DOCSLIB.ORG

Seventy-Third Congress, First Session

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Seventy-Third Congress, First Session L·w J ' l \Rs at nu gr tsslnnal SEVENTY-THIRD CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION ture of this State. Our business concerns have either closed out SENATE or are on the verge of doing so. Our industries are either de­ stroyed, stagnant, or in critical condition. Our homes are being TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 1933 lost. Many of our people are starving, Spartanlike, and large numbers of others are losing their self-respect through the accept­ (Legislative day of Monday, Apr. 17, 1933) ance of alms. The power of resistance of all is being lowered by The Senate met at 12 o'clock meridian, on the expiration the struggle against nervous shock. We have given earnest thought to our distress and find that our of the recess. plight is due to general conditions in the Nation and not to any Mr. THOMAS of Oklahoma. I suggest the absence of a local short-sightedness. Tax reductions, yes; and to the utmost, quorum. and maintain our social functions, but it was easier for our people with full earning power to pay our highest tax than it is for them The VICE PRESIDENT. The clerk will call the roll. to pay any tax now. If the depression continues much longer, it The Chief Clerk called the roll, and the fallowing Sen­ will not be p0ssible for our people to pay taxes at all because they ators answered to their names: will have no earning power. Adams Costigan Keyes Russell When the whole field of business and finance is surveyed and Ashurst Couzens King Schall appraised one fact alone stands in bold relief. The fact is, high Austin Cutting Logan Sheppard finance is the cause of this Nation's present trouble. High finance Bachman Dickinson Lonergan Shipstead sold the foreign currencies and foreign bonds to our people. High Bailey Dieterich Long Smith finance foisted a great load of unproductive debt upon this gener­ Bankhead Dill McAdoo Steiwer ation. High finance imposed upon the country the high tartfI Barbour Duffy McCa.rran Stephens which provided it with a dragnet of unearned profits. High finance Barkley Erickson McGill Thomas, Okla. provided the inftation for the market boom and the deflation for Black Fletcher McKellar Thomas, Utah the depression of fear. High finance is striving for the cancelation Bone Frazier McNary Townsend of the war debts. What high finance has done this time it has "Borah George Murphy Trammell dcne in on-e form or another repeatedly in the past. The American Bratton Glass Norbeck Tydings Brown Goldsborough Norris Vandenberg people must make up their minds as to whether they are fit to live Bulkley Gore Nye Van Nuys under a democracy and run their own affairs or whether they shall Bulow Hale Overton Wagner admit defeat and accept a rule as absolute as any tyranny and Byrd Harrison Patterson Walcott which lays an exhausting tribute upon them frbm generation to Byrnes Hastin.gs Pittman Walsh generation. Control of money and credit is the secret of its power. Capper Hatfield Pope Wheeler This is not the whole story of high finance. Its treatment of Caraway Hayden Reed White silver is one of its master strokes. There are many people in this Connally Johnson Reynolds Nation who only think they are opposed to silver, but the mem­ Coolidge Kean Robinson, Ark. bership of high finance well know they are opposed to silver. The Copeland Kendrick Robinson, Ind. farther away from New York the locality the .stronger is the sup­ Mr. KENDRICK. I wish to announ~e that the Senator port for silver, and the nearer to New York the section the weaker silver becomes. From New York the opposition is bitter, angry, from Missouri [Mr. CLARK] and the Senator from West Vir­ and unyielding. This the country may well view wit h suspicion. ginia [Mr. NEELY] are necessarily detained from the Senate. Indeed in the light of the facts now at hand the country might I also wish to announce that the Senator from Illinois [Mr. well feel safe to fully remonetize silver simply because high finance is opposed. The reason back of the opposition of high LEWIS] is necessarily detained from the Senate on official finance to silver is that silver is a driving spearhead into their business. I ask that these announcements stand for the day. control of the Nation's money and credit. The VICE PRESIDENT. Eighty-five Senators have an­ It appears strange there should be any opposition outside o! swered to their names. A quorum is present. W.all Street to silver, when it is remembered that the sentiment for the restoration of silver by world agreement is nearly unani­ THE JOURNAL mous. Even Wall Street wm assent to a wor ld conference. But On motion of Mr. ROBINSON of Arkansas, and by unani­ a world conference and a world agreement are vastly di1Ierent. The history to date of world conferences on any subject indicate mous consent, the reading of the Journal f01· the calendar there is little likelihood of an agreement on silver. The attitudes days of April 21, 22, and 24 was dispensed with and the of foreign nations since the war give little promiEe of acquiescence Journal was approved. in anything that will not be of their own especial interest. They have repudiated their currencies. They begged and implored our PETITIONS AND MEMORIALS help in the war. They cried for and secured drastic reductions in The VICE PRESIDENT laid before the Senate the follow­ their war debts. They are now defaulting on the remainder and demanding cancelation. They have gone off the gold standard, ing memorial of the House of Representatives of the State arbitrarily pegged their rates of exchange below ours and repudi­ of Arizona, which was referred to