FUTURE GOLD SHORTAGE.
On the other hand, it must, I think, be admitted that when surveying not present but future possibilities Professor Gustav Cassel and other economists emphasize the anticipated steady reduction in the world's gold production in the near future they do well to call our attention to the possibility of a shortage of gold, if continued, being of a sufficiently serious character to call for some concerted action on the part of all monetary centres with regard to economy in the use of the metal, an economy which Professor Cassel suggests might take the form of legal ratios of gold to notes at the various Central Banks being made lower than they are at present. This, however, in my judgment is quite a different problem from that which is involved in what is described as the maldistribution of gold. For that alleged maldistribution there are different causes, and next week I propose to summarize a few of the world events, and as I have already said, I shall then leave it to readers of the Spectator to form their own conclusions as to the chief causes of the present world depression and of the depression in this country in particular.
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