1 1 rie r . L. " e ekly Frolic ,,,,, had yu h eti a rna l de rn n ad
50p on an aristo ‘'q4tIzzi Write two-year-old in the e to d away from the chilly '4'it4ltit re.,211nny Salisbury and a rather_ 44 —on. Falling into conver r reitart Mractive, but not noticeably 414qt:: guest, sparked off a fine ' tirrl.Whi-st "al ignorance. Facetiously • 1ite Is ° rides work ' for Bill Ma be 4Y r lady jockey and having her N MarMar..' ,11, tlte,. , Gordon Watson (champion '9.1d surely the best known of },is ,0 wiiss Tufnell galloped into the Ii ritethin .';t1,1 4 ev g like asking Albert Finiliiti„ .er thought of going on the l'41‘i,atici ii4,6 1° Latribourn by a roundaivut k4i Parties,„., Parties, it was 4.30 ,am 1 , teru.,",.1.' at the training establishte13,1411 to-Y Leigh, which not s.urpreskl al anY 8 o'clock appraisal of Iv k is 44. • 151. • My host — with three .1 a in this h. t'rliejoteht. , is second, season 1 k„111,1 x or A„,lal Ascot hero in Knocke—rs 'l 411, th.,:vnkingham Stakes and also 'qeti':ar olds, Menu and Deauville ' Certain amount of cash by the end of the season. As for any personal talent-spotting of sheltered certainties, my appreciation of forward fillies and well-muscled colts still leaves a lot to be desired. The timing problems of press and declaration days are too boring too relate, but in response to a letter from Mr Christopher Fildes, I'll lay off the Wednesday winners and settle for the safe distance of Bank Holiday Monday. The race is the Vaux Gold Tankard, the venue Redcar and the entry highly classy. Knockroe is a definite starter but he will find an interesting rival in seasonal debutant, Parthian Plain. In receipt of 81b, the Murless horse is considerably better off on last year's running. He gave Knockroe 41b and a half-length beating at Newbury — though it can be argued that his rival threw the race away. Although again in the dark, declaration-wise, I am honour-bound to support Parthian Queen in Saturday's Nassau Stakes at Kempton Park. If she turns out half as well as last year's winner, Royalty, my Oaks' ante-post money may not have been wasted after all. Assets: £124. Outlay: -E3 to win Parthian Plain (alt Minio) & Parthian Queen. £37 million a month — still comfortably covered by the ' invisible ' surplus which has been running at over £50 million a month — but if you compare these figures with those of the first quarter of 1970 you will find that the unit value of exports has increased by 18 per cent while that for imports by only 6 per cent. British export prices are therefore becoming less competitive, as the recent survey of the CBI suggested. The volume of exports, has, in fact, been declining since the second quarter of 1971. If and when the economy does move up to Mr Barber's target of a 51 per cent growth there could be a massive increase in manufactured imports which are found to be cheaper than British. So much for the 'stimulating ' effects of the high wage inflation. Labour's puerile proposals for further nationalisation would not help us to sell more goods abroad. Only private enterprise can do that.
Talk of a coming devaluation is however premature and to be deprecated. When there is a wage-cost inflation raging it is not so easy to right the balance of payments by devaluation. The rise in exports since the last devaluation in 1967 was to a large extent explained by the boom in world trade. In any event we would have to secure the consent of our partners in the EEC who have recently agreed to a scheme for narrowing exchange margins within the Community to a maximum of 2-1per cent. The Treasury has already said it will conform to this scheme. Any further realignment of currencies will have to wait on the next American President and the 1973 meeting of the IMF. Yet idle gossip about Mr Nixon's visit to Moscow ending up with an agreement to raise the monetary price of gold, which neither party has the power to do, may have encouraged the latest speculation in gold. The free market price has suddenly moved up to $58 an ounce against the new monetary price of $38. There may well be good technical reasons for this remarkable rise. There is a steady demand for gold from commercial and conventional hoarding interests and if South Africa, which is back into surplus on her trading account, no longer has to throw the newly mined gold straight on to the market there could well he a temporary shortage of supply from time to time. But make no mistake about it, the heady rise in gold, as in some other commodities, reflects the increasing public anxiety about the madness of inflation.
The rush into equity shares has not yet been matched by a rush out of Government stocks but the gilt-edged market is looking and feeling very sick. It seems as if the yield on the long-dated stocks is going to move up again towards 9-i per cent. This is depressing for the Treasury which has been hoping to sell a Tot of stock to the public to offset the rise in the money supply and yet foolishly drenched the market with £1,000 million of stock from the tap. A government which is prepared to abandon the new parity for sterling rather than worsen unemployment should not be averse to supporting the gilt-edged market so that industrial investment will not be deterred by a rise in the borrowing rate. What hellish problems a wage-cost inflation brings!
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