PROTEST MOVE

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30498, 21 July 1964, Page 3

PROTEST MOVE

Savings Banks (N.Z. Press Association) WANGANUI, July 20. The Wanganui Trades Council has called on its members to use the facilities of the Post Office Savings Bank, the Wanganui Trustee Savings Bank, and the Bank of New Zealand, and not to patronise overesas trading banks. The call came from the council secretary (Mr S; H. Filer) this evening and was explained as a protest move against the Government’s decision to extend savings bank facilities to trading banks. “The position of the trade union movement on this issue is quite clear— we don’t want to revert to the conditions existing before the foundation •of the Reserve Bank, when no cushion existed to soften the blow of overseas financial manipulations, and we do not want to see the control of the people’s savings placed in the hands of these interests,” Mr Filer said.

“If overseas trading banks enter the savings field we can expect a transfer of bank profits to overseas shareholders, which, as far as Australian banks are concerned, would mean that the existing trade gap of over £4O million would be widened,” Mr Filer said. “It is interesting to note that in the fields of international investment. income for 1963 this country received £4,830,000 and paid out £20,079,000, leaving a deficit of £15,249,000. “Out of this last figure £6,627,000 was payment of interest on Government and local authority loans, and £13,553,000 was payment to private interests overseas.”