SILVER BULLET RESERVE.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 160, 10 August 1916, Page 4

SILVER BULLET RESERVE.

Striking figures as to tiie financial strength of the Allies were given by Professor 11. S. Foxwell, Director of Economic Studies at St. John ’s College Cambridge, in a lecture at the Royal Institution.

The Allies, he declared, held 460 millions in gold in bank reserves, while the enemy held only 125 millions —plus anything which might be held in'Austria, but about which some of them were a little sceptical. It was supposed that, in spite of our sales to America, we still held, in securities £3,800,000,000. We had U.S.A. securities to the extent of £650,000,000, apart from £623,000,000 of South American securities, in which the U S.A. were, of course, interested. We also held '£500,000,000 of Canadian securities. so that we could hold out for three years more, simply on that part of our securities which we thought would be acceptable in Xew York

With regard to the rise in prices, Professor Foxwell said that wholesale prices had risen 58 per cent since June, 1014. and those of foodstuffs 72 per cent. Though these were nearly at the price level if the year ISIS, it was less than in several Continental countries. Generally speaking, the rise in the cost of living was not less than 40 per cent since the. beginning of the war. Pressure had fallen most heavily on the middle-class.