Snappy Days

Floundering in the doldrums of Depression, small Belgium has had recourse to a threat: either France, leader of the World Gold Bloc, must come to Belgium's economic aid or Belgium will quit the gold standard so cherished by France.

To present this alternative in an appropriate atmosphere, Foreign Minister Henri Jaspar of Belgium succeeded in assembling at Brussels last week a conference of the entire Gold Standard Bloc: France, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Poland. The Poles had at first refused to attend. At the last minute Warsaw got wind that Paris was prepared to make handsome concessions all round to keep the Bloc on gold. In a wild scramble a "Polish Delegation'' to the Brussels Conference was hastily recruited at the Polish Legation in Brussels.

The States thus assembled control almost one-half of the world's gold supply, embrace a third of Europe's population (excluding Russia) and are economically united only by the gold standard and the fact that most of them are "tourist countries." The mere fact that a Gold Conference had been called roused old fears, caused the gold currencies to dip last week. But the Conference, convened in pessimism, got straight to business and put through that business in an exceedingly snappy two-day session.

Results: 1) The delegates signed a protocol confirming their countries' "determination to maintain the present gold parities of their respective currencies, and recognizing that their common policy implies a development of international exchanges" (i. e. stimulation of trade and consequent payments between nations of the Gold Bloc). To push this program the Conference set up: 2) a permanent Gold Standard Secretariat at Brussels; and 3) subcommittees of the Conference charged with the duty of drafting concrete plans for action in accelerating trade and tourist travel within the Bloc.

Since France is the Bloc's great importer while all the rest are exporters, and since France can buy cheaper outside the Gold Bloc than inside, the developments at Brussels appeared to mean that France is contemplating heavy sacrifices to aid the Bloc by buying more than heretofore within it. The Conference even went so far as to set a goal: within one year the velocity of trade within the Bloc must increase 10%, whereas in the past year it has fallen 8%.

As the Conference rose, promising to reassemble within three months, Belgium's Henri Jaspar rubbed his hands in satisfaction. The Netherlands' delegates on their way home were pained to hear that a Netherlands Society for Managed Currency had just been formed to get Holland off the gold standard "by all the legitimate means at its disposal."

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