Golden Duty

Some $2,119,194,000 in gold is piled up in French banks, more than three times the gold reserve of Britain, not quite half the gold reserve of the U. S. To France's gold nearly $2,000,000 a day has been added during recent weeks. French editors and financiers plotted ways to stop this golden avalanche.* Commented Publisher-Perfumer Coty's L'Ami du Peuple:

"The high cost of living in France which causes anxiety to all Frenchmen and their families, is due to our amazing rise in gold stores, because currency inflation is the chief factor in the upward movement of prices. . . . The flow of French long-term credits to nations which are badly in need of financial aid will prove the only natural way out."

The stockholders of the Bank of France had their annual meeting and heard a speech on this same subject from their Governor Clement Moret. Avoiding the subject of rising retail prices, Governor Moret admitted that the Bank of France was ready to lend from her overflowing vaults to any foreign country that offered the necessary guarantees. Said he:

"The shipments of gold which the French market has received during 1930 were not entirely the result of the repatriation of French capital. . . . They were-- why should we hesitate to recognize the fact--a testimony to the financial rehabilitation carried out by a nation whose money is now among the most solidly supported in the world. . . ."

After a few words on the World Depression, which France is beginning to feel slightly--M. Moret prefers the phrase "attenuated prosperity''--he said sharply:

"Given the necessary guarantees which capital must have, we feel, therefore, that it is the duty of the French market to respond to these demands from abroad for long-term credits, and we remain convinced that the facilitating of these credit operations at present constitutes, as it did before the War, a normal outlet for the excess of French capital."

-Late last week, following a rise of 1/4 of 1% in the London open market discount rate, it was announced that gold withdrawals from the Bank of England had temporarily ceased.

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