THE NIAGARA’S GOLD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24855, 3 March 1942, Page 6

THE NIAGARA’S GOLD

TO THE EDITOR Sir,—A great deal of newspaper space has been devoted to the recovery of the Niagara gold. Those concerned are entitled to all praise and admiration for their triumph over unprecedented difficulties, but just 1 what has this .got to do with the war effort or with the nation’s real resources? Nothing has been added to the available supply of men. material or equip- 1 merit, and now that the United States, the ultimate buyer of gold, is in the war, we cannot even claim to be obtaining more material aid from a nonbelligerent through the expenditure of ships, men, equipment and explosives used in the 12 months of salvage work. So £2,250.000 of “gold,” taken out of a mine, sunk by another kind of-mine, has been recovered with much effort, and will eventually be buried again at Fort Knox, Kentucky, where any attempt to reach it will be foiled by more explosives or water. Since, and while, our leaders continue to regard this artificially overvalued metal as vitally important, I have a practical suggestion to make with the object of preventing waste of potential war material. Men and equipment and engineering skill are still engaged on gold production instead of the needs of war and industry. Let us assess what is probably there and issue our paper or figures against the assessment! What difference would it have made if, instead of recovering the sunken Niagara’s bullion, the bank had simply shipped the same quantity from its vaults to me original destination, and shown on its books that the gold was held in a safe place off the coast near Whangarei instead of in its vaults? We knew it was there, which is obviously all that mattered. We only know by report that immense quantities are stored at Fort Knox. We never see it, and do not want to. Of course, it is the men and materials themselves that really count, and without them the paper money or figures issued against the gold would have no value in war or peace. When we learn and apply that, we shall have destroyed one of the enemy’s greatest advantages.—l am, etc., John Hogan. Dunedin. Feb. 26. TO THE EDITOR Sir, —It seems pertinent to inquire in what way our war effort is assisted by the much-trumpeted recovery of the Niagara’s gold. Men and machines have been employed in the hazardous work—and what will be the result? As has been observed, Hitler carved up Europe without a sixpence worth of gold in the bank, and Japan does not seem to find the need of it in order to win victories —not ultimate, of coursein the Pacific. I

It is interesting also to know that the Commonwealth Bank sponsored the enterprise: and it would be more interesting to ascertain what the future of this gold is to be. Will it be conveyed to Amerida to be buried again in subterranean vaults, at the cost of more labour and pains? And in the brave new world we are being promised after the war, is gold to be kept as the fetish by which the financier is to rule again as he has ruled before? If so, we may look for yet another and bigger war before another generation has passed. Are we to be treated to another return to gold—“to honest money ’’ as we were told it was in 1925, in reality the most dishonest money that ever was foisted on an ignorant and long-suffering people. I listened lately to a master mariner telling of what he saw during the last war at Jarrow-on-Tyne—24 destroyers being built at once on the slipways, another coming on as each was launched. When he went back in later years, after the bankers had made their “return to honest money ” regardless of the vital interests of British industry and people, “there was,” he said, “nothing but slag heaps there.” The slipways had been dismantled, the machinery sold as scrap, the workmen dispersed on the dole, and we began this awful—but, we hope, final—struggle with 200 destroyers as against 500 in 1914. How long will it take for this gold superstition to die?— l am, etc,, Truth. Dunedin, March 2.