SENSITIVE PLANT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 68, 21 March 1934, Page 7

SENSITIVE PLANT.

GROWTH OF CREDIT.

MAINTAINING STANDARD. EX-MINISTER'S VIEWS. "Credit is a most sensitive plant that shrinks and withers at the least indication of a relaxation of high standards," declared the Hon. W. Downie Stewart, M.P. for Dunedin West, and a former Minister of Finance, in the course of a brief address at the Auckland Creditmen's Club luncheon this afternoon. Mr. Stewart said that so much of his time had been occupied lately with profound dissertations on social, costless, Douglas, banking and every other form of credit that he found some difficulty in turning his mind to the activities of the Auckland Creditmen's Club. (Laughter.) The problem of credit was of vital importance in all walks of life, every grade of society, and in a vastly widening circle. Auckland itself had recently provided an example. Ife had no desire to raise political issues, but he understood that owing to the doubts as to the intentions of certain local bodies no Auckland stocks could be quoted on the London Stock Exchange. That meant that credit was in suspense in London, and only went to emphasise what a delicate plant credit was. Similar principles applied in the wider sphere of State credit and in international credit relationships as well. It was often asked why New Zealand should worry about the London financiers and be under any domination from Great Britain, but that view would be tenable only if the Dominion did no trade with the United Kingdom and did not raise finance in London. We cannot take the money of the L°nd° n financiers and then ignore the rules they lay down," he added.

Canadian Precedent. The same idea of credit standards dominated the international sphere. 11 nations said they were pleased to disarm and then went off arming, then their word was not credited. There was an old Anglo-Saxon saying, true to-day as ever it was, that a man should be judged not by what he said but by what he did.

Mr. Stewart said he had been interested to find that the Auckland organisation had taken its origin from the Canadian organisation of a similar character. That was another illustration of what New Zealand owed to Canada. New Zealand's whole system of self-government was drawn from the Durham report, which in the middle of the last century solved what appeared to be the insoluble problem of how to combine local self-government with loyalty to the Crown. It was the genius of Lord Durham and his colleagues which had solved that problem.

Baldwin's Coup. References to Canada led the speaker to recall his official association with oversea conferences, two of which were held in that Dominion. Apart altogether from the issues discussed and the_ decisions arrived at at those gatherings, Mr. Stewart said he had found much to interest him in the world figures comprising the delegations, especially _ the statesmen representing Great Britain. Mr. Stanley Baldwin, for example, was an intensely interesting personality. He was in politics as a duty, although he preferred the life of an English country squire. It was easy to understand the national trust reposed in him. Moreover, he had the magic of words to a supreme degree. His descriptions of the English countryside were exquisite, and a speech he had delivered on the occasion of a birth era <• wliich occurred dur-

ing a conference had cast a complete spell over all his listeners. Although simple and artless in language, he was nevertheless penetrating when goaded into attack, as was the case after- the Beaverbrook campaign against him. In one terrible, devastating sentence he had quelled the offensive of the Press barons. That was, that they were like the harlots or every age and every country, seeking power without responsibility. England had cheered that description. Mr. Stewart, who was in good form, interlarded with his observations personal stories connected with his oversea missions and his impressions of the men he met.