Angas Across the Atlantic

Major Lawrence Lee Bazley Angas is a stocky, blue-eyed Briton with a bristly mustache and a legendary reputation as an economic seer. Unhallowed by academic standing, he published Germany and Her Debts in 1923, a forecast of the European currency debacle. In 1926 it was The Coming Collapse in Rubber, about the same time the Stevenson restriction plan smashed and rubber started its long slide from $1.04 to 3-c- per lb. In 1931 The Coming Rise in Gold Shares was followed two days after Britain took sterling off gold by The Course of the Coming Boom [in Britain]. Just after President Roosevelt took office Major Angas wrote The Coming Rise in Wall Street, which was followed by a 90% jump in the stockmarket. More to the point, Major Angas has been adviser to the big London stock exchange house of Myer & Co., has a short but imposing list of clients and drives a Rolls-Royce.

For a long time Wall Street has buzzed with chit-chat about a new Angas pamphlet. Manhattan brokers urgently cabled for summaries the moment it was off the press. Financial pundits found long paragraphs in the scraps that drifted across the Atlantic. Last week The Coming American Boom was published in the U. S. by Simon & Schuster.*

The new Angas pamphlet is more than a market forecast. It is "an attempt to explain and justify the Roosevelt experiment and to show how, if steadfastly pursued, it is bound to reach a successful conclusion." Major Angas admits that "to an observer who sees from day to day only the disjointed and apparently unpredictable actions of the Administration, the whole experiment is apt to appear as the muddled meddling of a happy-go-lucky opportunist. . . ." But he believes there is an underlying theme which is "clear, consistent and fundamentally sound." That theme, says Major Angas. is monetary--simply "Reflate, then stabilize."

According to the Major, President Roosevelt's monetary attack is divided into three phases: 1) threat of inflation, which gave a mighty fillip to business last year; 2) credit inflation, which is just getting under way; 3) printing presses, which may never be used at all. Major Angas pins his faith on credit inflation. He argues that devaluation of the dollar broadened the gold base for credit 75%, which would theoretically permit a more towering credit structure than that of 1929.

Since private interests are not yet willing to utilize the enormous amount of credit available, the Government must, has and will continue to do so. Since January when credit expansion began. Government borrowing and spending has increased bank deposits 15%. In time the cumulative effect of Government borrowing and spending will pile deposits so high that private initiative will regain courage. Then the virtuous circle will gather speed just as contracting credit speeds the vicious circle of deflation.

So Major Angas says that "It is ridiculous not to buy common stocks 1) when a country is inflating (early stages as distinct from late), 2) when the second year of revival has begun, 3) when money is cheap and bank reserves are unstrained, 4) when the nation's exchanges are not overvalued, 5) when the market has reacted from the recent highs by the normal amount for the normal period and 6) when the Government has declared to raise prices, and has unlimited powers to do so." Date of the coming rise: "At a guess . . . before the end of the summer of 1934."

Irreverent Wall Streeters make much of the fact that Major Angas' next to last pamphlet was The Coming Collapse in Gold. In this, predicting world-wide abandonment of gold as money and its decline in terms of paper-money values, he has been completely wrong to date.

Whether or not any other U. S. citizens make money out of Major Angas' new work, it is virtually certain that M. Lincoln Schuster and Richard L. Simon will. These two bright young publishers, who together are Simon & Schuster, Inc., put Lawrence Lee Bazley Angas in their idea file late last year. With few exceptions. Major Angas has hitherto published his works privately, but Mr. Schuster, as shrewd an opportunist as there is in the publishing world, was sure he could make the Major a potential best seller. Not until last week, however, did Mr. Schuster come to terms with Major Angas. Then with typical energy Messrs. Simon & Schuster put out the book in three days. The original print order was 2,500 but the Stock Exchange firm of J. S. Bache & Co. ordered all of them for their customers and employes. In one day the printing was successively jumped to 5,000, then 7,500, then 10,000.

*New York, $1.50,

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