CRISIS IS NEAR

Hokitika Guardian, 24 December 1931, Page 5

CRISIS IS NEAR

AMERICA IN BAD WAY. ECONOMIST’S GLOOMY PICTURE. (United’ Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) WASHINGTON, Dec. 22. President Ecker, of the Metropolitan Li.'e Insurance Company, the largest organisation of its kind in America, painted a startling picture of American economic conditions before the Senate Banking Committee. He said that the country was worse off now than in last June, and a crisis was approaching. His company had lent 416.000,020 dollars to its policy holders, to tide them over the distress, and he intimated that the Company 'wmi'd not continue making further advances

He pointed to the condition of the Railways as an especial index to the seriousness of - affairs and said that the Railways next year would have 253,000,000 dollars’ worth of securities corning due, and only two lines, with less than one-tenth of the sum due, can meet their obligations. BANK SUSPENSIONS. BIG HANDICAP IMPOSED. NEW YORK, December 23. Mr Melvin Traylor, President of the First National Dank of Chicago, today stated that some 1750 million dollars belonging to Americans were now tied up in the closed banks He asserted that the withdrawal of such a sum from circulation constituted a big handicap to the restoration of stability and to a reduction of the unemployment. Moreover, many of the people involyed in such losses were themselves unemployed. He added that the bank failures had led to the hoarding of money to an extent ranging from 750 million to one thousand million 'dollars.