The Easier Money Market.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14907, 21 February 1914, Page 10

The Easier Money Market.

One of our Opposition contemporaries has printed, without any comment, a long and interesting statement by Mr Harold Beaucharap, tho Chairman of the Bank of New Zealand, on the easing of the money market. The fact that Mr Bcauchamp's statement, and the paragraph with which it is introduced, destroy once and for all tho favourite fiction of the Government's enemies almost makes us hope, that this may bo the beginning of an inclination on the part of the Opposition to Take a more sensible view ot their duties. Mr Beauchamp is of tho opinion that the welcome easing of the money market is likely to continue for some time to come. The fact that the recent New Zeal and general and local loan issues went off &o well is, he says, " in great measure due to the eminent"lv satisfactory manner in which the " recent national strike was settled. It " unquestionably has inspired greater "confidence in the minds of lenders

" to receive an indication that a very

" largo number of farmers in this "country will at all times be ready "and willing to offer their services to "protect their own property and facili- " tate trade and commerce." The world-wide conditions which fix the price of money in Europe and Great Britain are, of course, beyond any Government's control, but the Massey Government cannot be denied the credit for having, through its sound financial methods, and its firm and patriotic stand against Syndicalist aggression, enabled this country to secure Jthe full advantages of the relaxing of the monetary stringency. But what deserves special notice is the paragraph in which Mr Beauchamp's interesting statement is introduced by our contemporary to it-s readers. The "eas-

" ing of the London market, and the " great success of colonial loans have " had their reflex in New Zealand." Inquiries "show that there has been a "definite easing of financial conditions.

Money which was hard to get at 6

"per cent, on good property security " a fow weeks ago was loaned last " week at 5. per cent.,, the first indiea- " tion of the passing of the stringency

which has lasted nearly two years."

This statement would not have attracted much notice had it not been for tho fact that ior weeks and months past tlio Opposition press and some Opposition members of Parliament have been declaring that the -Massey Government

created the recent stringency, that it strove to raise and to maintain at a high figuro the rate of interest, that it did tiiis in the interest of the money-lenders, that money would never become cheaper until the Government went out of office, and that the dependence of New Zealand on tho London rate was a "Tory" fiction. We could Jiil columns on the subject with quotations, from the Opposition press, if that were necessary; but it will suttice to notice a few of the more characteristic bits of-ami-Reform criticism. Mr Massey and his colleagues wore described a month ago by the principal * Opposition newspaper as "tbe political friends of the Shylocks." "Shylock," it said, "is once more a "comfortable passenger in the State "coach, with his lory friends installed " on the box-seat, and tho struggling "settlers between the shafts"; and all this because money was dear throughout the world, and because by their gross mismanagement thc "Liberal administrations had left their successors heavy liabilities, and next to nothing to meet them with. "Why," it asked oa another occasion, "does not .Mr-Massey "do something to lower the excessive "rates of interest that prevail? We "fear the reply must he that his " Government is too busy in tho op""posite direction." "Usury," it said a fortnight ago, "is especially honoured "by Toryism." Sir Joseph Ward, knowing the facts, lias abstained froni endorsing these foolish suggestions, but his colleague, tho member for Avon, is much less particular in his controversial methods. Tho other day he declared "definitely, and without the "slightest hesitation, that the Mas- " sey ' Government is in the hands of " capitalists and money-lenders, whoso "whole interests lie in high rates of " interest," and he added that he "did "not believe there would be any sub"stantial reduction in tbo rates of in- " terest until the Liberal Government "again took office." It is our Onposition friends' misfortune that the facts aro now so plainly against them that in ono of their principal organs it is admitted that local rates are a "reflex" of London rates, that the stringency has been relaxed, and that after all the stringency began before Mr Massev took office.