10
WHY WORRY ABOUT GOLD?
BY "ECONOMIST"
A present, there is a co-called gold
scare. The price of gold is threatening to fail, and consternation has spread among the producers and holders of the melal. Deep gloom hangs over Johannesburg, and the money-dealers of Wall Street and Lombard Street scan the
with anxious cyca.
future
Is there any reason why the man In the street should shore this un- easiness? There is none. The pro- Is по sperity of modern industry longer bound up with the price of gold. A shortage or a glut of bullion leaves the ecurse of trade unaffected.
In the This was not always so. nineteenth century, when the cur- rencies of the principal trading nations either consisted of gold or were based on gold a plentiful supply of it was a condition of industrial A shortage of gold prosperity. meant a shortage of money, and a Yalling meant shortage of money
smaller quantity of prices. If n money is to carry through the same number of exchange, then less money must go into each transaction, which the same as saying that prices go And surging prices have al- ways been the harbinger of industrial depression. The dull trade of the.
the economic eighteen-seveniles,
nineteen- the Inter blizzard of twenties, were primarily due to a scarelly of gold.
down.
Under Control
Is entirely To-day the situation changed. Over the greater part of the world gold has been demonetised. It no longer serves as the basis of point to currency, It i difeult to any country now which has remained faithful to the gold standard in old form, and the only place where f gold is really bought and sold at a Axed legal price is New York.
its
Gold therefore no longer affects general prices as it used to do, and no longer sends the trade cycle up and down. The recent movements in the metal need not therefore cause any alarm. Against the influence of luctuations in the output of the mines, most countries have succeeded In insulating themselves.
And
Most countries, but not all. ours is one of the exceptions. It is true that the recent glut of gold will not be allowed to affect us seriously. Our financial authorities will see to LIS some that. But It may cause slight uneasiness. The truth is that when we went off the gold standard in 1031, we did not get rid of gold altogether. We left it in our economic system in much the same position as body. the appendix in the human That is to say, it ceased to perform for any useful treeding-ground disturbing diseases.
A Mistaken Assumption
21
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH. MONDAY,
Boys and Girls
JULY 12, 1937.
In the parks they are safe as well as happy, but often "what can they do but play in the sirools ?"
COME OUT
ET me begin with a con- fession. I ought to have started work a couple of
hours ago, but there are fourteen children playing in the road and my gate seems to be the rallying place.
It is a perfect morning-much too fine to keep the windows shut-but the noise of childish volees is distracting. How can a man write under such condi- tions?
There come occasional moods when I could wish the children in Hanover or Timbuctoo. Why must they always yell to wildly instead of talking quietly, as adults do? Why do they argue so excitedly? Why are they so aggressively allve?
But I know In my heart that these children are far more im- portant than us, older people, Their games matter more than my I give up the attempt writing. and watch them; they are worth watching.
T
"HERE'S that fair-haired young Viking in the bright green Jumper trying to make an impression on the gipsy-dark girl in the crimson frock.
There's the tali girl, leggy as t colt, who announced: "Don't any of you come near my house on Friday, the 4th, 'cos I'm having a party."
And the tousle-headed Geoffrey who immediately countered with: Who wants to come to your blinking party? You only have penny buns, anyway."
There is Chloe-"Charming Chloe "bright-eyed and pink- cheeked because she is four to-day and is riding her new tricycle for the first time. Every other child
To-day's Thought- HE who gives a child a treat makes joybells ring in ficaven's street.
~JOIIN MASEFIELD.
to PLAY!
who owns bicycle or tricycle has brought it out for exhibition, and they are having races in the road. They have fierce disputes after every race.
that ясе everybody Didn't
split second Richard set off a before the whistle blow? oughtn't Stelin, who is eight-and- a bit, to be more severely handi- capped?
And
KNOW too much about children to be senti- mental about them. I
am not deceived by the angelic look which young Jimmy can put on whenever he likes. He's no angelt Boys and girls have vir- tues and vices ilke the rest of us.
