The Daily Alaska empire., 1933-12-28

 s.tling bloc ln order to arrive at ar agreement for 2 general return to gold
 In my opinion this does not meet tne practical issue Ii We are to negosiate with the sterling bloc We ought to have an opinion as t9 Eae value ot 1ne dollar. for the English wil have an opinion as so a.le value os fnsir pound the Can zo-aas aoou taer ao,lss. bne Aus t1aIans aoouf taeu pound the Eoaa5iraglsns about the kronas and 50 for.n and 50 on The Coi- llzaela professors are avoiding the question which the President has -to settle when they tel hin that tte weight of ttle dollar neec not necessarily os what it was. He has somehow to make ID sls -rlind what i. necessarily ought to be ano while i. seems to me that aig present advisers exaggerate their ap-tty to estimate accurately the new value of The do1lar. it would seem as t tae tnirty-eigat Colun- bls professors greatly unoerestl- mate The importance of making some kind Of estimate.
 That ta1e problem is not negD- g.ole should be evident when " recall that the last tiIae tfle ns- tions returned 70 gold. the British ovewsluec the pound and the French 1noervalued the franc. and taat these two errors turned or. to nave very serious consequenoes
 Let us look next at MI. Jarnes P WaroUrgs reply to Senate gorans challenge MT Warourg agrees with the fairty-elght C. lunnbla professors in desiring 2 joint staoillza ion ops ion by Britain and the United States. but he offers from them in that 1a does not recommend an expeol- tious return 70 gold MT Wsrour7 wishes 10 steady sae exchanges, and then oyer "a period of trial and error which may take months or years work out a reYaluation and 2 orsgtically reformed lnternatlon- al gold standard MT Warourg has no opinion as 10 what should be the weight Of the dollar ana al though he does no. offer an opin- ion as 70 what should be it's ez- change value with other curencies he wishes 10 steady the exchange al once. Then he wishes to expert rnent by international agreement, and one must assume. think, that he regards the stability Of the fore ing exchanges as very much more important than the internal value Of the currency.
 I doubt whether the sterling bloe egill share his apparent view that the weig9t Of the currency really does not matter Or perhaps | would be truer to say that the na- tions of the sterling bloc will agree with him in 50 far as they hay already arrived at q valuation of their currencies which suits them They have been experimenting with revaIuation nearly two years longer than we have, and 50 they are probably nearer q definite con- clusion.
 What is it that emerges from this debate that bears upon the im- mediate situation? IL is, I think, that the Presidents critics have not yet faced the problem he is facing, which is 10 do what the sterling bloc has done, determine the value of the currency in rela- ton to gold The United Kingdom has fixed it at about GO per cent Of the old value, and would pre- sumably like to stabilize there. Aus tralia has fixed 1t at about 50 per cent. The Scandinavian coun- tries in between the two Does 1t matter where we fix It? The Presi- dent's critics do not seem to think 1t matters, and perhaps 1t does not matter within narrow limits, But within wider limits it evident ly does matter to all the other na- tions how their currency is val ued if one Is to judge by their actions, and presumably it does matter to us.
 Therefore. it appears that there wlll be meeting of minds and the possibility of q constructive solu- ton when the Presidents critics decide not merely that they wish to stabilize. but where.