Sterling Threat ‘Ignored’

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31090, 20 June 1966, Page 14

Sterling Threat ‘Ignored’

(New Zealand Press Association)

NEW PLYMOUTH, June 19. Newspapers in New Zealand had sought to overlook a very important issue in their treatment of the statement in London by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Overseas Trade (Mr Marshall) about the restrictions on New Zealand borrowing in Britain. The president of the Labour Party and member of Parliament for Auckland Central (Mr N. V. Douglas) said this at New Plymouth on Saturday. Mr Douglas said the “Sydney Morning Herald” had quoted Mr Marshall in Lon-

don as having "warned Britain that New Zealand might have to take her reserves away and leave the sterling area” because of the restrictions on borrowing in Britain. Mr Marshall went to London to negotiate new trade pacts with the United Kingdom and to raise a further loan for New Zealand of £30,000,000. The outcome of Mr Marshall’s mission would have tremendous repercussions on the New Zealand economy, Mr Douglas said. “If he fails we are in for some belMightening that will stagger New Zealand,” Mr Douglas said. He said < Mr Marshall’s statement had been recorded with bold headlines by only one New Zealand newspaper —the “Timaru Herald.” “This was an important statement which I can prove

that the newspapers knew about yet did nothing about,” Mr Douglas said. In the Sydney newspaper on June 15 Mr Marshall was quoted as having told Britain that Australia and New Zealand made considerable contributions to the sterling area. “If the flow of investment funds to New Zealand is curbed to a significant extent then a situation could de-

velop where the. whole rationale of the sterling area arrangements will be called into question,” Mr Marshall was quoted as saying. Mr Douglas said that although the Labour Party considered the rate of borrowing by the Government to be excessive, the £30,000,000 Mr Marshall was "looking for in Britain” was essential for New Zealand to go ahead.