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Show News Review of Current Events the World Over London Conference in Danger of Collapse as Moley Arrives California and West Virginia Vote for Repeal of Prohibition. By EDWARD W. PICKARD DROF. RAYMOND MOLEY arrived in Loudon seemingly full of confidence con-fidence and optimism, but there was a serious doubt whether he could 1 3 J r j , or would save the world economic conference from collapse. Prices in the United States were jumping daily, the dollar was declining de-clining In the foreign for-eign exchange markets, mar-kets, capital was fleeing from Holland Hol-land and Switzer- . land, and the coun- Senator . . tries still remain- ing on the gold standard were excited and angry. Their delegates In London got together to-gether and declared unanimously that Immediate stabilization of currencies cur-rencies by international agreement was imperative, and that without that it would be useless to continue the conference. The American delegates, despite many specific stories of dissension in their ranks, were declared by Secretary Hull and others to be In complete accord and acting entirely in conformity with the instructions and wishes of President Roosevelt. Senator James Couzens of Michigan, the lone Republican in the delegation, delega-tion, delivered a significant speech before the monetary subcommittee in which he urged immediate action ac-tion to raise prices and lighten the debt burden as a means of helping solve the world crisis. He said, however, that he did not believe prices could be raised sufficiently suf-ficiently to bring about the proper equilibrium with the existing debt burden. While prices must be raised and the debt burden lightened, Mr. Couzens Couz-ens said, this must not be construed as an Invitation to debtors able to pay to scale down their indebtedness. indebted-ness. "Certainly It Is not an invitation to default," he said. "It emphasizes the necessity for organizing creditors credit-ors throughout the world, of establishing estab-lishing some form of permanent body to act in an advisory capacity between organized creditors and organized debtors to try to find by what means the necessary adjustments adjust-ments may be brought about with the minimum of delay and Injustice." Injus-tice." Mr.v Couzens declared that the United States does not believe prices can be raised by monetary means alone. Purchasing power must also be increased, he said, and America is acting on that belief by Instituting the largest program of public works ever undertaken in the history of the world. DRIME MINISTER MACDONALD was scurrying about in desperate effort to save the conference, and after the meeting and pronuncia-mento pronuncia-mento of the gold bloc he had a talk with Georges Bonnet of France and then called Mr. Hull and other American delegates into conference. con-ference. He showed them that they would be held to blame if the parley par-ley failed, and the Americans resented re-sented what they considered to be an attempt thus to force President Roosevelt to alter his position that the dollar should not be stabilized until there has been a substantial rise in commodity prices and wages in the United States. Mr. Hull told MacDonald that the question of immediate stabilization of currencies cur-rencies Is beyond the jurisdiction of the American delegation. Since Mr. Hull refused to do anything any-thing about immediate currency stabilization, the monetary subcommittee subcom-mittee decided to report favorably on Senator Key Plttman's gold resolution, reso-lution, which provides, among other things, for withdrawal of the yellow yel-low metal from circulation and reducing re-ducing the gold coverage of central banks to 25 per cent. It Inserted a statement that such monetary changes "must not be taken as an excuse for unduly building up a larger superstructure of notes and credits." There was fear throughout Europe Eu-rope that the developments would compel all nations to abandon the gold standard, and this was given force by the announcement that Estonia had taken that step. Other Baltic countries. It was expected, would follow suit. GEN. HUGH S. JOHNSON, administrator ad-ministrator of the Industrial recovery act, opened hearings on codes submitted for government control before an interested crowd in the Department of Commerce building In Washington, the first one to be taken up being that offered of-fered by tho cotton-textile Industry Indus-try which was described In this column a week ago. In his blulT manner General Johnson Introduced his deputy, W. L. Allen, and his counsel, Donald Itlchberg, and the latter laid down the rules of procedure to be fol lowed, which were rather disconcerting discon-certing