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Plan." All of the members of the Agriculture classes took part in the contest. A prize was given by the Shelby County Trust & Banking Co.
The Class Night program of the Seniors will be held at Henry Clay auditorium Tuesday, May at 8 o'clock. Everybody is invited.
Don't fail to see "Let's Get Married" at Henry Clay auditorium, Friday, May 19. It promises to be a great success. The cast of characters is as follows: Eva Smith, Roger's "Wild Nelson Cunningham Maggie Miller, Eva's best ginia Devers. Loring Ames, wealthy New Vernon Simpson. Roger Ames, his only son-Preston Masters. Pierre Ruisseau, the French chauffeurPaul Johnston. Walton, the English Kaze. Evelyn Spring, the social tuter for Eva -Victoria Yates Mrs. Wolcott, Roger's HamJoan Ames, other Lou Kingsolver.
SOME UNUSUAL NEWS EVENTS
No sooner had the London Financial News called attention last week to U. S. official inexperience in elaborate foreign exchange maneuvers than the French Treasury proceeded to give the world a demonstration of what one of these monetary fandangoes looks like. It started with brief semi-official announcement: "The French Treasury is prepared to contract in London short-term loan, thereby benefiting by the superabundance of free money in the British money market. It will be £ 25,000,000 or £30,000,000 in bonds for six months at 2½ per cent. By thus procuring pounds the French Treasury will transform them into francs on exchange in accordance with its needs and in accord with the Bank of England. "The loan will be provided by British banks, not by the British Treasury or the exchange equalization funds. The latter will remain outside the operation. However, its efforts to prevent the increase in value of sterling will be temporarily eased, thanks to the buying of francs against sterling, which the French Treasury will require to be effected in order to utilize the product of the loan in France." First reason for all this is that France needs money. Despite the vast hoards of gold in the deep cellars of the Bank of France, the French Government has budget deficit to hold its own with any in the world, and must raise 000,000,000 francs by July 1. Another internal loan would be risky business. To charm the francs from Jean Frenchman's famed sock to float the last one, the Government was forced offer 4½ per cent bonds at with the costly promise to redeem at 150. France therefore gets the money she needs from Britain, and at nearly half the interest rates she would have had to pay at home.
Second reason for the loan the belief of every Frenchman that whatever may or may not come of the Roosevelt-HerriotMacDonald conversations in Washington, U. S. isolation as a world power is definitely over. What this might mean for France they could not yet tell, but threats of further U. S. inflation had every French statesman, every businessman worried. Frenchmen, badly burned by their own inflation of 1924-25, would throw out by nightfall any government that suggested a parallel move. In effect the British loan married the paper pound to the gold franc, made them an effective team to maneuver against any sudden tricks on the part of the dollar. It brought France still another advantage, for no gold will have to cross the Channel to upset foreign exchange further. The Bank of France already holds £30,000,000 sterling left over from her purchases before the franc was stabilized in 1928. This she will cede to the French Treasury when the loan must be paid off. nouncement. A number of people smiled, dropped out of line and left the building. Banker Creech retired. At 3:45 p. m. he reappeared and from the desk top he repeated his little speech "for the benefit of those who were not here before." The crowd, considerably smaller than before although augmented by curious onlookers, applauded. Bank Creech paused to accept the congratulations of his officers and other bankers who had dropped in to wish him well, having known him for ten years as Cleveland Trust's president, before that for two decades as clerk, treasurer, vice president, president of Garfield Savings Bank (merged with Cleveland Trust in 1922).
At m. newspapers appeared the street bearing an announcement by Governor Elvadore R. Fancher of the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank: "These (Cleveland) banks were licensed and reopened for full operation after careful determination of their condition. They are sound, and they have and will continue to have the full support of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland." The streamers from the papers were hung all over the banking room when the bank closed at 5:08 m.
Britain, too, won big advantage in the loan. The money is to be put up by private British banks, leaving the equalization fund untouched for further change maneuvers. Both French and British officials loudly insisted that the idea of using this loan in unified action against the dollar was furthest from their thoughts, but the Journal des Dets suddenly realized that if such action were taken, Britain, as the lender, might soon be cracking the whip over France. "Is it opportune," it wrote, "to give Prime Minister MacDonald this means of pressure on France and to place in his hands several billions in (French) Treasury bond?"
