Oct, 31.
One of the principal factors contributing to the soaring prices of commodities is of course hoarding, but there are several others having a baneful effect upon local markets, by no means the least of which being the present gambling in gold bars. It is nothing but a racket to which the uninformed are paying far too much attention. The. cash gold bar market is a highly artilelal exchange with so small a number as between 1,000 and 1,500 bars in circulation, "As the slock is very limited operators are able to secure wide Muctuations in the price of gold bars by transactions which are relatively small, The position appears to be that speculators can wade in and buy a few bars. Because of the limitation of stocks it is quite easy to push up prices. At the same time they go into other markets and purchase com= modities, stocks and shares, with the result that they also go up in price. 'The average man in the street, seeing that the cash price of gold bars has risen tremendously, assumes that the fapi is doomed, and in turn' goes into the markets for the same commodities, stocks and shares, which the speculators have pure chased, whereupon the latter unload and gather' in their profits, 'The process is again started at the lower prices which result, and what Shanghai is at present witnessing' is the continual (uring of a very vicious circle. How irrational it all is can be seen from the fact that, while the United States Government purchases gold at the rate of U.S. $35 an ounce, the official rate, in Shanghai a market price of about US$57, or even more, has been established. I has fo be emphasized that this false value is entirely due to the limited number of gold bars available, combined with the readiness of rapacious racketeers to take every advantage they possibly can to fleece the public. That is what this gold bar racket amounts to. It is obviously incorrect for the public at large to assume that because of this purely fictitious value the worth of the tap
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.