Word: lira
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...major moves by which Benito Mussolini jacked his country above the status of a second-class power was to put the lira, previously a wobbly joke currency, squarely on gold (TIME, Jan. 2, 1928). Soon at Pesaro the Lira Monument was reared, cut deep with II Duce's promise to defend the gold lira to the last drop of Italian blood. Since then nothing has occurred to convince the Dictator that any other statesman who inflates, debases or trifles with currency values is not dead wrong. Last week with U. S. President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Baldwin and Japanese...
...Paragraph I of Article IV of the Royal Decree of Dec. 21, 1927 not even II Duce himself could reduce the gold cover behind Italy's lira below 40%. Last week the purchase of war supplies had piled up at the Bank of Italy half a billion lire ($41,250,000) worth of bills on which foreign munition makers demanded prompt payment. To have sold enough lire on foreign exchange to meet these bills would have broken the market for the lira, forced its devaluation. This could be avoided by paying out half a billion in gold from...
...Billions!" Results were that Dictator Mussolini formally assumed the absolute discretion over Italy's gold most foreigners had supposed he always possessed; shipments of munitions to Italy continued at lowest gold cash prices; the lira, after falling nearly ½? on international exchange last week, bounced back; and activity quickened furiously on Italy's bourse. Fiat motors rose from 394 lire to 401; Snia-Viscosa rayon from 401 to 410 and Montecatini mines from 188 to 193. These movements of course reflected fear by Italians that eventually the lira will be forced off the gold standard. Abroad many...
...general Italian economic picture last week was thus one of strong crosscurrents. Conservative in keeping the lira pegged, II Duce remains liberal in expenditures for social service, radical in his policy of war preparedness at any price. Profoundly influenced by Niccolo Machiavelli, the great Florentine who understood Italians better than anyone else, Dictator Mussolini considers that in an hour when all investments are bad, the best is to speculate on a program of conquest or, better still, obtain Ethiopia by intimidation. No leader ever fell and no people ever revolted or were basically unhappy, Il Duce feels, while they were...
Rousingly Chamber and Senate answered with smash votes of confidence 324-160 and 233-15 respectively. On international exchange the franc rose as the pound, dollar, fell, carrying up with it the Swiss franc, guilder and lira. Displeased were French Communists and extreme Socialists, their spleeny spokesman being Pinko Deputy Leon LaGrange who had declared in debate, "The 200 families who rule this country are opposing the National will!" These villains, Deputy La-Grange said, are headed by "the regents of the Bank of France, de Rothschild and de Wendel!" In French villages sage peasants with gold in their mattresses...