OVERSEAS LOANS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 94, 20 April 1940, Page 8

OVERSEAS LOANS.

Keeent references to probable increases of our external loans to £300,000,000 calls, for serious consideration. Xew Zealand at present pays overseas investor* about £12,000,000" in interest. This is sufficiently onerous; further addition* would be staggering. Our farmers are dissatisfied with the increasing costs for their supplies with a fixed price for their product© that will be inadequate if further loans and interest are implemented. Domestic prices are rising, unions are asking for increased wages and'those with fixed incomes, the aged, are faced with a lowered standard of living. Before the position becomes an impasse. the overseas investors should be asked to accept 1 per cent interest cm existing loans, and voluntary loans without intercut for such purposes as Xew Zealand may require for the furtherance o{ the war and domestic purposes for the duration of this war. A voluntary gesture by overseas investors would been-'j; lightened self-interest, a unity of pat- 'v riot ism and practical politics; for if" Great Britain be defeated investors will lose their capital and the people wili be I enslaved. W> would -be saved the sorry spectacle of the eruption and irritation on the political epidemics of political mountebanks richt. left, centre and betwixt, of the Continental variety, with specious nostrums, plausible but evariescent. Voluntary loans, interest free, would avoid the pernicious price rising*. wage chasings, a harassed Govenunfßt and over-worked officials, and prevent subversive elements gaining foothold amongst a harried publicD. L. FERGUSOX.