London, Oct. 11. an the gold mines of Merionethshire come to the rescue of trade Gepression and the. impending. detrease of the world's other visible suppliea? On this highly interest-Sng. question a Government [Comanission, presided over by Professor Henry Lewis, president of the Iron Steel Institute has been sitting "The existence of gold in. the soountains of North Wales is. novelty. The Crown elnima all gold and silver found in the Brit Jules, but. grants leences to. pros-sectors and charges a commission on precious metals found. In_the last hundred years some hundreds of aerices to prospect have been taken aut and not a few companies formed. Princess Mary's wedding ring]
made of Welsh gold. From one nine worked from 1863. to 1891, feold worth £30,466 was taken, The Morgan Goldmining Company Soated in 1888—got £51,218, in gold 1801, And the gold recovered from the Gwynfynnydd mines between 1888 and 1910 amounted to 7,000, This mine has been per-anally investigated by the Government Commission and specimens taken for analysis, At the inguiry Mr. William Roberts, of Cornwall, said that as the result of personal examination fof the Merionethshire mineral feld, was convinced that only the fringe had been touched. and lucrative area, akimming experience in South 'Africa, calculated that mining in Wales' would pay on a basis of '9 dwt (861) of gold to the ton, he produced some quarts showing a much richer percentage than that, His own attempts at mining had been ruined by labour costs and particularly the Government tax on petrd, which made the expense of zanning the crushing woachines pro-world, In Germany the bank rate was raised two days ago from 4 to 5 per cent. to check the efflux of gold, which since the German elections on September 14 had) Jamounted to £30,000,000. The suc-fesses of Hitler and the Nazis of feourse scared money out of feountry at an accelerated rate. But the demand for gold is keen that if the one per cent. rise proves ineffective, it is thought probable that more drastic methods: may be used.
With a scarcity of gold the prospects of silver cannot be thought too bright, unless the nations are Jdriven to fall back on bimetallism. But there are gleams of hopeful-mess. I saw a report recently that the French Government was seraly thinking of coining silver in to replace ite small denomina~ tion paper. And America is said be growing seriously worried over the decreased ability of the silver using countries to purchase her exports. "Trut gested that the moment is oppor~ tune for Great Britain to put out 1a decent silver coinage again. Most of the silver now in circulation was minted during and since 1920 when the abnormal price of silver caused the British Government to introduce 150 per cent. of alloy. These coins Jare too shabby-looking to be toler-lo and as "Truth" says, the im~ Jmediate cost of replacing them with good coins would be small, while [the sentimental effect on the market must lead to a recovery.in the metal which would raise the purchasing power of India and China and thus reset favourably on Lancashire.
All are agreed that peace in China would count more than any. Jother factor in resuscitating the value of silver—not to mention|—' lather benefits. Will help come from Chinese politicians, or the mountains of Wales?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.