THE WORLD'S GOLD.

King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 182, 16 August 1909, Page 5

THE WORLD'S GOLD.

The current number of the "Mercantile Gazette" contains a very interesting summary of the table recently published by the United States Statistical Department showing the world's stock of gold. The figures are stupendous and enable us to understand why the bimetattrsts are attracting less attention to their proposals today than they were ten years ago. The stock of gold has increased about one-half in the last decade and has doubled in the last quarter of a century. The stock of gold money has grown in even a greater proportion being practically 75 per cent, more than it was in IS9B. The "Gazette" sets out the currency position in the following figures:— —IB9B ©00,000; uncovered paper, £480,000,000; total, £2,230.000,000. I SOSGold, £!,440.000.000; silver. £720,000,000; uncovered paper, £890,000,000; total, £3,050,000,000. The distribution of the gold mmcy converted into pounds sterling makes an instructive study:— United States 322 millions; Germany 209 millions; Russia 183 millions; United Kingdom 113 millions; Austria-Hungary 60 millions; Italy 51 millions; Australasia 32 millions; Egypt 29 millions; Argentine 29 millions: Turkey 26 millions; India 23 millions; Japan 18 millions; Canada 13 millions; and Brazil 10 millions. It will be noticed that France has been overlooked in the preparation of this list. Probably the gold coinage of that country amount to nearly 20© millions. Of course the whole of the world's stock of gold is not coined into money. The gold production from the discovery of America* to the present time aggregates £2.600,000,000, speaking in round terms; and the amount of gold now in existence Is estimated by experts, still speaking in round terms, at £2,200.000.000, white the value of the gold coin in all the countries of the world for which statistics are available cow aggregates £1,440,000,000. There has been a very rapid increase in gold production in recent years. Prior to 1700 the world's gold production averaged about £1,000,000 a year; from 1700 to 1750 averaged about £2,000,000 a year: from 1750 to 1850 it averaged about £2,400,000 a year. With the discovery of gold in th.» United States in 1843 and a little later in Australia, the world's production increased ten fotd. The annual output ranged about twenty millions between 1850 and 1890. passed the thirty million tine in 1893, and reached the forty millions in 1896. From that time forward the growth was still more rapid, touching sixty millions in 1899, eighty millions in 1906, and eighty-five millions in 1908. The figures are indeed stupendous.