the Committee on Bank­ ated a large percent of their debts to ot her nations, and by this ing and Currency: action they delivered a body blow to this country, practically the STATE OF ARIZ-ONA, only nation left on an unchanged gold standard. That action pre­ OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY. vented their own nationals from buying in this country because UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, they could not pay the tariff and also stand the loss in exchange. State of Arizona, ss: It enabled other countries to buy in t.heir countries at great ad­ I, James H. Kerby, secretary o:I state, do hereby certify that the vantage with a stimulating effect to their trade. At the same time, Within is a true, correct, and complete copy of House Memorial 4, it neutralized to some extent the fall in the price of silver. This regular session, eleventh legislature, State of Arizona, entitled resulted to their advantage in trade with the silver-using nations, "Restoration of Silver as a Monetary Standard", all of which is from which trade we are still barred by our gold standard. They shown by the original engrossed copy on file in this department. have erected tariffs to offset ours. By all these means they have In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed us shut out of world trade. They have out-maneuvered us and the great seal of the State of Arizona. Done at Phoenix, the pushed us into a corner. Is it to be expected they will give us capital, this 29th day of March A.D. 1933. this advantage by restoring silver and thus allowing the silver {SEAL] JAMES H. KERBY, nations to trade with us? No doubt Wall Street will -agree to a Secretary of State. world conference with so slight a chance for silver. In 1925 silver was around 70 cents per ounce. That year House Memorial 4, Restoration of silver as a monetary standard England put India on the gold standard and began to dump To the honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the India silver on the market. This was followed by reducing the Unit ed St ates of Ameri ca in Congress assembled: silver content in the silver coins of England. Then France, Italy, Your memoriallst, the House of Representatives of the Eleventh Belgium, and other nations followed suit. From 1925 silver Legislature of the State of Arizona respectfully represents: dropped unt il in 1932 it reached 24 cents, an all-time low in The Legislature of Arizona is confronted with an economic de­ terms of gold since history or legend records any information. pression more desperate than any confronting a previous legisla- This process destroyed foreign markets for American agriculture LXXVII--146 2301 2302 _CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE APRIL 25 and enabled England and Europe to obtain, among other raw would demonstrate to the conference that some would have materials for their industries, American cotton and wheat at the authority to speak other than high finance because much of the lowest prices ever known. The American farmer, not being able matter disputed would have had already become a fact. to sell at a fair price at home because he was not protected, was The effect on trade and business of the rise in the price of now not able to sell except at a loss in the world market. This silver would be immediate. No fears need be entertained about process also had the effect of destroying more than one half the the Government getting the taxes with which to make silver purchasing power of one half the people of the earth with re­ purchases. Within a short time the present earning power of spect to their foreign trade. It has reduced their already low the Nation of 13 billion would be raised to its former figure of standards of life to still lower depths and is now contributing 80 billion.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • This PDF Is a Selection from an Out-Of-Print Volume from the National Bureau of Economic Research
    This PDF is a selection from an out-of-print volume from the National Bureau of Economic Research Volume Title: The International Gold Standard Reinterpreted, 1914-1934 Volume Author/Editor: William Adams Brown, Jr. Volume Publisher: NBER Volume ISBN: 0-87014-036-1 Volume URL: http://www.nber.org/books/brow40-1 Publication Date: 1940 Chapter Title: Book III, Part V: The Impact of the World Economic Depression on the International Gold Standard, 1929-1931 Chapter Author: William Adams Brown, Jr. Chapter URL: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c5947 Chapter pages in book: (p. 808 - 1047) PART V The Impact of the World Economic Depression on the International Gold Standard, 1929-1931 S CHAPTER 22 The International Distribution of Credit under the Impact of World-wide Deflationary Forces For about twelve months after the critical decisions of June 1927 the international effects of generally easy money were among the most fundamental causes of a world-wide upswing in business.1 Though prices in gold standard countries were falling gradually, increasing productivity would probably have forced them much lower had it not been for the ex- pansion of credit. There was an upward pressure in many price groups. Profits from security and real estate speculation stimulated demand for many commodities. Low interest rates made it easy to finance valorization schemes and price arrangements and promoted the issue of foreign loans, par.. ticularly in the United States. Foreign loans in turn helped to maintain prices in many debtor countries and also pre- vented the growth of tariffs from checking the expansion of international trade.2 The continued extension of interna- tional credit was a dam that was holding back the onrushing torrent of economic readjustment.
