THE SOVEREIGN

Otago Witness, Issue 3488, 18 January 1921, Page 22

THE SOVEREIGN

ITS RETURN INDEFINITELY POSTPONED. (Feom Oup. Own Correspondent.) AUCKLAND, January 13. A leading financial man in the city was asked to-day if gold would soon return to circulation, and « the familiar coins of prewar days would replace the bank notes which now form our currency. "Not for a long, long time,” he said. "The return of the sovereign is indefinitely postponed, because it lias too much work to do elsewhere.” He explained that it was just as well that sovereigns did not appear in circulation at this juncture, because with the fluctuations of trade and values throughout the world there would be a race to acquire and to hoard them, thus curtailing the work in the commercial world that the sovereign had to do. The Lnitcd Ftates absorbed great quantities of gold during the war. Trainloads of it came from Ottawa and Yladivostock to pay for the munitions Great Britain and Russia bought. The immediate effect, was an inflation of currency, easy credits, trade expansion, wild extravagance, and tiie inevitable reaction from which America is now suffering. "Sovereigns are not likely to Le in general circulation agum m New Zealand for a long time to come,” said the authority questioned on the matter. “Their return depends o.n so many unknown factors in trade and finance that he would be a wizard indeed who could make an accurate forecast, but that need make no difference to the ordinary man. His notes are just as good as gold for all purposes, and he has thq assets of the country behind them.”