MONETARY REFORM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 56, 7 March 1934, Page 14

MONETARY REFORM.

A " WATER-TIGHT" SYSTEM. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

WELLINGTON, Tuesday.

The establishment of a self-contained monetary system based upon the national ■wealth of the Dominion was advocated by Mr. S. W. Fitzherbert, of Wellington, in evidence given before the Parliamentary Monetary. Committee. Ho said the scheme meant the exchange of goods for goods, and involved the socialisation of finance only. The ownership of land, buildings and everything else would be Tested in individuals. ' "If the prices of everything fell," he said, "and our own monetary system was •water-tight, it would not affect •us internally at all." Mr. F. Lye: Do you propose in your scheme first to institute a State Bank? —Yes. How would, you prevent the national wealth from being determined by external influences? Mr. Fitzherbert replied that if the monetary system were based on the Dominion's own valuation, it .became selfcontained so far as external conditions were concerned. Goods would simply be exchanged for goods. He proposed that all the gold in the banks should bo sent to London and used there through a branch of the Reserve Bank. .All New Zealand goods available for export should be bought by a marketing board in terms of New Zealand currency, and then sold in England on the basis of English currency. The net result would bo some adjustment of the exchange rate.