    [Show full text]
  • Christopher Kent: the Resources Boom and the Australian Dollar
    Christopher Kent: The resources boom and the Australian dollar Address by Mr Christopher Kent, Assistant Governor (Economic) of the Reserve Bank of Australia, to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) Economic and Political Overview, Sydney, 14 February 2014. * * * I thank Jonathan Hambur, Daniel Rees and Michelle Wright for assistance in preparing these remarks. I would like to thank CEDA for the invitation to speak here today. I thought I would take the opportunity to talk to you about the implications of the resources boom for the Australian dollar. The past decade saw the Australian dollar appreciate by around 50 per cent in trade- weighted terms (Graph 1).1 The appreciation was an important means by which the economy was able to adjust to the historic increase in commodity prices and the unprecedented investment boom in the resources sector.2 Even though there was a significant increase in incomes and domestic demand over a number of years, average inflation over the past decade has remained within the target. Also, growth has generally not been too far from trend. This is all the more significant in light of the substantial swings in the macroeconomy that were all too common during earlier commodity booms.3 The high nominal exchange rate helped to facilitate the reallocation of labour and capital across industries. While this has made conditions difficult in some industries, the appreciation, in combination with a relatively flexible labour market and low and stable inflation expectations, meant that high demand for labour in the resources sector did not spill over to a broad-based increase in wage inflation.4 So the high level of the exchange rate was helpful for the economy as a whole.
    [Show full text]
  • The Drs. Joanne and Edward Dauer Collection of World Banknotes
    DALLAS | THE DRS. JOANNE JOANNE DRS. THE DAUER AND EDWARD COLLECTION OF BANKNOTESWORLD WORLD PAPER MONEY PAPER WORLD APRIL 24, 2020 WORLD PAPER MONEY AUCTION #4020 | THE DRS. JOANNE AND EDWARD DAUER COLLECTION OF WORLD BANKNOTES | APRIL 24, 2020 | DALLAS Front Cover Lots: 26088, 26115, 26193, 26006, 26051 Inside Front Cover Lots: 26066, 26075, 26190, 26177, 26068 Inside Back Cover Lots: 26143, 26162, 26083, 26148, 26125 Back Cover Lots: 26191, 26129, 26185, 26181, 26108 Heritage Signature® Auction #4020 World Paper Money The Drs. Joanne and Edward Dauer Collection of World Banknotes April 24, 2020 | Dallas FLOOR Signature® Session PRELIMINARY LOT VIEWING (Floor, Telephone, HERITAGELive!®, Internet, Fax, and Mail) By appointment only. Contact Jose Berumen at 214-409-1299 Heritage Auctions, Dallas • 1st Floor Auction Room or [email protected] (All times subject to change) 3500 Maple Avenue • Dallas, TX 75219 Heritage Auctions, Dallas • 17th Floor 3500 Maple Avenue • Dallas, TX 75219 Session Friday, April 24 • 2:00 PM CT • Lots 26001–26197 Monday, April 6 – Friday, April 10 • 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM CT LOT VIEWING Heritage Auctions, Dallas • 17th Floor LOT SETTLEMENT AND PICK-UP 3500 Maple Avenue • Dallas, TX 75219 Available weekdays 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM CT starting Monday, April 27, by appointment only. Please contact Client Services Tuesday, April 21 • 12:00 PM – 5:00 PM CT at 866-835-3243 to schedule an appointment. Wednesday, April 22 – Friday, April 24 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM CT Lots are sold at an approximate rate of 125 lots per hour, but it is not uncommon to sell 100 lots or 175 lots in any given hour.
