LEAKAGE IN GOLD COIN

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7110, 23 April 1910, Page 5

LEAKAGE IN GOLD COIN

SOVEREIGNS THAT VANISH. OVER A QUARTER OF A MILLION 'A YEAR. SOME LIKELY AVENGES. It is extremely probable that if the man in the street ■wore told that rather over a quarter of a million golden voveroigns literally vanish every your in New Zealand, he would look upon ?:ie person making Use statement with a great deal of suspicion. Ibir. strange ns it may oceni, such is actually the ease, if figures oompib-d by so undoubted :an authority as Air Carroll, secretary of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, are to be relied upon. Air Carroll has gone into the matter very cure* fully, finding the investigation a most interesting one, and has usee. tained taut between the end of 1932 ami flic beginning of this -year, about .£1,930,780 in hard cash had leaked away, leaving absolutely no trace behind it. This works out at about £273.000 per annum, the disappearance of which is, to cay the least of it, mysterious. THE LEAKAGE DISCOVERED.

“Yes, it is certainly a very curious tiling that so largo a Emm 'of money should vanish every year in so small a community as this/" remarked Air Carroll, when discussing the phenomenon with a “New Zealand Times'-' reporter yesterday. Then ho explained how he had first discovered that tho leakage was going on. Many years ago, ho said, ho noticed that tho banking returns did not seem to reflect or give proper evidence of the very large amount of coin that was—and is—constantly being imported into New Zealand. Putting tho figures together, ho found that the diver-: genco during a few years was very large. Ho made inquiries, discussed the matter with different people, and at length satisfied himself that there were, many directions in which gold coin was being used up. To arrive at some exact conclusion upon tho mutter, lie look the amount of coin shown in the banking veturns on a certain date/ added tho imports of coin for the term of years for which he wished to make the comparison, deducted the exports daring the same period, and then, compared tho result with the amount of coin in the hands of the banks at the end of the term. Naturally, one would have expected 1o find some sort of a balance between the two sets of figures compared, and there would bo if there were no leakage, but as a matter of fact they were very far indeed from balancing. This was strikingly shown by the figures for the past seven years, v.n already quoted. WHERE DOES IT GO? Of course, said Mr Carroll, a certain amount of gold coin is lose, and frequently sovereigns and half-sovereigns arc made up into ornaments, but tills would not nearly account for over a quarter of a million of money in a year. Where then docs it go? He .ihvught ho had found a few of tho-channels through which the leakage occurs. Dentists, for instance, are rather fond of using'a sovereign or two for tho purpose of making a dental plate, while jewellers often find it more convenient to work with a gold coin than with virgm gold. In this case, they know that the gold- has been previously skilfully treated and purged of all impurities* that might give them trouble in manufacture. Small pieces of iridium or some similar mineral might be found in the virgin gold, however, and cause a great‘deal of trouble. SQUEEZED INTO MEDALS,

One striking instance of this preference on the part or jewellers was. furnished seme years r.go when the Government ordered 200 go id medals for use as passes bv members of Parliament. The, jeweller who secured the contract simply look 200 sovereigns, put thorn in his stamping machine with a special die, and turned out the required medals very easily indeed, by giving the coins a good ssqueose into the new shape and design. _ Then another source of leakage is in the mouor taken away by colonists leaving New ‘Zealand for trips abroad. They will take, perhaps, one hundred or ono hundred and fifty sovereigns with them for expenditure upon the ship and at ports of call on the way Europcwards, having, pvchaps, sufficient also to save them from being under the immediate necessity of negotiating letters of credit on arrival at tlic-ir destination. But on the return journey their pockets arc usually more or less empty, so that they arc not responsible for the importation <jf much specie. Then, again, Chinamen leaving for their homeland after a spell of 1 residence 1 in .New Zealand, usually take their little hoard, perhaps £•>00 or £2OO. with them in English sovereigns, while at times of exodus to Australia working people usually take the proceeds of their selling-up with thorn in the form of gold, Mr Carroll said that he had also ascertained that the Pan Francisco mail boats inwardly used to take their not earnings away from New Zealand in English sovereigns, for which there was a very good demand in the United States. He does not know if this- particular form of leakage still continues, but it is, to his mind, quite possible that it does. There may be. probably # arc, many other ways in which gold coin is used iip or taken away without leaving any trace behind it, but it is manifestly impossible to discover them all • without prolonged investigation. Those mentioned are sufficient to show that the leakage is a reality .and no myth.