10
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH. MONDAY, JULY 12, 1987.
WHY WORRY ABOUT GOLD?
BY "ECONOMIST”
ΑΤ.
la
T present, there is a so-called gold
scare. The price of gold threatening to fail, and consternation has spread among the producers and holders of the metal. Deep gloom hangs over Johannesburg, and tho money-dealers of Wall Street an Lombard Street scan the
with anxious eyes.
future
Is there any reason why the man
in the street should share this un-
The pro-
casiness? There is none.
19 nu pperity of modern industry longer bound up with the price of gold. A shortage or a glut of bullion leaves. the course of trade unaffected.
In the This was not always so. nineteenth century, when the cur- principal trading rencies of the nations either consisted of gold or were based on gold a plentiful supply of it was 'n condition of industriui of Gold A shortage prosperity. meant
a shortage of money, and a meant failing shortage of money
smaller quantity of prices. It a money is to carry through the same number of exchange, then less money must go into each transaction, which is the same as saying that prices go down. And sagging prices have ai- ways been the harbinger of Industrial depression. The dull trade of the economic the eighteen-seventies,
later nineteen- blizzard of the twenties, were primarily due to a senrcity of gold:
Under Control
is entirely To-day the biluation changed. Over the greater part of the world gold has been demonetised. It no longer serves as the basis of currency. It is difficult to point to any country now which has remained faithful to the gold standard in its old form, and the only place where Kold is really bought and sold at fixed legal price is New York.
Gold therefore no longer affects general prices as it used to do, and no longer sends the tende cycle up and down. The recent movements in the metal need not therefore cause any alarm. Against the influence of
the fluctuations in
output of the mines, most countries have succeeded in Insulating themselves.
And
Most countrics, 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 Bnancial authorities will see to Us Home that. But it may cause slight uneasiness. The truth is that when we went off the gold standard In 1931, 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 useful freeding-ground any disturbing diseases.
A Mistaken Assumption
at paper Thus, though we have
not convertible currency which is into gold, the Bank of England is obliged by law to keep a gold reserve against the paper notes, & proceed- ing which seeins entirely opposed to commonsense. Then the Exchange Equalisation Fund, when it buys foreign currencies, exchanges them immediately for gold, under the im- pression that gold will keep its value better than francs or
dollars; an
Boys and Girls
COME
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 roud and my gate seems to be the rallying place.
It is a perfect morning-mucli too fine to keep the windows shut-but the noise of childish voices 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 so wildly instead of talking quietly, as adults do? Why do they argue so excitedly? Why are they aggressively alive?
50
But I know in my heart that these children are far more Im- portant than 113 older people. 'Their games matter more than my writing.
I give up the attempt and watch them: they are worth watching.
T
HERE'S that fair-haired the young Viking in bright green Jumper trying to make an impression on the gipsy-dark girl in the crimson frock.
There's the tall girl, leggy us a Don't any colt, who announced:
of you come near my house on Friday, the 4th, 'coa 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 15 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 Heaven's street.
-JOHN MASEFIELD,
In the parks they aro sale as well as happy, but often "what can they do but play in the strcols.?"
OUT
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 BCC Didn't everybody Richard set off a split second And before the whistle blew? oughtn't Steila, who is eight-and- a bit, to be more severely handi- capped?
KNOW too much about
children to be senti-
I
am not deceived by the angelic look which young Jimmy can put He's no on whenever he likes. angel! Boys and girls have vir- tues and vices like the rest of us.
we
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 unflagging enthusiasmi; and they understand adults
better much
than imagine.
If children have a right to be alive 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 fields are a mile away. What can they do but play in the street?
The roads and streets were re- latively safe a generation ago. Trafic 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 as the railroads of a busy station. They play a ghastly game of hide- and-seck with death at every corner. The weekly toll of casual- tles is terrible. The most tri-
-
by J. W. Marriott
umphant death. Southey said, is
most that of a martyr the glorious that of a hero in the hour of victory. But the most tragic of all deaths 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 13 haunted by the sight for weeks at least. It is the sort of expéri- 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 ülke lack of "toughness" is due to 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 4,000 children from rescued slaughter by bombs and bullets a week ago. The idea of young lasses and lads being slain in battle disturbs 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-
What Modern Youth is Thinking
grandfathers' young days.
"Tom Trevelyan", was born in the grandfathers, but they differ only in as was unknown in our fathers' und entirely mistaken idea, because it the first year of the Great War. One day character. supply of gold exceeds the demand, people will probably refer to hin
man,"
as it does at present, then nothing a little enviously as a "self-made The Bright Side will keep its value up.