to many of his hearers. After explaining the manner in which codes would be received from industrial indus-trial groups, Mr. Richberg said that the hearings were intended to produce pro-duce facts only, and that no oral arguments upon questions of law would be permitted. If any interest inter-est felt its legal rights were being trampled, it must be content to present pre-sent its plea privately in writing to the administration, according to this Richberg ruling. Another section of the Richberg code was even more drastic. It provided pro-vided that the control of testimony to be presented at the hearings will rest entirely with the deputy administrator. admin-istrator. The deputy will call all witnesses, wit-nesses, question all witnesses, and no. question may be asked by any one else without the consent of the deputy. Deputy Administrator Allen took charge of the hearing later and the textile code was discussed, with witnesses both for and against it The tire makers, especially, objected object-ed to some of Its features. The proponents of the code agreed to ban child labor. President Green of the American Federation of Labor, La-bor, who is strongly opposed to the wage scale proposed by the textile group, was present part of the time, as was Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins. ONE-THIRD of the states have now declared themselves for ratification of the prohibition repeal re-peal amendment, the score standing 10 to 0. The latest to go on record are California and West Virginia. The coast state was never in doubt and the vote there was about three to one for ratification. But West Virginia the drys had hoped would uphold prohibition. However How-ever It set..an example to the rest of the South by giving the repeal cause a substantial majority. The hill counties and farming regions were strong in opposition but their votes were overwhelmed by those of the cities and the mining areas. Twenty more states for repeal are needed, and the wets have some hope that these can be secured before be-fore the close of the year. The state conventions of Indiana, Massachusetts and New York met and carried out the mandates of the people by ratifying the repeal amendment. Al Smith was president of the New York convention and said: "This gathering will go down in history as a warning for all time that questions like prohibition should be decided by the people themselves and not by legislatures." TpHERE were those who thought -1 the acquittal of Charles Mitchell Mitch-ell on Income tax evasion charges would take the heart out of the !""A--1 L . 'J senatorial Investigation Investi-gation of private banking methods, but the committee resumed its Inquiry, and Prosecutor Ferdinand Fer-dinand Pecora put on the stand Otto Kahn.head of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., and 1 Istingulsbed patron of the fine Otto Kahn art,s' Mr' Kahn talked at length of the philosophy of private banking and of the processes for the marketing market-ing of securities, with especial reference ref-erence to those of railroads. He said the good private banker does not chase after business, and he condemned competitive bidding for securities put out by corporations. There was much discussion of the whoopee days of 1927 and 1928. In dwelling upon the mania of those days, Mr. Kahn held that so far as controlled Inflation is concerned he knows of only one agency that can exercise a corrective Influence whenever when-ever needed, and that is the federal fed-eral reserve board. The committee took up the matter mat-ter of the Chilean bond Issue of 1925, which has been in default for two years. Mr. Kahn said that Norman Nor-man II. Davis, roving ambassador In Europe, received fees of $:i5,000 for his services In the negotiations for the floating of those bonds, but that Mr. Davis at that time was a private pri-vate citizen. Later in the inquiry Mr. Pecora questioned Mr. Kahn closely concerning con-cerning his Income In recent years, and the tax upon It which ho has paid. If he and his partners took advantage of loopholes In the Income In-come tax laws, at least I here was no evldenco that they had made fake stock sales to their wives. ATTORNEY GENERAL CUM-MINGS CUM-MINGS announced that before long ho would make public tho names of hoarders of gob who refused re-fused to turn In their stores of the yellow metal, then If this publicity falls to bring them to terms Ihey will be prosecuted. Even If the government wins a criminal case against a hoarder, however, It may have to proceed civilly against him also to get the gold back unless he voluntarily yields up the precious metal, Cummings admitted. He said, however, that he believed holders couvicted in criminal cases would