THE MONEY MEDIUM.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 142, 18 June 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE MONEY MEDIUM.

In an introduction to the annual report of the London Chamber of Com merce it is stated that if tariffs are to achieve their purpose they will certainly result in a big additional demand for credit from the banks. Tariffs must, it is claimed, bring even nearer the time when Britain will be obliged to face the question of a reform of its monetary system in conjunction with such other countries as are prepared to co-operate with it. This, the report continues, is the vital issue to which circumstances in the next few months will compel attention; it cannot much longer be evaded, and no other measure will prove a substitute for it. “It would greatly assist, in bringing about agreement among those nations willing to co-op-erate with Great Britain, if the same monetary system were Adopted by all of them/’ states the report. “This does not, of course, mean a uniform currency, but merely uniform banking practice. No monetary system which might be adopted by such a group as that envisaged could be regarded as satisfactory unless it fulfilled two requirements. Firstly, it should enable the currency of each country within the group to expand and contract automatically with the activity of business; and it should give to the consumer the fullest possible purchasing power. Secondly, in its international aspect, it should tend to raise the standard of living of the least advanced country toward that of the most advanced, and not vice versa. While great developments have taken place in recent years in the science of production and in the social structure, the science of money has lagged behind, and it is difficult to regard gold as an 1 honest broker’ when a debt contracted 12 years ago requires to discharge it, in commodities, from three to three and a-half times its original commodity value, apart altogether from the annual interest.”