PERU: 28

PERU

28¢ Sol

In a quiet suite of rooms on the ground floor of the Reserve Bank of Peru at Lima, Dr. Edwin Walter Kemmerer, Princeton’s world-famed fiscal expert, has worked calmly through the last three major Peruvian revolutions, all successful (TIME, March 9, 16). Last week slight, grey-haired, bespectacled Dr. Kemmerer emerged with a finished report on the Peruvian sol, told Peru’s latest Government that they had better stabilize it on a gold basis at its present value 28¢. Within a few hours the Government issued the necessary decree.

Only two months and three governments ago, Peru tried to stabilize her sol at 40¢. So impregnable is Dr. Kemmerer’s prestige that he can ignore the popular roar of rage: “Kemmerer has sold us out!”

This charge alludes to the fact that large cotton, sugar and oil interests in Peru prefer to pay their native help in a depreciated currency, selling their produce abroad for gold. But if the sol is now firmly stabilized on gold, Peru’s public will bless Dr. Kemmerer at some future date.