SOLDIER SETTLERS' SECURITIES

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21578, 14 September 1935, Page 18

SOLDIER SETTLERS' SECURITIES

POSITION UNDER MORTGAGE CORPORATION

{From Our Parliameutarv Reporter.!

WELLINGTON, September 13.

An assurance that it was not proposed to transfer soldier settlers' securities to the Mortgage Corporation in cases where the settlers preferred to remain on the present basis was given by the Minister for Finance (the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates) in reply to an urgent question by Mr ,W. J.. Broadfoot (C, Waitomo) in the House of Representatives to-day. The act provided,, said Mr Coates, that on a date to be fixed by order-in-council discharged soldier settlement mortgages should be transferred to the Mortgage Corporation, but there was power to exclude any mortgage or class of mortgages from the transfer, or subsequently to recall any transferred mortgage where circumstances warranted it. All the rights and privileges now enjoyed by the mortgagors were preserved to them after the transfer by the provisions of the Mortgage Corporation Act

The settlers would acquire right to have the interest on their mortgages reduced to the current corporation rate—at present 4| per cent.—but a general reduction to this rate could not be agreed to apart from transfer to the corporation. Nevertheless it was not proposed to force such a transfer in cases where soldier settlers preferred to remain on the present basis, although it would probably be necessary, in order to prevent overlapping, to arrange for the Mortgage Corporation to act as agent for the Crown in the administration of securities.