THE MONETARY REPORT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 221, 18 September 1934, Page 6

THE MONETARY REPORT.

In a bulky document, costing £790 in printing alone for the 498 copies printed, the Monetary Committee has issued its evidence. Had its better judgment prevailed, this Vould have remained -where it was, in notes, and not have seerf the light of day. It was quite enough for the committee to make a few brief references in its report—which, by the way, cost only one-eighth as much —to plans which the public knew months ago were for the most part quite worthless. The inquiry was held openly, and there was no excuse or reason for traversing the whole ground in a laborious document through which no one—not even the most hardened monetary reformer —is.likely to wade. The report has value; the evidence has none. For this reason many are inclined to condemn the whole investigation as a waste of time and effort. A body of economists, sitting for less than a fortnight in February of last year, produced a report which covered the same ground, and it is easy to see in the light of present knowledge that economists could have produced a report again without all the trouble of hearing those with quack remedies. 'But the Prime Minister had been besieged with demands for an inquiry into all proffered schemes of monetary reform. When his patience was exhausted he set up the committee, and in due course the schemes, or at any rate nearly all of them, were shown to be of no value. That conclusion reached, the committee was free to turn its attention to writing a report, and here the Avork fell on the shoulders of economists acting as an expert secretariat. They analysed from the monetary side the comparatively simple economic system on which the Dominion has built such a high degree of prosperity, howed its weakness and strength, and its dependence on overseas markets. This part of their work was well done, and is of real value to the country. But in a Parliamentary Committee drawn from opposite sides of the House, it was inevitable that there should be a splitting up into groups when the time came for signing the report. There followed a delay of many weeks, in which , the printer was probably working under pressure to complete the big task. Finally, when the report was released, as it happened, on the eve of the Australian elections, ingenious critics seized upon this as a deliberate last-minute plot to discredit Douglas Credit candidates for Federal Parliamentary honours! Douglas Credit may at least be thanked for bringing a gleam of humour into what has been called the dismal science. But the greatest misfortune for the committee, though not for the country, was that the main reforms it was recommending were already launched by the opening of the Reserve Bank, and the operations of that bank are expected to bring the desired unity into the banking system.