File No. 812.516/148
[Untitled]
527. Department’s 507, October 24, 6 p.m. According to paragraph 3, article 5 of the decree dated September 15, 1916, the commission now in charge of the banks, after obtaining authorization from the Department of Finance, has the right to liquidate the banks if within sixty days from said date they have not increased their metallic reserves to the amount of the bank bills in circulation. By the terms of the same decree the commission has no right to dispose of the bullion reserve. On the contrary, paragraph 1, article 5 stipulates that commission must preserve the metallic specie. This provision expires on November 15. According to article 3 of the decree the banks can perform only such operations as tend to preserve the interests of the banks, but even in such cases only with the authority of the Government intervenor. In practice the banks have been prevented from carrying on any kind of operations even to the extent of stopping the payments of deposits until new decree shall have been issued stipulating the form in which deposits have to be paid.