WAR DEBTS AND GOLD

Waipa Post, Volume 45, Issue 3212, 4 August 1932, Page 3

WAR DEBTS AND GOLD

" War debts caused the gold disease, but the cancellation or suspension of war debts, although obviously necessary and imperative, will not now stop the disease," said Mr Winston Churchill in a recent speech. " You may rub a sore place until you engender a cancer. You have to leave off rubbing then, but when you do the cancer still goes on. What we have to deal with now is the progressive devaluation of all human effort in terms of gold and scrip, and this carries with it week by week the progressive weakening and shrinkage of all the credit instruments and confidence upon which civilised society rests. The monetary system of the world is now in a state where the mere cessation of the original evil will not arrest the progress of its lamentable consequences. " To find the cure we must do something quite different from the simple adjusting of war debts and reparations. That is why I am so glad the Government has favoured the plan of a world conference on the money question in order to arrest this remorseless deflation still in progress and to revaluate commodities up to teh normal level of prosperity. There are two tasks before this world conference. The first is to discover the best technical method by which the devaluation of commodities can be substantialy arrested, and the second is to invest that process with the atuhority which will command and hold the confidence of the most powerful States and communities, and of the investing classes in every land."