Did the banking holiday end U. S. bank closings? Does the U. S. government stand ready for all practical purposes to guarantee the deposits of the banks whose reopening it licensed? More than one dubious citizen asked these questions. Last week the citizens of Cleveland asked them in peremptory fashion. One morning they began to withdraw their money from several branches of Cleveland Trust Co.-Cleveland's largest bank, with 54 offices scattered over Cleveland and neighboring counties, bank that had reopened 100 per cent immediately after the banking holiday ended. Suddenly about p. m. withdrawals began to stream into the four-storied circular banking room of the bank's antique central office. They came and came until those who looked down from the balconies above saw only tesselated pavement of male hats and female bonnets assembled before the paying windows.
To the president of Cleveland Trust in his office on the top floor of the bank's adjoining annex now came the supreme question which every banker has rehearsed hypothetically: shall do if run starts on my bank?" Last June when that question came to Melvin Alvah Traylor of Chicago's First National, he went among the crowds of excited withdrawers told them that the bank had been through the Chicago Fire, through the depressions of 1873, 1893, 1901, 1907, 1921 and it would weather this depression. They dispersed. Last week the head of Cleveland Trust got into his little old-fashioned elevator and let himself be trundled down to the ground floor. It was 2:35 m. and the silent, anxious crowd was thicker than ever. It paid little attention to the not particularly commanding figure of man in brown suit who made his way to desk in the centre of the lobby. His behavior appeared little unseemly: he clamored up on the desk and clapped his hands at the crowd around. Then he spoke four simple declarative sentences. am Harris Creech, the president of the Cleveland Trust Co. There have been unfounded rumors circulated about the Cleveland Trust Co., causing many positors to withdraw their money. To accommodate them to do so, this bank will remain open until o'clock today instead of o'clock, the regular closing hour. The bank will be open tomorrow morning at o'clock." The silent crowd began to buzz with conversation. Banker Creech crossed the room, mounted stairway and repeated his an-
Meantime in Washington Secretary Woodin and officials of the Federal Reserve and R. F. C. had been in earnest conference. They let it be known that the Government would back the reopened Cleveland banks "to the limit." This was no great news to most of Cleveland's businessmen. They had taken it for granted. The run had been staged chiefly by small depositors, among whom alleged malicious reports had been spread. Detectives scoured the city hoping to catch and pillory the gossipers.
The Oriental haggle between Russia and Japan over the Chinese Eastern Railway reached the price stage last week. With Russian and Japanese troops massed near the border, the shadow-boxing stage seemed have ended. The Japanese offered 80,000,000 yen (about $19,000,000). Russia fixed its asking price at 300,000,000 gold rubles (about $153,000,000). Japan was anxious to prolong the haggle as long as possible, believing that the longer Japan waits the cheaper the railway will become. It proposed three-party commission to meet in Tokyo. On it Russia will have one vote. Japan will have two. its own and that of Manchukuo representative. It was, said the Japanese Foreign Office, their business to see to it that Manchukuo did not become embroiled with Russia, thereby involving her ally Japan. Said Russia's Foreign Commissar Maxim Litvinov. "It is common knowledge that Japan and Manchukuo are the same thing." The Japanese Foreign Office chortled that vinov's remark was "just like the Russians."
Whether Russia had anything to sell was last week question. The railroad runs through Manchuria, now practically province of Japan. By the original RussoChinese agreement on which the road was built, China had the right to buy it after 1936 and got free in 1980. This Tsarist agreement the Soviet Government twice re-stated cutting the transfer date to 1960. Last week China simply refused to believe that Russia had offered to sell the roalroad Chinese had spoken for. Furthermore, because the road was built with French money, France had claim. Last week Japan had solution for the tangle. It primed the puppet Manchukuo Government to try to horn in as the heir of China's rights in the railroad. The Manchukuoan board of chairman of the Chinese Li Shao-ken, loudly claimed the road for Manchukuo. He added that, though Soviet rights in the road went back no further than the 1917 Revolution. Russia has some rights. Then Li Shao-ken stepped back, his piece spoken, to let the two real principals continue their huge haggle.
German workmen woke from the heady excitement of their first Nazi May Day last week to find their trade unions snatched from under them. Catholic unions announced complete allegiance and subservience to the Hitlerites and were accepted as good converts. Socialist unions with total membership of over 4,000,000 men were not given the chance. Though the Socialist union published formal statement several days earlier offering full co-operation with the Government, important young Storm Troopers raided their headquarters throughout the Reich and marched 50 union leaders off to jail. Up popped Dr. Robert Ley, former chemist of the German dye trust and new Nazi chairman of the Committee of Action for the Protection of German Labor.
