FRENCH INFLUENCES.
It is not only, however, as regards the situation in Gernion that developments abroad have been noteworthy, for it evident that French financial developments continue to Ix of a particularly interesting character. A few weeks ago came the wholly unexpected repayment by the Bank of France to the Bank of England of about 233,000,000, and I referred at the time of that event to the interest attaching to the future employment- of £18,000,000 - in gold which had been held bY the Bank of England as collateral and released on the repayment of the loan. It is now fairly clear from the New York cableS
that practically the whole of this gold is now held by the Federal Reserve Bank in the United States, though how much of it is held here,. and how much on the other side of the Atlantic, it is impossible to say. Nor has this total of special gold yet ceased to appear in the weekly returns of the Bank of France, though one would suppose that if that institution
is being given dollar credits return for the gold, the item would shortly disappear. ' What, however, is impossible to determine at the moment is the precise manner in which this gold is functioning, and the mystery is heightened by the fact that only during the past week there has been considerable buying of dollars on French account, although it might have been supposed that the gold itself would have.established very large French credits on the other side of the Atlantic. As a consequence of this buying of dollars, the American exchange has moved against us, and it is that circumstance which lends particular uncertainty to the monetary outlook, in spite of the fact that the Bank of England is once again beginning to gain. a little gold from abroad.
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