They are alarmingly honest in their opinions; they have an im- mense capacity for enjoyment; they can see through humbug with uncanny clearness; they have in- exhaustible energy and unfingging enthusiasm; and they understand-
than Wo adults much better imagine.
If children have a right to be allye on a summer morning they have a right to happiness, a right to a place in the sun, a right to play their games in the open air. But our suburban gardens are too small; the school playgrounds are all locked; the nearest playing felds are a mile away. What can they do but play in the street?
The roads and streets were re- latively safe a generation ago. Traffle was less congested and the average speed was not more than six miles an hour.
But children to-day have to play in streets that are as full of danger ns the railroads of a busy station. They play a ghastly game of hide- and-geek with death at every corner. The weekly toll of casual- The most tri- tles is terrible.
by J. W. Marriott
umphant death, Southey said, is the most that of a martyr; glorions that of a hero in the But the most hour of victory. tragle of all ceaths is surely that of a happy child cut off in the middle of a game.
Anyone who has seen a child knocked down and killed by a lorry is haunted by the eight for weeks at least. It is the sort of experi ence which gives one the most frightful kind of nightmare,
Yet we tend the statistics of road casualties so regularly that we almost take them for granted. On the face of it we are growing callous. Though what looks like "toughness" is due to lack of imagination.
W
HEN a large-scale mas- sacre of innocents takes place, we are appalled, A disastrous fire or a bad train accident with its list of dead and injured moves us to pity and a longing to help.
We all rejoiced when the Habana rescued 4,000
from children slaughter by bombs and bullets a week ago.
The idea of young lasses and lads being slain in battle disturba us so profoundly that we are willing to risk international complications by sending a war- ship to prevent it.
But British children are being killed and mutilated daily in our own streets; one in this little village, two or three in that small town, a dozen or more in a big city. The total for the whole coun-
paper Thus, though we have
convertible currency which is not into gold, the Bank of England is obliged by law to keep a gold reserve against the paper notes, a proceed- ing which seems entirely opposed to commonsense, Then the Exchange Equalisation Fund, when it buys foreign currencies, exchanges them immediately for told, under the Im- pression that gold will keep its value
dallars; 27 "Tum Trevelyan" was born in the grandfathers, but they differ only in as was unknown in our fathers' and better than franes or entirely mistaken iden, because if the first year of the Great War. One day character. supply of gold exceeds the demand, people will probably refer to him as it does at present, then nothing a little enviously es will keep its value up.
What Modern Youth is Thinking
Moreover, the Fund
man."
sometimes
Ands it has too much gold, and un-
loads it on the Bank of England, UNTIL recently
were
a "self-made The Bright Side
grandfathers' young days.
Self-Help
the
A Having read the life stories Nature has always maintained balance or correspondence between such men as Abraham Lincoln, Ram- Louis it had
doubt anyone never the tasks and problems which face say MacDonald, and Robert
and tenacity will occurred to me to consider my men and the means at their disposal, Stevenson, how enn
courage
I saw about This is awkward, because an increase own generation as being in any way just as the polar bear is provided that of the Bank's gold reserve ought to either more or less advantageously with a warm coat and the jungle overcome all obstacles? be followed by an increase in the circumstanced than was any previous animal with means of climbing trees me, when I left school, youths whe course of or defending itself against aggression. seemed quite prepared to wait until issue of notes and a rise in prices. generation. But in the
balance opportunity should come knocking If such a rise is inconvenient, then
a great sheet of life's assets und Ilabilities to their door. So much the better, the Bank has to "sterilise" the gold, mixing with my contemporaries II contend that an honest find, to my surprise, that
and look for it. I did, and I have as it did with the £65 millions it many of them consider themselves to day compares very favourably with thought I, for those who will go out very found that there is ample scope for took over from
the Fund. lnste deserving of pity because their that of any previous generation.
Life to-day is, admittedly. December. And "sterlising" gold is early years have been spent amid the
the fruits
of our instead of grumbling because about as rational an operation as dimeulties consequent on a European dimcult for young people; but pro- the really ambitious young man who,
gress-largely stoking locomotives with bags
of conflict.