Morcover,
the Fund sometimes! finds it hos too much gold, and un-
londs it on the Bank of England. UNTIL recently
ΟΣ
had
Self-Help
anyone
of д Having read the lite stories Nature has always maintained balance or correspondence between such men as Abraham Lincoln, Rom- doubt never the tusiss and problems which face say MacDonald, and Robert Louis and tenacity will courage occurred to me to consider my men and the means at their disposal, Stevenson, how can own generation us being in any way just as the polar bear is provided that
advantageously with n warm coal and the jungle overcome all obstacles? I saw about either more or less
course of or defending itse against aggression, seemed quite prepared to wait until should come knocking etrcumstanced than was any previous animal with meas of climbing trees me, when I left school, youths who generation. But in the mixing with my contemporaries II contend that an honest balance opportunity And, to my surprise, that
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 The fatalities of the street. deadly harvest is reaped month after month, year after year.
Our greatest danger is lest wo should become so accustomed to it that we necept it as inevit- able. 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
enviable
OLDING. an record is the City of
For Salford.
twelvo 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- ilon of the number of fatalities at given ages proves this pretty con- clusively.
Less than one per cent, of child- rou's deaths through road acel- dents fall during each of the first The figure rises to two years. nearly nve 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 lith and sixth years,
A
FTER this, partly owing to greater self-control, partly to deliberate education, the figure begins to fall: 111, 101. 81. 51. 0, 44, but in the fifteenth year (the school- leaving age) there is a sudden leap up to 13 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 teens. and 14 is satisfying in a way, but it needs to be widened and deep- ened. 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 mies them by inches. Many of them are walk young day-dreamers who about oblivious of their surround- inge. They are all liable to rush into the rond after a ball or in pursuit of friend.
Where busy roads have to bo 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 aro stationed at the danger points.
Salso
PECIAL attention should 180 be given to the When young cyclist.
he is learning to ride he is usually cautious enough, but as soon as he
a
feels "at home" on the machine his native recklessness
asserta
This is awkward, because an increase of the Bank's gold reserve ought to be followed by an increase in the issue of notes and a rise in prices. If such a rise is inconvenient, then
Д great sheet of life's assels and liabilities to at their door. So much the better, the Bank has to sterilise the gold,
und look for it. I did, and I have as it did with the £65 millions it many of them consider theraselves to day compares very favourably with thought I, for those who will go out very found that there is amplo scope for took over from the Fund, last be deserving at pity because their that of any previous generation.
Life to-day is, admittedly, And sterilising" gold is early years have been sicht amid the December.
the our instead of grumbling because the fruits of difficulties consequent on a European difficult for young people; but pro- the really ambitious young man who, about as rational an operation
fress-largely stoking locomollves with bags
conflict.
I am asked to inthers laboure-has placed at our path is slony, takes off his coat and
weapons removes the stones, coffee.
Obviously, since
baby," disposal instruments und
not did
My way has been, and still 19, All these troublesome transactions tive my views as a "war
hard one, with setbacks in plenty; could be avoided if gold were there is something in it, but I am that previous generations
"We have social services incom- but it has hardened me and given eliminated from our economic sys- bound to look upon the complainants enjoy.
as being pitiful rather than pitiable.
"War babies" who regard them- parably better and more comprehen me the power to laugh at minor mis- first, was tom altogether; if it ceased to be re-
sanatorium cases sive than ever before: we have free fortunes. One obstacle, and ranked garded as currency,
scholarships, vastly the discouragement and even deri- That this is selves as special
industrial conditions, sion of my contemporaries, "The lad's merely as a commodity. possible, our own experience during are, in my opinion, suffering from a education and
despicable form of selfpity. They improved
Nowadays are hypochondriacs of the worst type. sanitation, and housing; barriers of got "big idens," some aald, "And he'll the last six years clearly shows.
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 dny. ordinary citizen when he was told annoyance of all around them, yet man's son from prefcasional
struggle in mines and workshops at a tender upon myself that my success in 1031 that he could no longer con- refuse to take the obvious medicine, publie life, children no longer slave aspirations, for I realise that it is
Life has always been vert his notes into gold? He did not want gold. He wanted goods, and against odds; so much any man te nge. Poor people to-day can have depend-not forgetting the social the benefits of the best medical and disadvantages that 1 and my con- so long as he could change his notes woman who cares to rend
form labourer can strength, I am determined
I will for goods, he was perfectly satisfied. learn and reading, surely, is cheap surgical skill in the world when they temporaries inherit. Having felt my
enough! No matter into what age are sick. The
destined
to visit the cities and the city worker nothing shall stop me.' Why is the lesson which our daily a man is born he is
straight ahend, taking the good with set-backs
dificulties. can spend days in the country and experience teaches us not applied on suffer
dimeuities cause we have cheap and efficient the bad, concentrating-always upon OWN immediate a wider scalo? 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-
than thos0 of one's fathers and to advantage a wealth of leisure such jective. we not scrap gold?
may
Count the "TELEGRAPHS" everywhere
will
that
ENYK
THE
LINE
San Francisco via Shanghai, Japan Ports & Honolulu.
