Currency Problems

Australian Sixpences Are Legal Tender in Fiji

IT was announced in the official Gazette, in the middle of August, that Aus tralian sixpences are now legal tender in the Colony of Fiji.

This is the first time that this arrange ment has been made, and it is no doubt the outcome of the acute shortage of small coins from which Fiji has suffered in recent months.

There is 12s per cent, difference be tween the respective values of Australian and Fijian currency. The Fiji £ is worth £l/2/6 Australian. This means that, on exchange, the Australian 6d. officially is worth only s:id. Fijian. As it is proposed to make 6d. Australian worth 6d. Fijian, there is a chance for racketeers to get busy.

The Fiji Government has seen this, of course. If all Australian coins were to be made legal tender in Fiji, there would be a danger of exchange disorganisation: but it is felt that this temporary honour ing of the Australian 6d. can be con trolled. A man would have to transfer thousands of Australian sixpences to Fiji to make any worth-while profit out of the new arrangement.

The whole position of exchange in the South Pacific is exceedingly interesting at present. Normally, there are five in dependent currencies—Australian, New Zealand, Fiji, French Colonies and United States. All were linked, for purposes of exchange, with the £ sterling.

Apart from the re-valuation of the Fighting French franc, after the fall of France, the pre-war exchange standards have not altered. But, owing to the dis appearance of a large part of the trade between Britain and the Pacific, and the much wider distribution of United States currency by USA forces in the Pacific, some early readjustment of exchange values seems inevitable.