Word: lira
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...times find us willing, with good will and loyalty, to do what they direct as though we were under legal compulsion." Meanwhile last week the tiny Papal State, the small Kingdom of Albania and the minute Republic of San Marino devalued their currencies in step with the Italian lira. In Berlin persistent rumors had Realmleader Adolf Hitler "greatly annoyed because Reichsbank President...
Astonishingly the Fascist Dictator, after cogitating with Italian economists in closest secrecy for a week, adopted exactly the same procedure as had the Socialist French Premier. Il Duce decreed 40% reduction in the value of the lira, bringing it to approximately 19 lire per dollar, and he also sweepingly reduced Italian import duties. Thus Fascist Italy, ordinarily considered a super-Nationalist State, was the first to follow the French lead to tariff appeasement and a better economic world. To Washington and to London was presented a supreme opportunity to join in for international economic peace and increasingly Free Trade...
This was interpreted as meaning that Dr. Schacht would not for the time being devalue the mark which in any case has been for years a purely artificial currency. But what about the lira? Would Premier Benito Mussolini, who placed the lira on gold in the days when Calvin Coolidge was President and the Gold Standard sacrosanct, recognize that a page of economic history has turned and the entire world must seek readjustment...
...romantic Venice, the year's largest crop of illegitimate Italians is always born in March, thanks to the annual festive "Hymen Harvest" duly celebrated last week. For this occasion Il Duce's ban against kissing in public, which is punished with a fine of 10 lira (80?) was suspended for the night. After filing in a long sacred procession through the Church of Il Redentore, some 10,000 Venetian youths and maidens of the rabble rowed out to the Lido in the year's greatest gondola fleet, slept on the beach under the moon, returned to Venice...
Pouncing on the lira accounts in Italy of London banks, including funds of many maiden ladies and widows who find Britain's climate too bleak, II Duce blocked all payments out of these accounts. Simultaneously gold was declared a State monopoly but Italians were not ordered to turn it in. If they would deposit it with one of the State banks they were offered 5% interest on the value of the metal and its "return within one year in gold of the same weight and fineness...