    [Show full text]
  • St Tri B 1960 5
    ~ .., ,."\ \ ~ ) ~ .·• ·• ~ ~. IL 1 -., ' ST/TRI/B.l960/ 5 NON-SELF-GOVERNING TERRITORIES Summaries of information transmitted to the Secretary-General for 1959 Pacific Territories: American Samoa Cook Islands Fiji Gilbert and Ellice Islands Guam Netherlands New Guinea New Hebrides Niue Island Papua Pitcairn Island Solomon Islands Tokelau Islands UNITED NATIONS SUMMARIES OF INFORMATION FOR 1959 Territories by Administering Member responsible for transmitting information Au$tralia United Kingdom (continued) Cocoa (Keeling) Islands Malta Papua Mauritius New Hebrides France (condominium, France) North Borneo New Hebrides , Northern Rhodesia (condominium, Uni~ed Kingdom) Nyasaland Pitcairn Island Netherlands st. Helena Netherlands New Guinea Sarawak Seychelles New Zealand Sierra Leone Singapore Cook Islands Solomon Islands Niue Island Swaziland Tokelau Islands Uganda The West lndies: United Kingdom Antigua Aden Barbados Bahamas Dominica Basutoland Grenada Bechuanaland Jamaica Bermuda Montserrat British Gulana st. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla British Honduras st. Lucia British Virgin Islands st. Vincent Brunei Trinidad and Tobago Falkland Islands Zanzibar Fiji Gambia Gibraltar United States of America Gilbert and Elllce Islands American Samoa Hong Kong Guam Kenya United states Virgin Islands NON-SELF-GOVERNING TERRITORIES Summaries of information transmitted to the Secretary-General for 1959 Pacific Territories: American Samoa Cook Islands Fiji Gilbert and Ellice Islands Guam Netherlands New Guinea New Hebrides Niue Island Papua Pitcairn Island Solomon Islands Tokelau Islands UNITED NATIONS New York, 1961 NOTE The following symbols are used: Three dots (••• ) data not available Dash (- ) magnitude nil or negligible Slash 1948/1949 crop or financial year Hyphen 1948-1949 annual average STJTRI/B.l960/5 l INFORMATION FROM NON-SELF-GOVERNING TERRITORIES Pacific Territorie~/ In accordance with the provisions of ALticle 73 e of the Charter the .
    [Show full text]
  • CURRENCY BOARD FINANCIAL STATEMENTS Currency Board Working Paper
    SAE./No.22/December 2014 Studies in Applied Economics CURRENCY BOARD FINANCIAL STATEMENTS Currency Board Working Paper Nicholas Krus and Kurt Schuler Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and Study of Business Enterprise & Center for Financial Stability Currency Board Financial Statements First version, December 2014 By Nicholas Krus and Kurt Schuler Paper and accompanying spreadsheets copyright 2014 by Nicholas Krus and Kurt Schuler. All rights reserved. Spreadsheets previously issued by other researchers are used by permission. About the series The Studies in Applied Economics of the Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health and the Study of Business Enterprise are under the general direction of Professor Steve H. Hanke, co-director of the Institute ([email protected]). This study is one in a series on currency boards for the Institute’s Currency Board Project. The series will fill gaps in the history, statistics, and scholarship of currency boards. This study is issued jointly with the Center for Financial Stability. The main summary data series will eventually be available in the Center’s Historical Financial Statistics data set. About the authors Nicholas Krus ([email protected]) is an Associate Analyst at Warner Music Group in New York. He has a bachelor’s degree in economics from The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where he also worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Applied Economics and the Study of Business Enterprise and did most of his research for this paper. Kurt Schuler ([email protected]) is Senior Fellow in Financial History at the Center for Financial Stability in New York.
    [Show full text]
  • Fear of Sudden Stops: Lessons from Australia and Chile
    Fear of Sudden Stops: Lessons from Australia and Chile Ricardo J. Caballero Kevin Cowan Jonathan Kearns∗ March 2, 2004 Abstract Latin American economies are exposed to substantial external vulnerability. Domestic im- balances and terms of trade shocks are often exacerbated by sudden financial distress. In this paper we explore ways of overcoming external vulnerability drawing lessons from a detailed com- parison of the response of Chile and Australia to recent external shocks and from Australia’s historical experience. We argue that in order to understand sudden stops and the mechanisms to smooth them, it is useful to highlight and then draw a distinction between two dimensions of investors confidence: country-trust and currency-trust. While these two dimensions are interre- lated, there are important distinctions. Lack of country-trust is a more fundamental and serious problem behind sudden stops. But lack of currency-trust may both be a source of country-trust problems as well as weaken a country’s ability to deal with sudden stops. We discuss steps to improve along these two dimensions of investors’ confidence in the medium run, and policies to reduce the impact of country-trust and currency-trust weaknesses in the short run. ∗Respectively: MIT and NBER; IADB; Reserve Bank of Australia. This paper is a revised version of the paper prepared for the Financial Dedollarization: Policy Options conference at the Inter-American Development Bank, 1-2 December 2003. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the IADB, the Reserve Bank or any other institution with which they are affiliated.
