WELLINGTON NEWS

Hokitika Guardian, 10 March 1931, Page 7

WELLINGTON NEWS

THE WHITE METAL. (Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, March 6. Owing to the low prices of silver Mexico’s third largest silver mine, the >vuifa Maria de la- Pa/,, has closed down. It has been in continuous operation since 1870, and the highest annual production was 10,000,000 oz-s. The low prices of silver has affected a large number of metal -companies, and the latest quotation is 133 d per ounce fine, while not many years back the price was os per o/,. Silver is a byproduct of many mines particularly ot broken Hill in South Australia, and it is to-day a drug in the market. At one time quite a number ol countries, especially in the East, possessed a silver currency, and now except for China and some parts o) Arabia, silver has ceased to have any importune© as a monetary metal. It is 'now minted as a token coin, and the mintages ar e fairly heavy though not sufficient to influence the price of the metal. According to the report ot the Deputy Master and Controller of the Royal Mint the coinage of Imperial silver in 1929 exceeded 81,900,000 pieces, the total value being £5,520,267.

The total number of silver coins is* sued was 10 per cent, higher than in the previous year, Automatic machines play a part in the demand for coins. There have been many complaints in Britain of the shortage of shillings and while the use of automatic machines for selling cigarettes has no doubt temporarily imprisoned a large number of sixpences as well as shillings the hanks as a whole have tailed to reflect the public demand for the smaller coins.

It is also said that the demand reflects a condition largely attributable to the introduction of the totalisator on th e racecourses, in connection with which the minimum stake is a florin. China is the only important country now using a silver currency, and the Government has plans, in view of the depreciation of this metal, for the introduction of a gold standard. Sir Arthur Salter, Director of the Financial and Economic section of the League of Nations, is now in China, and his main task is to assess the practicability of such plans and the extent to which the League can support them. In Arabia the thaler, an Austrian silver coin is used as currency and has been so for a great many vc a ra.

There is now an effort to monetise silvei, for its depreciation is causing considerable distress in Asia. According to the Chairman of the Mu ruin Corporation, Ltd., “Whatever the findings regarding the failure of gold to function freely there can be no doubt that the fall in silver has contributed directly to the; distress of a very large piuportion of the world’s population, and it seems desirable that attention should be directed towards the restoration of silver to its traditional use in the monetary mechanism of the world, so that, it may render more, and not less help to gold in the increasingly difficult task it now performs alone.” This seems to he a plea for bi-metal-lism, which was hotly discussed in the nineties and abandoned. It seems always in crisis that some new but unworkable scheme is scheduled for world consideration. In the fifties, when the Californian and Australian gold diggings were turning out the gold in huge quantities there was a strong demand that gold should be demonitised because commodity prices were soaring. In the nineties, when the price of silver declared and was yet about 2s 6d per oz., the silver producers in the United States managed to induce Congress to pass a bill enacting that the Treasury should purchase a certain quantity at fixed price. The Treasury soon acquired a considerable quantity of the white metal, and of course made a loss. There is no doubt that silver has been used for monetary purposes for centuries, especially in the East, but it is now discredited. South Africa refuses circulation for Australian minted coins which is not surprising, for if tolerated there would be nothing to prevent Australia from minting an excessive quantity of silver coins and getting them circulated in other parts of the Empire. It would l>e mi easy and cheap method of paying debts. The silver position, like that of gold, and of the base metals, will right itself in due course. The industrial metals are beginning to show some recovery.