Gold bursts its $70

THE 'FREE MARKET' gold price has broken through the $70-anounce level: in London yesterday it was being quoted at $70.50 before the morning fixing.

This is more than twice the official price which was in operation until the beginning of this year. The official price fixed by the American Treasury is now $38 an ounce.

One of the factors driving up the unofficial price is the Franco-Italian proposal that a new official price should be set within the Common Market. The two countries are said to want a price for internal Common Market transactions of about $70 an ounce.

If such a price were fixed it would destroy the 1968 'two-tier' agreement under which central banks agreed to buy and sell their gold reserves at the price fixed in Washington. between oficial and tree market prices. and to add to the fever on the gold markets the United States has hinted that it may sell some of its own reserve holdings on the open market.

Javits, Treasury Secretary George Schultz said in Washington on Tuesday that his department will consider selling gold to licensed domestic users at competitive prices.

The sale of gold in this way from reserve assets would not only breach 1968 agreement, it would also destroy lingering hopes that the US will some restore dollar convertibility. fast year. the is porary suspension 05 15.

US Treasury vertibiity anounced by the president on that day is clearly intended to be permanent. It Six years' jail for Czech ex-Party chief THE SIX and a half year sentence for subversion imposed / trials in Czechoslovakia. Professor Huebi, a former Central Huebl is the most severe of the 31 who was rector of the Communist Party school until purged 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion Before August 1968 he was a close friend of Gustav Husak, the Soviet puppet who replaced Alexandr Dubcek as Party first secretary. Husak himself is currently taking a vacation on the Black Sea at the invitation of the Kremlin.

At his trial, conducted in conditions of semi-secrecy, with the press and observers excluded, Huebl was accused of having published "illegal and defamatory documents' and sent them abroad.

He was said to have edited the clandestine magazine 'Political Monthly, copies of which were found at his home when he was arrested last January. The indictment also cited the names of Ferdinando Zidar, former Prague correspondent of the Italian CP newspaper l'Unita' and Valerio Ochetto, another Italian journalist.

Zidar and › Ochetto were said to have acted as couriers for Professor Huebl. Zidar was expelled from Czechoslovakia in February and Ochetto WAS arrested in January and held in prison for 44 days before being deported.

•According to the prosecution, they had transmitted Huebl's documents to Jiri Pelikan, the former director of Czech television, now living in exile in Rome.

Huebl did not deny having sent the documents to Italy, but he maintained that they sent to the leaders of the Italian Communist Party, in particular The two-tier system cannot be maintained depleted gold stocks.

In reply to a question from Senator Jacob United States. internationally was demonstrated in Tokyo US Many day Dollar holders have been unable to buy rumoured.

is the most important defendant given a one-year suspended The trial was marked by vigorous protests outside the court by about 40 friends of the accused. They protested that the courtroom was closed to the public in violation of Czechoslovak law.

Only the wives of the defendants were admitted and police even kept out Karel Bartosek's sister; who had travelled from Ostrava to watch the trial.

One of the witnesses, Jaroslav Sabata, former head of the Brno Party organization, refused to testify against Professor Huebl on the grounds that the proceedings were unconstitutional. He and his daughter Hana are due to stand trial themselves for subversion in a few days' time.

The current wave of trials in Czechoslovakia are aimed at destroying active support for the Dubcek wing of the bureaucracy, which opposed the August invasion of 1968 and the subsequent 'normalization'.

Vladimir Ochetto, one of the expelled Italian journalists cited in court, stated on Tuesday that the Prague defendants were totally innocent of subversion.

He said the French CP had not made clear that the Prague and Brno defendants were the true supporters in Czechoslovakia of 'pluralist socialism' which the French Communist Party claimed to support in France.

Japanese step THE JAPANESE Defence Agency, has called for the country's military spending to be more than doubled in the fourth five-year 'defence buildup programme' starting this month.

The Agency urged an outlay of £60,000m between now and 1976. This represents an increase of 205 per cent over the US had any intention of buying back dollars held by foreign central banks, it would hardly consider liquidating its alre ady According to the :Financial Times' original impetus for the presert - bout gold buying on the bullion market believed to have come from sources in The extreme tension in capitalist circles yesterday. The stock market, which had reached a record peak on Tuesday, slumped sharply when a rumour circulated that Japan would be asked to revalue the yen again.

Bank of Japan governor Tadashi Sasaki was forced to stage a special press conference to reassure jittery investors. He said the meeting of the Group of Ten finance ministers due to be held in Washington on September 25 was a routine meeting and not summoned to discuss yen revaluation, a In Professor Milan i the current wave of Committee member from office after the tried so far.

HUSAK: On attack on workers THE CHRYSLER corporation has attacked the claim that British motor manufacturers had been caught on the hop in the recent upsurge in the demand for cars.

Chrysler UK deputy managing director, Donald Lander, said the company welcomed competition, but launched an attack on the militant labour 'What does concern us, he said, 'is the way in which output is continually affected by the industrial action, and it is this rather than any other factor Which is really damaging the industry's opportunities' Chrysler, which made a six months' loss of f1.3m, faced a prolonged pay strike by workers at Linwood, Scotland, last winter. This, and the miners' strike, caused a loss of 28,000 vehicles. Production dropped by 12 per cent instead of rising by 4 per cent as planned.

Chrysler's reaction is in contrast to the gloom from BritishLeyland which has been severely hit by the influx of foreign models.

Like all the big British motor manufacturers the company saw its share of the home market decline sharply during July. Though sales increased, the share of the home market in July was 28.7 per cent compared with 33.5 per cent during the same month last year.

One of British-Leyland's biggest headaches is the resistance to attempts to introduce a form of Measured-Day Work at Longbridge and the Triumph and Jaguar plants in Coventry.

Ford, which has turned in the best 1972 performance with record June production 60,000 cars and 10,000 vans, does not face this problem. MDW has been in operation there for some years now and output has been pushed up.

The other ailing car firm is Vauxhall which returned a six months' loss of £2.6m. Its share the market continues diminish. It stood 9.5 per cent in June-below the 10 per cent share most manufacturers consider necessary for ultimate economic survival.

Vauxhall's problem is one of models which steadily decline in popularity and damaging competition from Ford in the commercial vehicle market.

The British manufacturers are planning a counter-attack. But there are signs already that the explosion of demand caused by the Tory hire purchase concession is slowing down.

Hire purchase sales of new cars fell back 28 per cent last month over the June peak. Hirepurchase deals new cars totalled 26,079-18 per cent above the July 1971 level.