    [Show full text]
  • Studies in Applied Economics
    SAE./No.89/October 2017 Studies in Applied Economics THE TONGAN BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS OF CURRENCY (1935-1989): NOT AN ORTHODOX CURRENCY BOARD Cameron C. Little Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and Study of Business Enterprise The Tongan Board of Commissioners of Currency (1935-1989): Not an Orthodox Currency Board By Cameron C. Little Copyright 2017 by Cameron C. Little. This work may be reproduced or adapted provided that no fee is charged and the original source is properly credited. About the Series The Studies in Applied Economics series is under the general direction of Professor Steve H. Hanke, Co-Director of the Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health and Study of Business Enterprise ([email protected]). This working paper is one in a series on currency boards for the Currency Board Project. The currency board working papers will fill gaps in the history, statistics, and scholarship of the subject. The authors are mainly students at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore who have conducted their work at the Institute as undergraduate researchers. About the Author Cameron C. Little is a third year student at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Economics with a minor in Financial Economics. He wrote this paper while serving as an undergraduate researcher at the Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and Study of Business Enterprise during Spring 2017. He will graduate in May 2019. Abstract This paper provides a historical summary, legislative history, and the first spreadsheet data series of the Tonga Board of Commissioners of Currency (1935-1989) and uses statistical tests to examine to what extent it operated as an orthodox currency board.
    [Show full text]
  • Metadata on the Exchange Rate Statistics
    Metadata on the Exchange rate statistics Last updated 26 February 2021 Afghanistan Capital Kabul Central bank Da Afghanistan Bank Central bank's website http://www.centralbank.gov.af/ Currency Afghani ISO currency code AFN Subunits 100 puls Currency circulation Afghanistan Legacy currency Afghani Legacy currency's ISO currency AFA code Conversion rate 1,000 afghani (old) = 1 afghani (new); with effect from 7 October 2002 Currency history 7 October 2002: Introduction of the new afghani (AFN); conversion rate: 1,000 afghani (old) = 1 afghani (new) IMF membership Since 14 July 1955 Exchange rate arrangement 22 March 1963 - 1973: Pegged to the US dollar according to the IMF 1973 - 1981: Independently floating classification (as of end-April 1981 - 31 December 2001: Pegged to the US dollar 2019) 1 January 2002 - 29 April 2008: Managed floating with no predetermined path for the exchange rate 30 April 2008 - 5 September 2010: Floating (market-determined with more frequent modes of intervention) 6 September 2010 - 31 March 2011: Stabilised arrangement (exchange rate within a narrow band without any political obligation) 1 April 2011 - 4 April 2017: Floating (market-determined with more frequent modes of intervention) 5 April 2017 - 3 May 2018: Crawl-like arrangement (moving central rate with an annual minimum rate of change) Since 4 May 2018: Other managed arrangement Time series BBEX3.A.AFN.EUR.CA.AA.A04 BBEX3.A.AFN.EUR.CA.AB.A04 BBEX3.A.AFN.EUR.CA.AC.A04 BBEX3.A.AFN.USD.CA.AA.A04 BBEX3.A.AFN.USD.CA.AB.A04 BBEX3.A.AFN.USD.CA.AC.A04 BBEX3.M.AFN.EUR.CA.AA.A01
    [Show full text]
  • Permanent Exhibition Labels
    Reserve Bank of Australia Museum Permanent Exhibition Labels D20/318502 GENERAL 1 Before Federation: to 1900 Aboriginal trade was based on exchange, and did not involve the use of currency. Due to a lack of a suitable currency, barter (as well as other forms of currencies) was used following British colonisation. The beginnings of a private enterprise economy emerged early however, promoting in time the development of banking and the currency. The discovery of gold in 1851 boosted this process. Proposals for a national bank to issue currency notes emerged at times during the 19th century, mainly in response to economic and financial crises. Currency Chaos Rum, Shinplasters, Holey Dollars & More When the colony of New South Wales was established, no provision was made for an internal currency. There were no banks for some time and of course no central bank. This produced a period of chaotic currency arrangements and experiments in the colony. In the early years, the colonists had to rely on barter – the exchange of produce, goods and services – and other makeshift currencies such as rum (as all spirits were then called). Coin Shortage Coin was very scarce in the early years with England also suffering from a coin shortage. The Spanish dollar was a major international currency of the time. A shipment of Spanish dollars was sent from England in 1792. Coins from a range of other countries were also used such as Dutch guilders and ducats, Indian mohurs and rupees and Portuguese johannas. But much of this coin left the colony as a result of trade with visiting merchant ships.
