The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-06-12
BY WILLIAM PHILIP SIMMS
Soripps-Howard Foreign Editor

The London economic conference
is doomed unless it can do some
thing to stabilize currency.
Edouard Herriot, former prime
minister of France, made this state
ment while in Washington con-
ferring with President Roosevelt.
Practically everybody agreed with
him.
State Secretary Cordell Hull, head
of the American delegation to Lon
don, stressed the necessity of reduc-
ing tariffs, and abolishing other
barriers to international trade.
Unless this is accomplished, he
holds, disaster will overtake the
world because nations will build
their tariff walls still higher against
each other, shut out imports and be-
gin an international trade war
which may end in bloodshed.
With this view, again, practically
everybody is in agreement. Only
most of them add but"
All Depends on Currencies
Until something can be done to
make the principal currencies of
ane world stop fluctuating, they
warn, nothing much can be done
about the tariffs.
Tariffs are aimed to keep out
cheap foreign products-products
made so cheaply that legitimate
home concerns can not compete.
and, thus, are put out of business.
Take Japan. Formerly the ven
exchanged for so cents. Today it
exchanges for only Is cents. AS
coolle labor in Japan is dirt cheap
anyWay-millions working for 10,
Is or 20 cents a day-there hardly
Is civilized country in the world
that can compete with her.
Already Japan has almost driven
British competitors even out of
India.
Only Two Remedies
Against deprecated currencies
and cheap labor, there are only two
remedies. One is to restore sound
and stable currency.
The other is to raise tariffs to
take care Of the differentials-th
differences between the cost of pro-
ductlon in one country and the cost
OF production in another, and be-
tween the value of money in one
country and the value of money in
another.
That is why Herriot and others
grimly warn that the first lob of the
London conference is to stabilize
the dollar, the pound, the ven and
other currencieS, and provide in
ternatlonal trade with a proper
yardstick-a dependable standard
of value.
The only dependable standard of
value, Sir Neville Chamberlain.
British chancellor of the exchequer.
insists, is gold
Some way, sometime, somehow, he
asserts, the principal nations of the
world must return to some form of
gold standard. Until they do. he
warns, the present chaos in which
world trade finds itself, can never
be permanently cured.
Great Britain, U. S. Hold Key
Herriot sees Great Britain and
the United States as holding the
key to the situation. He says The
pound and the dollar first must get
back to the gold standard at some
definite ratio, one to the other.
But Great Britain will be diff
cult to deal with. She demands
two things as the price agreement.
First. she insists on sterling being
stabilized. not at the old price of
$4.86 to the pound, but at $3.50 or
$500 to the pound. This would give
her-like Japan-a big advantage
in international trade
Second, before she returns to the
gold standard, Britain wants a war
debt settlement with the United
States-a settlement at 10 cents, or
Whereabouts, on the dollar. And
this is an impossible demand-if
congress or even the last Demo-
cratic platform stands for any
thing.
Gold Crux of Conference
Sir Neville says Britain will not
return to gold uutil she is certain
she can stay there And she can not
be certain of that until she knows
definitely how much she will have
pay the United States.
= the end, he reminds, interna-
balances are settled in gold,
rdless of the status of world
.rencies.
And as Britain has comparatively
little gold, any heavy annual bal
anceS paid to the United States over
the next half-century-as called for
by the debt greement-would pull
Britain off gold again, even if she
now consented to go back on.
The cruX of the London confer
ence. therefore, is money. Or in
the last analysis. gold.
mara AIN TnAHEI ENn