Obviously, since I am asked to fathers' labours has placed at our path is stony, takes off his coat and
weapons removes the stones. coffee.
rol
My way has been, and still is, a am that previous generations did
with опс
setbacks in plenty; hard there is something in it, but I All these troublesome transactions give my views as a war baby," disposal Instruments and
enjoy. could be avoided if gold
We have social services incom- but it has hardened me and given eliminated from our economic sys-bound to look upon the complalaants
One obstacle, at first, was "War bables" who regard them- parably belter and more comprehen- me the power to laugh at minor mis- tem altogether; if it ceased to be re-as being pitiful rather than pitiable.
annatorium cases sive than ever before; we have free fortunes.
scholarships, vastly the discouragement and even deri- garded as currency, and
industrial conditions, slon of my contemporaries, "The lad's merely as a commodity. That this is selves as special possible, our own experience during are, in my opinion, suffering from a education and
despicable form of selfpity. They Improved are hypochondriaca of the worst type, sanitation and housing; barriers of got "big ideas," some sald, "and he'll the last six years clearly shows.
prefessionni and I know better than to talk about my What difference did it make to the They parade- Imaginary, ills to the caste no longer exclude the working come a cropper one day." Nowadays ordinary citizen when he was told annoyance of all around them, yet man's son from in 1931 that he could no longer con- refuse to take the obvious medicine, public life, children no longer slave aspirations, for I realise that it is
Life has always been a struggle in mines and workshops at a tender upon myself that my success vert hja notes into gold? He did not want gold. He wanted goods, and against odds; so much any man or age. Poor people to-day can have depend-not forgetting the social may the benefits of the best medical and disadvantages that I and my con- my can strength, so long as he could change his notes woman who cares to read
farm labourer
Dm determined for goods, he was perfectly satisfied. learn and reading, surely, is cheap surgical skill in the world when they temporaries inherit. Having feli
enough! No matter into what age are sick. The
lo visit the cities and the city worker, nothing shall stop mo, I will go destined Why is the lesson which our daily man is born he in
dimculties. can spend days in the country be straight ahead, taking the good with set-bucks and experience.tenches us not applied on suffer
Immediate dificulties cause we have cheap and efilelent the bad, concentrating always upon Own a witter scale? Why do we not re- One's move the useless appendix? Why do naturally appear to be more vexing transport: and all classes can employ the distant horizon, the ultimate ob-
and to advantage a wealth of leisure such jective. than those of one's fathers we not scrap gold?
ranked
Count the "TELEGRAPHS" everywhere
try is staggering. Every war comes to an end sooner or later, and big accidents are mercifully rare, but there is no armistice to the fatalities of the street. The deadly harvest is reaped month after month, year after year.
Our greatest danger is lest wo should become so accustomed to it that we accept it as inevit- abic. The next greatest is that we should do nothing beyond talking about it. To be just to ourselves we are genuinely con- cerned and we keep on trying new methods. But the task is gigantic and there is no simple remedy.
Obviously we cannot hand over all responsibility to the Minister of Transport and the Government; nor to the local authorities and the police; nor to any particular or- ganised body. Everybody will have to join in the movement.
H
OLDING
an
enviable
record is the City of twelve For Salford. months no child was killed in its streets. But, as the Chief Con- stable has pointed out, such a re- sult was obtained by using every resource available. from individual Instruction to mass-propaganda.
The training of road-sense in school children by teachers or police officers has certainly accom- plished something. An examina- tion of the number of fatalities at given ages proves this pretty con- clusively.
Less than one per cent. of child- ren's deaths through road accl- dents fall during each of the first two years. The figure rises to nearly Ave per cent. in the third year, to nearly seven per cent. in the fourth, and to the alarming figure of 12 per cent, in the fifth and sixth years.
