PROFITABLE TRADE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26200, 10 July 1946, Page 5

PROFITABLE TRADE

DOLLARS AT DISCOUNT CANADIAN BORDER DEALS AN EXCHANGE OVERSIGHT (Rec. 11 p.m.) NEW YORK. July 8. Post offices in Detroit, which is just over the border from Canada, did a ■roaring business to-day, as a loophole in the American-Canadian financial relations provided the way to easy money. The bonanza, however, was short-lived. The United States postal

authorities, after an estimated 100,000 dollars’ worth of business had been done in a few hours, clamped down on the sales of Canadian money orders. The boom began when the word spread that such money orders could still be bought at 9 per cent, discount, in spite of Canada's restoration of the Canadian dollar to parity with the American dollar. One Detroit resident alone bought 22,000 dollars’ worth of 100-dollar money orders at the usual deduction in exchange. The Canadian Post Office, also the banks at Windsor, Ontario, just across the river from Detroit, reported a similar rush to cash money orders at the par value. On normal days the Canadian money order business at Detroit’s main post office is 350 dollars. The reason for the buyers’ rush was the failure of the Washington authorities to give instructions to the post offices to deal in Canadian money orders at par.