" We are left with the question whether the City
can main. taro its traditional supremacy as the chief centre of the world's gold market, or can expect possibly a return to gold parity either at the old or a new rate. In the first place it has to be considered whether the necessary mechanism for the handling of gold consignments is available anywhere else, or could easily be contrived. On the other hand, on the Continent recently fears have been expressed, not for the first time, that England perhaps has it in its power to secure for herself a monopoly of the gold from South African mines, and so to force the trend of new monetary conditions into whatever direction she pleases. . . .
"It should be pointed out that the Union of South Africa, though a Dominion, is throtigh the Crown a politically dependent member of the Commonwealth. Moreover, South Africa at present shows very little inclination to give up the gold standard herself and to return to the unsatisfactorY system of gold premiums which obtained during the War and
in the first post-War years. . .—KOInische Zeitung (Cologne), 4.10.31.
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