Egg Trade

Like a hen sitting patiently on a nest full of china eggs and growing worried because they would not hatch, Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau has since last December been sitting on the Government's sterilized golden nest egg. Ever since then, the Government has been buying all the gold imported into the U. S. and storing it away to prevent the normal inflationary effect of such an influx. With recent imports of $5,000,000 a day and a sterile nest egg of $1,145,000,000, Mr. Morgenthau has been kept busy borrowing money to buy more of the wretched stuff.

Last week, therefore, he was delighted to have Mr. H. H. Kung, Finance Minister of China, come into his office and express China's longing to have a little golden egg of her own. Such an egg Mr. Kung figured would assist China to stabilize her once all-silver currency in relation to the currencies of the great nations which adhere to gold as a medium for settling balances. Would Mr. Morgenthau take some of China's silver in exchange for gold? Mr. Morgenthau was delighted for he is supposed to buy silver under the Silver Purchase Act of 1934. Some of his useless gold would be put back into use; he would get back some of the money he had spent for it since silver certificates must be issued against the silver acquired.

Only statement of the size of the trade was that it-would be for a "substantial amount" of gold. A definite announcement might have caused convulsions in Shanghai's speculative gold market. "We would not want anybody to speculate," clucked Mr. Kung, setting comfortably on his new gold egg.

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