The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-12-07
WHERE THE GOLD IS.
Great Britain's Lack of Metal-Com'
 parson With Other Countries.
From the London Daily Mall.

From the London Daily Mall
 It is a surprising fact that. though Tor the past fifteen or twenty years the pro- duction of gold throughout the world has been steadily rising, the United Kingdom at the present time is bare or gold. Nol in a literal sense, for there is always d handsome amount of coin and bullion Tn the vaults of the Bank of England, but in comparison with other ana perhaps more fortunate countries.
 The English stock of gold at the Bank of England was G24,0O0,000 at the close Of the year 1880, in the days of small gold production and much smaller business. It was only G2S, 900, 900 at the close or l9Oo, though we have seen that the gold pro- duction had trebled in the interval ami business had probably doubled. The hlsn- est point reached was in 1895, at the end of which year it stood al s45,O0O0O0. It is today about f29,0OO,O O0O-a dangerously small sum for modern times.
 Where England had stood still, France, Germany Russia Austria, Italy and the United States have all advanced. In most of these countries trade has been develop ing far faster than in England, and gold goes where trade is most actlVe. III France the stock of gold in the Bank of France has risen from 924.WOOoo In lsSo to f115 900 in 1905. It has thus been
 
 it is G112,O0O, 0O0 France has an ample supply, but her bank authorities are care full not to part with their gold when they can possibly prevent 1t.
 Germany maintained in 1880 a stock of only G9600,00 0in the vaults of the Reichs- bank at Berlin, in add tion, Of course, to the military war chest of coined goiid a. Spandau on which the nation can Tall back as a last reserve In the nour or war. fbiG a anooiInf hpLWPen lSSD anI 1905, for in the latter year the figule was e29OOOOOO, while 1t is G36000 GOO today Where England has stood still, Germany has got the gold Her ally, Austria. is mother great holder of gold, and has re- gently increased her holding markedly. The Austro- Hungarian bank in 1880 had a supply of only f5,600,000. which by the skill of its financial authorities was ex- banded to q figure of s46, GOO, 900 In 1s05. and which has been as high as G49,O00,000 il 1904.
 In Italy and Russia, though the figures for 1880 are not available, the same att tention has been shown to the gold re- serve. Russia had at the end of 1905 an amount of f74,000000, or nearly three times the British one. Italy had at the end of the same year supply of f25 000,- GOO in gold, which In the present year has been raised to f2s, ,000,000. In the United States the treasury at the end of 1a0j had gold of the value of S,000000 in it's vaults, against an amount of 924,oOO,0c0 in 1880.
 Thus France, Germany, Austria, Russia and the United States all keep larger stock of gold than does improyident Eng land All or most of them, have in- creased their stock to correspond with the growth in the gold production. Italy, with infinitely smaller requirements and obli- gations than the United Kingdom, has certainly quintupled her stock of gold m the last twenty-five year, while England rests content with practically the same quantity of the precious metal as in the past and trusts to luck to bring her through any serious crisis.
 It is not as though the British Empire did not produce gold in immense quanti- ties. The mines of the Rand before the radicals go to work upon them were turning out G20,s000oO woth annually; the Austrian output last year was Gl7,l04,ooo