think in gold or in paper. They think in pounds. Doubtless, prices fluctuate, but, roughly speaking, one pound and with it. its equivalent, whether gold or paper, represents in the popular mind a certain measure of value in regard to goods, rents, interest, wages, and the standard of life. This deep-seated tradition is a prime factor in maintaining the value of the paper pound note, although where rot convertible into gold it represents no more than an abstract idea." In illustration of this explanation, Lord Sands cites an incident in a small town in tho north of Scotland where, owing to some unfounded report, thcrp was a run by depositors upon tho local branch of a large bank. The bank was able to satisfy all its customers, and they left quite content, carrying the bank's own notes in their pockets. BRITISH GOODS IN BRITAIN. The response to the "Buy British" campaign has been so great that retailers were finding it difficult to meet the insistent demand for British goods. "This may prove true of a few oversea Empire products, not normally in large or continuing supply, of which the whole available stocks are being rushed through the channels'of distribution to meet the demands of an urgent public at the counter," Mr. Malcolm • Macdonald, vice-chairman of the Empire Marketing Board, remarked. "In such cases there can be no immediate replacement. Wo must wait for fuller supplies next season and not be deterred by any temporary check from renewing our demand for them when they come. But when it comes to manufactured goods, nature, at any rate, sets no bar to a prompt increase of production; and striking evidence has reached the Empire Marketing Board that many British manufacturers are not merely feeling a quickened demand for their wares, but arc bending themselves to meet it., The public made the 'Buy British' campaign their own from tho start and they have carried it triumphantly through its first stage. It is now for British manufacturers to make themselves responsible for its second stage and to take advantage of this unique opportunity. Of course, they cannot bo expected to be quixotic—to change over their plant, for example, to meet small isolated orders without prospect of continuance. But, broadly speaking, now, in the United Kingdom market at least, is the British manufacturer's hour; and the manufacturer who does not set himself to fit and meet the public's taste will not merely liaVe lost an opportunity. Ho will have repulsed a generous and effective invitation made to him in the name of a whole people." INSURANCE AND GAMBLING. "When anyone sets out to find excuses for the silly and pernicious habit of gambling he soon finds that such arguments are difficult to produce. So he makes as much as possible of tho statement that all insurance is nothing but gangling," writes Canon Peter Green in the New Chronicle. "The whole end and object of gambling is that luck may be exploited so that one, or at most a few, may benefit and the rest may lose. And insurance has as its object that the effects of luck, good or bad, may bo as far as possiblo eliminated so that those who suffer from exceptional bad luck may find it eased by being distributed over many other people, and that those who have exceptional good luck may in like manner share its effects with others. . . If a man insures his goods against fire and for 50 years makes no claim, he has lost nothing. During those 50 years tie has received a perfectly real and tangible return; he has received security and on that his bank will .grant him an overdraft which it would riot have granted on uninsured property.' But if he has a fire and makes a claim lie' makes no profit. At least, if he should try to do so he is likely to have a somewhat disagreeable interview with his tiro assessor." Canon Green adds arguments and illust rat inns to show, that insurance is not legally, economically, morally, socially or practically gambling. "Does anyone know of a case of a man brought to ruin and disgrace by excessive indulgence in insurance?" lie asks. "Every policeman known 1 hat. in its effects insurance is different from gambling. . . Let us have no more of this fooling. Insurance and gambling are utterly distinct."