FUTURE OF GOLD

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21304, 25 March 1939, Page 17

FUTURE OF GOLD

AMERICA S ENORMOUS HOLDING NO FEARS FOR FUTURE united Press Association —By Electrh Telegraph—Cnpvrt eh t (Received March 24, 5.5 p.m.) WASHINGTON. March 23. The Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Henry Morgenthau) in a twenty-five page letter to the Senate Banking Committee’s request for an exposition of the American position on the gold question said: “There need not be any fear that the metal, of which the United States now holds over 15,000,000,000 dollars’ worth, or an excess of half the world's monetary stock, will cease to be the standard of value in international exchange, leaving the United States caught. Mr Morgenthau said: "The United Slates was likely to receive approximately a billion dollars of gold yearly from abroad until conditions settle, but that inflow need not worry, American recovery is the only cure for the gold flow, and International recovery the only means of correcting the maldistribution of th<‘ world’s gold. Mr Morgenthau insisted that the President’s power to change the value of the dollar was essential to national security. Old monetary concepts were no longer tenable, and it would be ruinous to return to gold of the preNew Deal valuation. Mr Morganthaus conducted: “The President has no present intention to reduce the price of gold from 35 dollars per ounce.”