STATE ADVANCES

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XLIV, Issue 10134, 11 June 1924, Page 8

STATE ADVANCES

MR MASSEY'S STATEMENT.

RESTRICTED LOANS CAN BE KEPT UP.

(Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, June 10. Mr Massey, speaking at the banquet to the Hon. C. J. Parr, said that the State Advances Department was a little too enthusiastic in its lending while he was away in London'. He found on returning that New Zealand was faced with tremendous liabilities, and it had been necessary to limit the loans to £250,000 a month, or £3,000,000 a year. That rate of lending could be kept going. Speaking of the clamour for a State Bank, the Prime Minister said that we practically had such an institution in the Bank of New Zealand. The Government recently purchased 375,000 pound shares at par, now quoted on the exchange at 52s 6d, representing '£500,000 to £600,000 to the good on the deal. Replying to criticisms of New Zealand finance, Mr Massey spoke of the success of the last loan, which showed how secure the credit of the country was, according to the most competent judges. ... The Government had been criticised for ending the year with a surplus. "Heaven only knows," he said, "what the critics would say if we had a deficit. In the present position, with heavy expenditure to be faced, it is necessary to have a surplus." Mr Massey said that he hoTved he would be able to induce Parliament to make a considerable reduction in taxation within the next few months. He maintained that exemption from tax of mortgages up to £4OOO was right and showed that the Government* was concerned with the small settler struggling along. He believed that the trade of New Zealand per head of the population was higher than that of any other country. Yet people were going about saying that the country was going to "blue ruin." While the country owed £218,000,000, interest-earning assets reduced the dead weight to only £63,000,000.; Much of the debt was also productive.