The Hardin tribune-herald. [volume] (Hardin, Mont.) 1925-1973, 1934-08-24
s-s HEARD
around the
National Capital
BY CARTER FIELD


Neutrality-suspicious. Of the admins
tration to prevent the Sew profiting
at the expense Of the many"-the
avowed; reason for nationalizing s.l-
yer, will enable foreign SPECTATORS TO
reap a rich harvest, while depriving
American spectators Of such an OPP
portunity-if-the world price OF sill
yer follows the course now generally
expected. ID
The treasury has been doing its ut
most, In the period between adjourn
ment Of congress following the pas
sage Of the silver act and the nation,
alization Of silver to prevent Ameri-
can spectators taking advantage Of
the situation. Many requests to trans
fer money abroad for purchase of sill
yer in London were declined. Prior to
3, the passage of the silver act the treas
ury had insisted on a stiff tax being
included on any profits made on sill
: yer. This was fixed in the law at 30
per cent, despite the insistence of the
silver senator's that the regular income
taxes would give the government a
considerable revenue from any such
profits.
, The real cause of the sudden act of
naturalization was the discovery by
the treasury that American specula-
tors had found a way to effect pur-
chases on the London market despite
treasury refusal to permit transfer
of American funds to London for that
purpose.
The system was surprisingly simple,
and vas being worked in volume right
up to the moment of naturalization.
The point was that certain stocks, in
Guiding international Nickel, had their
registry Offices in London. So an
American Spectator, wishing to buy
some silver in London and denied
treasury permission to transfer funds
there, could buy 100 or 1000 or 10000
shares Of International Nickel on the
New York Stock Exchange. Then he
could ship the certificates to London
direct or by way of Canada, and sell
the stock in London, taking Of course
pounds sterling in payment.
The ownership of the stock would
be transferred in the London office,
and the American Spectator would
have his pounds in London with no
strings OF them leading back to the
American government. So he could
use those pounds to buy silver.
Treasury Wakes Up
Purchases of silver through this
maneuvering of International Nickel
and other stocks with registry offices
In London had u into a good many
millions Of dollars when the treasury
here found out what was going on.
Wires were hot in the next few hours
after this discovery between Secretary
.Morgenthau and the President, and the
order was rushed out just in time, it
is learned, to prevent tremendous fur
ather operations of this character.
Brokers at once started to. figure
cut q new way to beat the restric-
tons in the naturalization order, and
skim some Of the cream. represented
by the difference between the nation
alzation price-barely e so. cents
an ounce-and the alleged objective
not less than 70 cents for silver all
over the world.
There were complications enough
before, one of them being that silver
as traded in at London Is Of q
different ~fineness from silver as traded
In in the United States. Some brok-
ers hold that the International Nickel
route is still open, despite the ma
ti~onalization order.
But the real objection Of the brokers
is that speculatdrs in Europe. in Japan
and in China and India are free to buy
silver at the present world price,
counting on the obvious objective of
not only the United States government
but that of Great Britain to put the
world price higher, whereas the re-
strictions make 1t hard for any Amer
lean to profit, eve by paying the so
per cent tax imposed in the silver law
and such income taxes as would re-
suit.
Fort Peck Project
Is. Both army engineers and reclama-
ton officials were startled at Presi-
dent Roosevelt's comment, in his
speech at Glasgow. that some 5000
acres Of land would be irrigated BY
water from the Fort Peck project. The
point is that the project was not de.
- - -