"We are not to be fooled by Socialist foxy tricks," said he. "With the disappearance of the Socialist unions the Social Democratic party will be permanentdeprived of the soil in which it lived. alone will have the full direction of the labor front, which is to be newly constructed." Again carefully following the Mussolini model, Nazification did not stop with the seizure of the unions. At the other end of the economic scale it was announced that the powerful Federation of German Industries had been Nazified too. It was not necessary to send Storm Troopers to call on the tycoons. After brief conference in the Chancellery it was announced that none less than Dr. Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, head of the great Krupp works, had been given power-ofattorney to reform the Federation bring it into line with the Government and cut out wasteful competition among its members. By his shrewdness in backing Handsome Adolf against the field several years ago Krupp von Bohlen last week restored his firm to the dominant political position in German industry that it occupied under the Empire with his wife, the great Bertha.
The banks were next. Dr. Georg Solmssen last week resigned as president of the Central Association of German Banks and Bankers; Dr. Otto Christian Fischer succeeded him. Werner Dietz was appointed to membership as Nazi "liaison official." He talked turkey to his fellow members at his first board meeting: "The banking system is inflated and interest must come down. If you do not want the State to interfere, cut the interest rate yourselves."
With world finances teetering topsy-turvy, directors of the Bank for International Settlements met in Basle last week, elected new president, and by their election broke their own charter. In 1930 when the B. was set up to facilitate German Reparations payments it was decided that its secondary purpose was to uphold and spread the gold standard throughout the world. In its charter it was expressly provided that no central bank of country not on the gold standard should be admitted to membership.
Starting with six banks, the B. S. now represents 26, and of them only France is still on free gold. Last week's meeting was to elect successor to heavy-set President Gates W. McGarrah of Manhattan, retiring. Normally there would have been no question of the election of his alternate and chief adviser, Bostonborn Lawyer Leon Fraser, Reparations expert at the birth of the Young Plan in 1929. In February B. I. S. directors so moved and appointed him. But what about the sidestep of the U. S. from the gold standard. Last week's meeting silenced the quibblers and ratified Mr. Fraser's election. This was no insult to gold-standard France, simply a compliment to able Banker-Lawyer Fraser. After voting, the B. S. directors listened to report showing that B. S. had made a profit of 14,000,000 Swiss francs ($3,200,000) for the year ending March 31, 1933, only 1,000,000 francs less than the year before. After adjourning, the B. S. directors did not go home. Their real work, the best reason for their meeting was to hold a series of conferences, do the spade-work necessary to present some sort of plan to the World Economic Conference in June for the resumption of "reformed" gold standard by B I. members for which the B. S. annual report called.
In the midst of disarmament arguments and foreign exchange battles the British Cabinet was suddenly summoned to an emergency meeting in Downing Street last week. Reporters rushed over with their coat-tails flying. Was the National Government in danger? It was not, but the cause of the meeting was almost vital. Hugh Montague Trenchard. Baron Trenchard of Wolfeton, had just published report after 18 months in office as Commissioner of Metropolitan Police.
Over four years ago the British public was startled to learn that the placid British bobbyhistorically the calmest of connot immune to bribery and graft. There were nasty disclosures about protection from raids granted night-club owners. Viscount Byng of Vimy was draftas Commissioner to reform the force. Eighteen months ago Lord Trenchard, cannon-voiced officer known as "Boom" to the Royal Air Force, succeeded Byng. Last week's report announced that things were still bad with the bobbies. There were only 23 murders in London (New York had over 400 in 1932) and in 13 cases the murderers saved the police trouble by committing suicide: but on the other hand there were 13,800 burglaries, 86 per cent of which remained unsolved.
Police morale was bad. Constables' pay was reduced from basic rate of $17.50 per week $13.75; sergeants were reduced from $25 and $30 to $23; inspectors from and $49 to $29.50, part of last year's economy budget. Lord Trenchard discovered that the Police Federation, an organization of policemen covering all Britain, was "deliberately fomenting discontent against the government." The Cabinet meeting hurriedly prepared bill to "curb hotheads among the police." The 86 per cent of unsolved burglaries was black-eye to Scotland Yard's reputation. Lord 'renchard made three suggestions: removal of the rule providing that higher police officers must first pass through the ranks; greater insistence on the educational qualifications of candidates: establishment of "police college" to train promising younger men on the force. "It seems to me impossible," he wrote, "longer to shirk the probem of how to obtain steady supply of the best brains from every available source.' mately 1,000 lambs in the annual Bluegrass spring lamb show and sale to be held at Lexington May, 23. Practically every central county will have an exhibit of lambs, representing part of the 4-H club program in which farm boys and girls are taught to be good farmers by actually doing the work under the supervision of county and home agents and local volunteer leaders.