Exchange

A Crazy-Quilt Of

Queer Currency Conditions in New Hebrides

THE following, from a resident in the New Hebrides, shows the difficulties met with in a joint (or Condominium) Government, when the two nations try each to hang on to its own varying currency. Currency does not tell half the tale, of course. An Australian visitor, motor ing out from Vila, nearly collapsed when he found that French motorists, being French, kept to the right, while British motorists held to the left side, as is British and proper!

THE residents of Vila, sending - their boys to post letters to catch the outgoing “Morinda” mail on March 2, were puzzled at the small amount of change brought back.

Inquiries at the Post Office brought the information that a new regulation had come into force on the previous day, increasing the co-efficient for converting gold franc value to paper value, from 6 to 9, bringing the exchange rate, for stamp purchases, from 150 francs to the £ stg., to 225 to the £stg.

Does this mean that if you take £1 stg. to the P.O. you will get 225 francs worth of stamps for it? It does not. The Con dominium Government is a business Gov ernment, the only one in the world, and doesn’t do things like that. You will get only 177 to 180 francs worth, according to the normal, daily, world-exchange rate.

What it does mean is this: The Con dominium Government is out to make things pay, and it has increased postal tariffs by 50 per cent. You do not buy more stamps, or bigger value stamps; you pay 90 centimes for a 10 centimes stamp, for which you previously paid 60 centimes; or 225 francs for a hypothetical £1 stg. worth of stamps, for which you previously paid 150 francs. Herein is the economy of inscribing the word “gold” on the Condominium stamps. Their value can be multiplied by any old number, thus saving paper and printing expenses,

whenever the Government wishes to raise the postage rate.

Thus, we have this position, in the world’s most extraordinary Administration, the New Hebrides Condominium: If you buy stamps, you pay 225 francs for stamps worth £1 stg.

If you are paying Customs duties, you convert your £1 stg. into 177 or 180 francs.

If you are a salaried officer of the Gov ernment, you are paid half your salary in francs, and half in £stg.; and, for this purpose, £1 stg. is calculated as equal to 124 francs.

Then, as a large part of the commerce in the New Hebrides is Australian, the £ stg. is usually converted into £ Aus tralian, at £AI2S to £lOO stg.

Is it any wonder that people from the New Hebrides, on furlough in Sydney, are frequently seen sitting by themselves in the parks, staring into vacancy, while their bloodless lips move silently in end less calculations!