PAPER MONEY WANTED.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13939, 26 June 1909, Page 3

PAPER MONEY WANTED.

If we should see two African tribes adjust their trade balances by gravely sending an ivory tu'sk from one camp to the other and as gravely returning the same package six months later, " civilisation'' (says an American paper), would sneer at the. heathen. Exports and imports of gold are on a pai with such a proceeding in Africa America and Europe, with the. deepest gravity, send shiploads of gold back and forth at nearly stated seasons of each year. There must be real gold. It does not matter that very frequently gold imported from Europe will lie in the American assay office unpacked for six months and then be returned to London or Paris in the identical package in which it had arrived. The shifting back and forth of the metal at considerable expense and at the risk of total loss at. sea is at present the only method of satisfying certain international trade needs. It is cumbersome, inconvenient and barbaric. Mr Cortelyou, Secretary to the Treasury in Mr Roosevelt's Cabinet, suggested a most rational plan to supersede the old order. He proposed the creation of international gold certificates, based on gold and good as gold, for such importing: and exporting purposes. We have gold certificates for money and everybody accepts them .and nearly evervone prefers them to the actual metal which they represent. Such certificates could be sent back and forth between Anierica and Europe without trouble, at scarcely any expense and at no peril of loss, since their intrinsic value is, virtually nothing..