    [Show full text]
  • Monetary Policy in Australia 1920-1925 Selwyn Cornish And
    CENTRE FOR ECONOMIC HISTORY THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES MAKING A LAND FIT FOR A GOLD STANDARD: MONETARY POLICY IN AUSTRALIA 1920-1925 SELWYN CORNISH WILLIAM COLEMAN AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY DISCUSSION PAPER NO. 2014-06 MARCH 2014 THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY ACTON ACT 0200 AUSTRALIA T 61 2 6125 3590 F 61 2 6125 5124 E [email protected] http://rse.anu.edu.au/CEH Making a Land Fit for a Gold Standard: Monetary Policy in Australia 1920-1925 Selwyn Cornish and William Coleman! 1 The Research School of Economics, College of Business and Economics, The Australian National University. Introduction On 4 February 1925 Sir Otto Niemeyer, Controller of Finance at the British Treasury, wrote to M.L. Shepherd, 0 fficial Secretary to the Australian High Commission in London, asking whether the Commonwealth Bank "ought not take steps to bring the Australian exchange banks to some glimmering of sense". The difficulty was that Australia, "a gold producing country, with an ample gold reserve of £25m, [was] actually importing gold, because the exchange banks are still charging 3% premium for pounds in Australia in spite of the fact that sterling was within 1- 1'12% of gold parity." South African banks, Niemeyer noted, had recently reduced their sterling discount and "it is obvious that your exchange banks ought to do the same without a moment's delay." If the banks demurred, he proposed that the Commonwealth Bank should itself "take the initiative in offering Australian pounds at a reasonable rate against sterling payment here". After all, the "present position", he asserted, "must be doing Australia great harm for no reasonable object whatever." (RBA C1.8-25/G/l, Niemeyer to Shepherd, 4 Febmary 1925) Thirty-four years later, in 1959, the Australian Treasury Representative in London, John Stone, discovered Niemeyer's letter in a closed file at Australia House and dispatched a copy to his superior in Canberra, Richard Randall, who, in rum, passed it on to the Deputy Governor of the Commonwealth Bank, E.B.
    [Show full text]
  • The Modern Colonial Sterling Exchange Standard H
    The Modern Colonial Sterling Exchange Standard H. A. Shannon * "A society like the British Empire lends itself very ill to precise definitions." (Hansard, Nov. 9, 1950) HE MONETARY SYSTEMS of the British colonial territories and T their^ unification under the Colonial Sterling Exchange Standard cannot be fully understood except in the light of their long and com- plex history and of British constitutional law and history. Since a sketch of their evolution has been given elsewhere,1 thi^ paper is con- cerned mainly with their present position. Some minor differences of form and of substance which still survive will be ignored, and only major principles and practices will be discussed in full. Local legal and historical details are given, territory by territory, in Appendix I.2 Money and coinage have been immemorial prerogatives of State everywhere—in the British case, a prerogative of the King. In the colo- nial territories, whether originally settled by the British or acquired by war or treaty, the Governor as the King's representative was, and is, the guardian of the royal prerogatives. The colonies, for example, had, and have, no power to set up a mint by themselves. Today, the royal prerogative in money takes the form, in territories having their own legislatures, of "reserved powers"—that is, the Governor, if presented with a bill or other proposed legislation touching on currency, will with- * Mr. Shannon, Acting Chief of the British Commonwealth Division, is a graduate of the University of Belfast and the London School of Economics. He was formerly Senior Lecturer in the University of the Wifrwa^ersrand.
    [Show full text]
  • The Big Reset
    REVISED s EDITION Willem s Middelkoop s TWarh on Golde and the Financial Endgame BIGs s RsE$EAUPTs The Big Reset The Big Reset War on Gold and the Financial Endgame ‘Revised and substantially enlarged edition’ Willem Middelkoop AUP Cover design: Studio Ron van Roon, Amsterdam Photo author: Corbino Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout Amsterdam University Press English-language titles are distributed in the US and Canada by the University of Chicago Press. isbn 978 94 6298 027 3 e-isbn 978 90 4852 950 6 (pdf) e-isbn 978 90 4852 951 3 (ePub) nur 781 © Willem Middelkoop / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2016 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. To Moos and Misha In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods.
    [Show full text]