THE WORLD’S GOLD

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16539, 5 January 1928, Page 10

THE WORLD’S GOLD

* PROBLEM OF THE FUTURE.. LONDON, Nov. 20, Mr. A. M. -Samuel, ALP., Parliamentary Department, of Overseas Trade, who was the:principal speaker at the inaugural meeting of the Junior Chamber of Commerce in Sheffield, dwelt upon the need for further development of markets overseas. ■ ■; We had .scarcely made a bid for Californian trade, he said, but there was a market waiting there Tor expensive clothes, underclothing and hosiery, woollen and worsted goods, fine linens, decorative : pottery 1 and porcelains, upholstery, fabrics, silver table ware, and cutlery' of Tine design, glass table ware, portmanteaux, -saddlery, golf and tennis goods, and Sports clothes and shoes. All should be “quality goods”; high Tariffs, di,d not keep quality goods out of the United States. Another field, was Virginia, but there, as in all cases, they must stuck goods on the spot arid offer them in person; agencies and stocks in New York and Chicago will not do. There was plenty of wealth in California, and if the buyer-.-got . there quality and style, cost was' a minor consideration to him. They mustsend energetic young. men- to the Pacific Coast with- samples' to shew and stocks to sell. The. repercussion of a successful British export trade to the Pacific Coast-'of flic United-States would be felt beneficially -by ■ Britain in the markets of Far East.' Asia, Because to San Francisco; Los ’Angeles, and Seattle came purchasers- from Japan, China, the Malay States, and’ even New Zealand. “Unless fresh sources for 'flic production of gold are available,” con-' tinued Mr. Samuel, “or unless the central banks of the world work on a smaller ratio of gold for cover than is at present the ease, wq may see, at the end of* 20 years- from now a rise in the value of gold as a metal. This may mean a considerable fall in the world level of the prices of commodities. There is a constantly increasing absorption for gold 'standard currency purposes’, and an absorption, for the arts and. dentistry, equally constantly increasing,, of tlie £7.0.,000,000; worth of gold now yearly producod. The annual output has fallen from' £90,000,000 in the .not .distant past.. Twenty years hence £35,0,00*00.0 pf jjgoifi a year .from the Transvaal .may no longer be forthcoming. We-shall-then, be faced with a growing-demand for gold for gold-standard currency .purposes and for the arts and dentistry,for which the world supply will perhaps be not more • than. £40,000,.000. Up will go the price Of gold, which means down - will ■go the price of ' commodities. this - change will, of'course, be gradual. But- if we should sink to a world gold 'production of only £40,000,-000 annually I visualise a position which will have a. bewilderirig effect upon international' trade, comparable only with the postwar currency bedlam in which we'lived while the Continental exchanges were throwing all export trade "into confusion.

“Luckily, we have had considerable training during the last lO' vcfirs in currency problems, and we.'shall not be •taken unawares if we are called upon to find remedies, be they in tho‘form of a managed currency, a platinum standard, a two-metal standard, -or simply a gold standard.” '