"NOT WORRIED."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 83, 8 April 1933, Page 14

"NOT WORRIED."

MINISTERS' DENIAL.

EXCHANGE INDEMNITY.

ME. FORBES IS CONFIDENT*

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, Friday.

Statements that* the Government, after receiving the first quarter's returns from the banks, is concerned over the amount which will have to be found for the exchange indemnity by the end of the year, were denied by both the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes, and the Minister of Finance, the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates, when questioned on the point yesterday. "It can be stated quite definitely that neither I nor the Government is concerned in the slightest," said Mr. Coates. "There is no truth whatever in the statement that the indications already are that the Government will be embarrassed in finding sufficient to indemnify the banks, on account of exchange surpluses at the end of the year."

In any event, Mr. Coates added, it was impossible to predict with any accuracy the outcome of the year's exchange operations, and it would he entirely misleading to accept the first quarter's figures as a true indication of the year's working. This was the height of the export season, and it was to be expected that surpluses would accumulate in London temporarily. Any suggestion that the Government was worried over the position was entirely erroneous. There was no change in the position as it was estimated during the last session of Parliament, and the Government did not anticipate having to find more on account of indemnity than was at first thought. "We will see it through quite all right," remarked the Prime Minister when interviewed. "Does the Government look as though it was worried?" he asked, with a broad smile. "There is nothing abnormal in the figures to date. Mr. Coates is in close touch with the position. It is, of course, impossible to predict the result of the year's operations with any minute degree of accuracy, for the lower prices for butter exports and the shrinkage of imports must have a bearing on the position. However, there is nothing whatever to indicate that the position at the end of the year will be otherwise than predicted."