NON-INTEREST MONEY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 147, 23 June 1945, Page 6

NON-INTEREST MONEY

MINISTER DISAPPROVES

CIRCULATION CHANNELS FULL

O.C. WHANGAREI. Friday. Provision of interest-free money for hospital building purposes was requested by the chairman of the Bay of Islands Hospital Board, Mr. G. H. McKenzie who, with another member of the board, Mrs. M. E. Johnson, and the secretary, recently waited upon the Minister of Finance, Mr. Nash, in Wellington. Reporting to the Bay of Islands County Council, which is a contributory body, and of which he is a member, Mr. McKenzie said that Mr. Nash admitted that sonie districts, of which the Bay was one, had just claims on the rest of the community. Mr. Nash had said that it might be to the benefit of the country, in times of depression, to circulate more money by way ot special issue, but certainly not to-day, when there was more money in circulation than there were goods. The only way, the Minister had said, to keep the internal economy on a firm basis was to take this extra money from the people by borrowing it and paying a small rate of interest on it.

The Minister of Health, Mr. Nordmeyer, was told by the deputation that the erection of urgently needed hospital buildings, costing £150,000, would increase the hospital levy to 6d in the pound, imposing an extra burden which the ratepayers could not bear. Mr. Nordmeyer was asked whether he would be prepared to implement his original amalgamation proposals even if the Select Committee's findings should prove to be against them. The Minister replied that he would be prepared to go on with amalgamation, but believed that the Select Committee's findings would be all that would be needed. He recommended that the board should proceed with its hospital building proposals as far as it could, without increasing the burden on the ratepayers, so that when the Select Committee's findings were made known they could be applied to the job.