Taiyo Maru
Chichibu Maru
Tatauta Maru
Seattle & Vancouver (Starts from Kaba).
Hikawa baru
Iliye Maru
Now York via Panama.
†Noto Maru
Fri., 23rd July
Wed., 4th Aug.
Wed., 4th Aug.
Mon., 19th July
Mon., 2nd July
Sun., 15th Aug.
South America (West Coast) via Japan, Honolulu,
Los Angeles, Mexico & Panama.
Bokuyo Maru
Rakuyo Maru
Haruna Maru
Katori Maru
London, Marseilles, Antwerp & Rotterdam.
Kashima Maru
.Tues., 19th July
Wed., 11th Aug.
Sat., 17th July
Sat, 31st July
Sat., 14th Aug.
Fri, 16th July
Sat., 24th July
Sat., 26th Aug.
Liverpool via Port Said, Bayrouth, Istanbul, Piraeus,
and Marseilles.
+Durban Maru
Sydney & Melbourne via Manila & Ports,
Kitano Maru
Komo Maru
Bombay via Singapore, Penang & Colombo.
+Mayebashi Maru
Wed., 28th July
Calcutta via Singapore, Penang & Rangoon,
Taushima Maru
Shanghai, Koba & Yokohama.
Yasukuni Maru
... Mon., 12th July
.Tues., 13th July
...Fri, 30th July
Kamo Maru (Direct to Nagasaki) Fri., 23rd July Hakone Maru
+
Cargo Only.
General Passenger Agents in the Orient for the CUNARD WHITE STAR LINE.
Tel. 30291.
SWEDISH EAST ASIATIC
M.S. "PEIPING" M.S. "NAGARA”
Ca LTG
21st July
29th Aug.
HONGKONG to ANTWERP or LONDON
£53
(Excellent accommodation still offering for a limited number of passengers.) ·
GILALAN & CO., LTD.
Hongkong.
Agents:
G. E. HUYGEN.
Canton.
OUR BRITISH CROSSWORDS
modern
ACROSS
of many "cont 1 A
colours" (Two words 7, 8). 10 The hour's dowry is in jewel
itself, and he pays the grim form. penalty.
li Began as a national with fifty-
one.
If ho survives this danger period, there is another when he gets his 12 Are you M.P.? Yes, each mem- first motor-cycle, and still another when ho drives a car.
on.
But while we are arguing about the problem the destruction.goes The situation is already desperate. Apart from the human tragedy of young lives sacrificed to the new gods of civilisation,
to
the Day we cannot afford prico,
As nation we must support every scheme and every agency which is making an attempt to stem the tide of disaster.
13
ber of this replied.
Typical hotel slave.
14 Even if you're most careful,
youll get one in the eyelid!
17 They always start with a joke when speaking of this part of India.
18 Of course it may be different
for plungers. ̧*
19 Urge secms to be invlew here. 21 Vehicle you may get when you
20
20 Sounds as though they might be
higher.
One criticism only I have to offer concerning my elders. They are still
27 The catch that keeps a window 50 apt to ussels a man according to
shut is kept in bins. his years rather than his capacity, and we shall go down in history os
30 D
Describes the grasping sort of This illogical attitude is by no means traitors to a noble Empire.
chap who can't sell without an- olher fifty.
so prevalent to-day us if was three But I have met hundreds of war or four years ago, but it does still babies. The vast majority of them Smit, to some extent, the field of op have the fighting spirit, they will not 31 Raise. portunities for young men.
succumb to the setbacks of this era, 32 Seck seclusion from society In
antique stores. If my generation is as soft as some, because there is that in their blood people would have us believe, the which makes them one with con- greatest tragedy in the history of querors; they are, if anything, move the world in hot tar distant. If I and ambitious than their fathers. So my generation are decadent, there great is my confidence in the men is no hope for the continuance of and women of my own ago that I our civilisation. We shall become bellove the down of Britain's golden the mothers and fathers of weaklings, aga has only just begun.
DOWN
2 He pulls his weight, though not
If regarded as Roman.
3 Boys without lands.
4 Draw together.
5 The beast evidently had its boon granted-to a degree, any-
way.
@ Salls without any top-hamper. 7 Letter.
8 Takes to himself a Paris topper
in exchange.
D
Not this should be good value.
18 Formerly kittenish.
16 Four sit in this in comfort.
20 Girl who makes Cora lella Ab.
22. "Tempest" character.
23′ There's sadness here.
+
24 Measure, or-heavenly sight, 28. In this is in its place.
|29 Afforda a shelter for the incom-
petent.
Saturday's Bolation. "PERPENDICULAR
■TANANE N N RIGHT WDMI ETLE PARBE CHEERIOSA" PTLY UTTAR W PURTENT NATURAI
R UTNO US PACIFI 0
TRENTU ABASHED ILMINES LEE VILLAS DO ISLAM E "E_T ̈EU BEI INTERRUPTIONE
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