The Railways

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31142, 19 August 1966, Page 10

The Railways

Sir, —In your recent leading article on the railways accounts you state that the interest unpaid was £6,979.916 last year. To avoid having to show this in the accounts the Government had decided to reduce the department’s capital by £7om; but as this was thought to be too hot a move, it was decided to retain assets at their book value but to make £7O million of the National Development Loan capital non-interest-bearing and non-repayable. This you termed “A neat piece of bookkeeping” which should certainly be a step towards making the railways pay. Now I ask you: do you consider this honest, as I consider it the biggest bit of jiggery-pokery that has ever been put over the taxpayers of New Zealand?—Yours, etc., S. W. HICKMOTT. August 18, 1966.

[We regret that Mr Hickmott failed to detect the far-from-subtle irony in the quoted phrase. We also regret having done Mr Hickmott the injustice of thinking that, as an ardent advocate of what he calls “the national credit,” he would approve the issue, even if retrospectively, of debt-free loan money—a device which we have always regarded as financial jiggery-pokery. Ed., “The Press.”]