Evening star., 1951-02-11

New York Times revealed how
one country's loss Can be an
other country's gain. While We
are exporting gold for the above
reasons. Britain's gold stock is
rising. Said the chairman Of
Lloyds Bank, Ltd, to his share
holders:
'The elimination of the sterling
areas current dollar deficit meant
that during 1850 we were able to
place the whole Of our Marshall
aid receipts to reserve"
In other words. the Marshall
Plan is now being used to give
gold away.
Britain's Stock Rises
The British. Of course, like
others, argue that a country needs
comfortable gold reserve against
the time when the trouble with
Russia has been settled and dol
lars again become scarce. At such
time gold may again be ex-
pected to flow toward the United
States magnet"
Among the anomalies Of Amer
ican gold policy let us now turn
to recent announcement Of
the International Bank for Re-
construction and Development,
the so-called World Bank, devised
at Breton Woods in 1914 along
with the international Monetary
Fund.
In January the World Bank an
nounced in Washington conclusion
of arrangements long under study
to lend South Africa $50 million
for electric power and transport
purposes. simultaneously, South
Africa obtained an additional
$40 million from eight American
commercial banks, in effect, az
part Of the aforementioned ar
rangement. The bank announced
that the money will be used in
part to finance the large expected
industrial demands of the new
Orange Free State gold fields.
There, in what until recently
was open country. rich deposits
Of gold have been discovered and
huge mines and whole cities will
be created to extract the precious
yellow metal from the bowels Of
the earth.
A bank spokesman reports that
South Africa. already the largest
gold producer in the world, with
the full development of the
Orange Free State fields, hopes to
increase its annual gold output by
as much as so per cent. In other
words, with the aid of the World
Banks dollars, South Africa ex-
poets to dig out of the earth the
gold with which to repay the loan.
And if the trend in recent years
proves to have been only inter-
rupted by the conflict which be-
gan in Korea last June, one way
or another the new South African
gold will find its way into the
vaults VI rOTG hIlOx.
Need Our Own Equipment
What will South Africa buy
with the dollars which it is now
being lent and which, the bank
has announced, may be supple
mented by further lending in the
future? The shopping list in
cludeS such items as turbo-
generators, boilers and accesso-
ries, electrical apparatus includ-
ing switch gear, transformers,
power and control cable, cable for
station lighting and grounding.
pumps without which no deep
mine can continue operations,
piping and structural materials.
During World War II South
Africa was insistent in its re-
quests for priorities for American
mining equipment to keep the
Rand gold mines working. To-
day, when we are turning our
economy topsy- -turvey for the de-
fense of the Western world, it
seems odd to be setting aside
large productive resources for
such equipment as is enumerated
above, equipment which consumes
not only valuable manpower but
strategic and critical materials.
However justifiable it might ap-
pear in normal times to finance
the output Of more gold, these are
(See GOLD BARGAIN, Page C-2)