MONETARY PROPOSALS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25305, 16 August 1943, Page 4

MONETARY PROPOSALS

Sir, —The Finance Minister is reported to have said that the new monetary proposals put forward by the United States and Britain respectively were now under consideration by the Government of this country, and that ample time for discussion would be given before the proposals were adopted. This appears to convey that the Government intends to submit the proposals to the House for discussion and adoption. If so, the Government is preparing to advance a step further in> betrayal of its 1935 monetary reform pledge by delivering this country, bound hand and foot, into the powers of Wall street finance. The focus around which the whole elaborate proposals are built is a world-wide return to the gold standard—the very step which precipitated the great world slump of 12 years ago, and which Mr Winston Churchill (then Chancellor of the Exchequer) admitted that he had never ceased to regret. The new international currency, whether called “ unitas ” or “ bancor,” would be obtainable by the various nations only by payment in gold, which, in turn, can only be purchased by goods; and since the United States holds the virtual monopoly of the world’s gold the enactment of these proposals would, by one easy stride, place Wall street finance in the position of world dictator. —I am, etc., S.