A
FTER this, partly owing to greater self-control,
to partly
deliberato education, the figure begins to fall: 11, 101, 81. 51, 0, 41, but in the Afteenth year (the school- leaving age) there is a sudden leap up to 131 per cent.. mainly attri- butable to accidents with bicycles. It will be seen that the "peak years Occur during the infant school period and in the early The valley" between 8 teena. and 14 is satisfying in a way, but it needs to be widened and deep- encd. And clearly something drastic must be done about the "peak" years.
Infants cannot be expected to take care of themselves. They are high-spirited, impetuous, and fall to realise the dangers which miss them by laches. Many of them are young day-dreamers who walk about oblivious of their surround- lags. They are all liable to rush Into the road after a ball or in
friend. pursuit of
Where busy roads have to be crossed an escort is essential. Mothers often take their own (and neighbour's) children to school. Older brothers and sisters can be commandeered. In the big cities the police are stationed at the danger points.
Sa
FECIAL attention should also be given to the When young cyclist.
he is learning to ride he is usually cautious enough, but as soon as he feels "at home" on the machine asserts his native recklessness itself, and he paya the grim penalty.
ENYK
THE
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OUR BRITISH CROSSWORDS
ACE088
of many 1 A modern "coat
colours" (Two words 7, 8).
10 The houri's dowry is in Jewel
form.
0110.
11 Began us a national with fifty- 12 Are you M.P.? Yes, cach mem-
ber of this replied.
If he survives this danger period, there is another when he gets his first motor-cycle, and still apother when he drives a car.
13 Typical hotel sinve. But while we are arguing about 14 Evil get one in the eyelid!
Even If you're most careful,
will
on,
that
They always start with a joke They when speaking of this part of India.
the problem the destruction goes
17 is already The situation desperate. Apart from the human tragedy of young lives sacrificed to the new gods of civilisation, pay the we cannot afford to price.
As a nation we must support every scheme and every agency which is making an attempt to stem the tide of disaster.
One criticism only I have to offer concerning my elders. They are still so opt to assess a man according to his years rather than his capnelty, and we shall go down In history as This illogical attitude is by no means traitors to a noble Empire.
18.Of course it may be different
for plungers.
10. Urge seems to be in view here. 21 Vehicle you may get when you
own a gee-gee.
28 Bitter-sweet?
26 Sounds as though they might be
higher.
27 The catch that keeps a window
shut is kept in bins.
30 Describes the grasping sort of
chap who can't sell without an- other filty.
so prevalent to-day as it was thrce But I have met hundreds of war or four years ago, but it does still babies. The vast majority of them limit, to some extent, the field of op- have the fighting spirit, they wil net 31 Raise. portunities for young men.
succumb to the setbacks of this era, 32 Seek seclusion from society in '
antique stores. as soft as some because there is that in their blood my generation is
makes them one with con- people would have us believe, the which greatest tragedy in the history of querora; they are, if anything, move their fathers. So the world is not far distant, If I and ambillous
there great is my confidence in the men my generation are decadent,
than
is no hope for the continuance of and women of my own age that I our civilization. We shall become believe the dawn of Britain's golden the mothers and fathers of weskiings, age has only just begun.
DOWN
2 He pulls his weight, though not
If regarded, as Roman.
3 Boys without lands.
4 Draw together.
The beast evidently had its boon granted-to a degree, any- way.
C Sails without any top-hamper. 7 Letter.
&
Takes to himself a Paris topper In exchange.
Not this should be good valuc,
15 Formerly kittenish.
16 Four sit in this in comfort. 20
Girt who makes Cora tell a db. 22. "Tempest" character.
21 There's sadness here.
24 Measure, or heavenly sight.
128. In this is in its place.
20 Affords a shelter for the incom-
petent.
Saturday's Solution. PERFEND I JULAR"
ENNST A A RIGHT W D MISE ET LEPARSE
OHEERIOA APTL
U
BWN NT NAT
HUINOUS
PACIFI 10 E TREN UABASHED LIM«INESL EE VILLA DOSIS LAM E E TEUBE Y INTERRUPTIONS