On the Right

Canberra, Australia, Oct. 28—In the event you have not noticed, it is hard to extract from chiefs of state muscular replies to sensitive questions. It was widely reported in the press last May that Vice President Walter Mondale, while visiting in Canberra with the Prime Minister, Mr. Malcolm Fraser, had an unproductive session on the mononucleosis of the U.S. dollar. Australia’s concern for the value of the dollar is not entirely sentimental. The Australian dollar is, loosely speaking, “pegged” to the U.S. dollar. In an age when currencies are permitted to float, this does not mean that the U.S. dollar and the Australian dollar will remain constant in their relative value. But inasmuch as Australian business is done by using U.S. dollars as the standard of exchange, a depreciation in the dollar means a real diminution in the value earned by Australian exports. In that sense the currencies are interlocked, and, the morning after President Carter’s anti-inflation speech, a leading newspaper in Sydney suggested that the time had come to explore means of distancing the two currencies from one another. So that, a few hours later, it seemed relevant to ask the Prime Minister whether it was true that, in his talks with the Vice President of the United States, they had reached an impasse.

To such questions one does not get direct answers; requiring, therefore, that the interrogator take the burden of interpreting the response. The answer is: No, the government of Australia is not impressed by Mr. Carter’s anti-inflation campaign. In this reaction Australia is hardly being cranky. The reaction of the professional moneymen, who drove down yet another humiliating peg the value of the dollar, was pretty much the same.

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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Canberra, Australia, Oct. 28—In the event you have not noticed, it is hard to extract from chiefs of state muscular replies to sensitive questions. It was widely reported in the press last May that Vice President Walter Mondale, while visiting in Canberra with the Prime Minister, Mr. Malcolm Fraser, had an unproductive session on the mononucleosis of the U.S. dollar. Australia’s concern for the value of the dollar is not entirely sentimental. The Australian dollar is, loosely speaking, “pegged” to the U.S. dollar. In an age when currencies are permitted to float, this does not mean that the U.S. dollar and the Australian dollar will remain constant in their relative value. But inasmuch as Australian business is done by using U.S. dollars as the standard of exchange, a depreciation in the dollar means a real diminution in the value earned by Australian exports. In that sense the currencies are interlocked, and, the morning after President Carter’s anti-inflation speech, a leading newspaper in Sydney suggested that the time had come to explore means of distancing the two currencies from one another. So that, a few hours later, it seemed relevant to ask the Prime Minister whether it was true that, in his talks with the Vice President of the United States, they had reached an impasse.

To such questions one does not get direct answers; requiring, therefore, that the interrogator take the burden of interpreting the response. The answer is: No, the government of Australia is not impressed by Mr. Carter’s anti-inflation campaign. In this reaction Australia is hardly being cranky. The reaction of the professional moneymen, who drove down yet another humiliating peg the value of the dollar, was pretty much the same.