If, finally, the Round Table breaks down, enough
spontaneous violence is expected to give His Majesty's
Government enough provocation to use at strategic points the
weapon of massacre, so effective when Brigadier-General Dyer
sprayed with machine gun bullets and killed some 400 Indians at
Amritsar in 1919. General Dyer received the censure of the House
of Commons by a vote of 230 to 129, was endorsed by the House of
Lords 129 to 86, and finally accepted from the Morning Post a
large sum of money spontaneously made up by individual Britons.
INTERNATIONAL
D'Abernon On Gold
Gold may well be Question of the Year in 1931. What heads
of central banks all over the world are going to do about gold
is just now their closest secret, the subject of earnest, secret
conferences. Last week England's noted elder economist Viscount
d'Abernon of Stoke d'Abernon, who was her Ambassador to Germany
directly after the War, spoke up, as more active financiers
cannot very well do.
Said he: "This depression is the stupidest and most
gratuitous in history!"
All the existing essential circumstances "except monetary
wisdom," he declared, favor a return to prosperity and well
being. Gold is the thing about which 1930 was stupid, about
which 1931 must be wise.
"The explanation of our anomalous situation," declared Lord
d'Abernon, "is that the machinery for handling and distributing
the product of labor has proved inadequate. The means of payment
provided by currency and credit have fallen so short of the
amount required by increased production that a general fall in
prices has ensued.
"This has not only caused a disturbance in the relations
between buyer and seller, but has gravely aggravated the
situation between debtor and creditor. The gold standard, which
was adopted with a view to obtaining stability of price, has
failed in its main function. In the meantime people wrangle
about fiscal-remedies and similar devices of secondary
importance, neglecting the essential question of stability in
standard of value."
