CHAOTIC SITUATION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 16 January 1931, Page 5

CHAOTIC SITUATION

DROP IN ARGENTINE EXCHANGE SEVERAL CAUSES ATTRIBUTED (United Pres* Association —By Eleotrte Telegraph—Copyright) NEW YORK, 14th January. The “New York Times” to-morrow will print a despatch from Buenos Aires stating that the Argentine exchange has dropped to such a low level that the peso is selling at 50 per cent, discount against sterling and that the dollar of that country faces the possibility of a moratorium, that private merchants are purchasing American and British goods and are facing bankruptcy and are informing the houses with which they trade that hereafter they will accept goods only on assignment until the exchange position improves. The failure of the new Government to announce a financial porgramme that would reassure foreign and domestic interests in the elasticity of the currency system by which the Caja de conversion holds t 7 per cent, of the gold reserve against notes, whereas 40 would be sufficient, while the Government declines to make the necessary shipment of gold abroad to support the exchange, and the activities of certain wheat interests who are selling at sterling, and dumped so much wheat into Liverpool as to break the market, and none the less made large profits on the exchange, have all helped to produce a chaotic situation.