SYDNEY SUN CABLES.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIX, Issue 13909, 10 November 1919, Page 6

SYDNEY SUN CABLES.

SILVER SPOONS GO. MELTING POT PROFITS. LONDON. October 27. Hatton Garden firms are buying and melting down great quantities of silver tableware, vases, candlesticks, and ornaments. They are paying 3s 4d an 0 Qunee over the pre-war costs of hall- c marked articles. ~ Needy people of the middle class are i among the largest suppliers, and many s are parting with their last silver spoon, r being content to re-stock when normal times return. Monev changers have sold to Hatton E Garden'buyers hundreds of thousands of ounces of foreign silver coins, chiefly French and Swiss. Newspapers, discussing the question of substitutes for the English shilling, publish strong objections to the intro- J Suction of a small paper currency on hygienic grounds. The Finance Committee of the London Chamber ofCommerce supports the _ immediate introduction of nickel, which is worth at present under 2d per ounce. The Paris correspondent of the Times says that the small change crisis is most acute. The Shopkeepers' Federation is appealing to the Government to find a solution. '> MANDATES FOR, DOMINIONS. LONDON, October 25. .The new status of the Dominions is being widely discussed in view of Sir James Allen's statement in New Zealand that an Imperial Order-in-Council was sufficient to legalise New Zealand's rule over Samoa. ■ Professor Berriedale Keith, in a letter to the Times, asserts that this has been true under the old regime, but the Dominions now acquire their rights ovef former German territories from the League of Nations direct. Professor Keith argues that the Dominions will surrender their new standing as equal nations if they accept their rights as from Britain, instead of from the League. This view is not generally accepted, because the Peace Conference agreed that the mandates j should be issued by the British Empire !in the name of the King of England,, on the understanding that Ms' powers would be delegated to the Dominions. The Manchester Guardian argues that if the Dominion becomes involved in a dispute concerning a mandated country the decision will rest with the League and not? with Britain. "The importance of this point,' says the paper, "is realised in America, where the Republicans propose that Britain and her Dominions should be restricted to one vote in the League Council on matters in which they are involved. We fear this will be unpopular in the Dominions, where the determination is increasingly visible to assert full individuality to the limits compatible with the holding of the Empire together."