bring in their gold as a step toward obtaining leniency. VATICAN City police are convinced con-vinced that the bomb explosion in a cloak room of St. Peter's church in Rome was the work of a Spaniard who was arrested, and was instigated by the enemies of the Catholic church. In Spain. No one was injured by the blast and the property damage was small. THE conciliation plans for torn Cuba, formulated by Ambassador Ambassa-dor Sumner Welles, ran Into a snag when the Machado government suddenly sud-denly made wholesale raids on the homes of the opposition leaders, arresting ar-resting many prominent men. The police said they seized machine guns and other weapons and a radio transmitter recently used by the A. B. C. terrorist society. The oppositionists opposi-tionists charged that Machado had violated the truce that had been accepted ac-cepted by almost everybody ; and they also resented the appointment to cabinet posts of two men who are considered subservient to the dictatorship of the President. EMULATING Dictator Mussolini, Chancellor Hitler Is rapidly exterminating ex-terminating all political parties in Germany except his own National Socialists. Following the Nazi raids on the Nationalists, the suppression of their "fighting" units and the arrests ar-rests of their leaders, that party dissolved itself and most of the members announced they would join the Nazis. Hitler released those arrested and promised political posts for some of the converted ones. About the same time Dr. Alfred Hugenberg, head of the National Na-tional party, resigned as minister of economics and agriculture in the reich cabinet The State party also was attacked by Hitler, Its members mem-bers being excluded from the Prussian Prus-sian diet. The Centrist party remained re-mained the only Important group In opposition, and the Nazi assaults on the Catholics led to the belief that It, too, would soon be brought into line by force. In Bavaria, the Nazi government announced that all Bavarian People's Peo-ple's party members of the reichs-tag reichs-tag and diet were under arrest. TESTIFYING before a one-man grand jury consisting of Judge H. B. Keidan, a Detroit banker, Herbert R. Wilkin, was asked why If- v S&.'jiLd Detroit s two big banks were closed last winter. "It was a plot by Wall Street to get Henry Hen-ry Ford," he replied. re-plied. He said that in his opinion It was decided by the New York financiers, finan-ciers, long before the two banks closed their doors. H. R. Wilkin that tnpy must pass from the picture and be replaced re-placed by one bank. And this one. the new National bank of Detroit, Is "the child of Wall Street," he added. Wilkin, who became vice president presi-dent of the Union Guardian Trust company at the request of Henry Ford, said that, for the second time, the Eastern bankers- had been soundly whipped In their nt-tempt nt-tempt to force the motor manufacturer manufac-turer to bow to them. "Wall Street believed," he said, "that by tying up Ford's capital he would have to deal with them or go broke. They were sadly fooled." In the course of his testimony Wilkin made these additional startling star-tling charges: That huge withdrawals of "smart money" had been made just before the two banks were finally closed, and that one of those who cleared out a personal account was Mrs. James Couzens, wife of the Michigan Mich-igan senator. That Detroit bankers generally, previous to the closing, had become convinced Wall Street was trying to control all the credit of the state of Michigan. That many checks of the two Institutions In-stitutions were cleared through the Detroit clearing house after the state bank holiday had been declared de-clared by Governor Comstock. That federal bank examiners had co-operated with the enemies of the Guardian group, which had a chain of Michigan banks, In undervaluing under-valuing assets of at least one Institution In-stitution so the new National bank of Detroit could buy It at a low price. r ELATED news has come of nn-other nn-other of those terrible disasters that periodically afflict the Chinese. A cloudburst In eastern Kwelchow province destroyed the Important city of Tungjen, drowning thousands thou-sands of persons; and tho wall of water then swept down the Mnyen river valley, wiping out many villages vil-lages and taking a thousand more lives. npHE disarmament conference In A Geneva decided to adjourn until un-til aflcr the session of the League of Nntlons In September because the statesmen are so busy now with ol her more Immediate problems. prob-lems. During the recess Chairman Arthur Henderson will negotiate wllh the principal governments and has high hopes for good refills. . 1033. 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