A Question Asked

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 145, 16 March 1931, Page 9

A Question Asked

Sir, —I plead ignorance, Sir, on all problems of finance except that of being almost but not quite able to make both ends meet every now and again. _ The question which I am now asking is one which possibly many of your wide circle of readers may be able to answer without turning a hair. Gold has appreciated and money value is 12* per cent., more or less, higher than it was a few years back, say, ten years. At that time New Zealand had borrowed much money, so had our local bodies, so had companies, corporations and business men; bo had farmers and private individuals. In this country alone we — State, cities, boroughs, counties, traders, manufacturers and private citizens—owed nearly £450,000,000 in 1921. The annual interest -on that sum, fire per cent., reckoned on the then value of money, was £22.500,000. Assuming that over £200,000,000 of that money has been repaid or arranged for since ISEI, we are still paying £12,000,000 interest on the remainder, and "of that every £1 is now actually equal to 22/6. Here and now then, at the very conservative estimate I am making, we must find £1,500,000 more than we expected to pay and more than we agreed to pay, or £1 per head, every year. And it seems to me that ail countries, whether debtor or creditor nations, are in like case, for whoever lent the money it was not this nation or that nation, since every nation has its very considerable national debt. So if the inhabitants of New Zealand have to find £1 a head more than they expected or agreed on, the inhabitants of the world at large (the civilised world, I mean) have to find at least £500,000,000 more than they expected or agreed on annually. This is, simply and solely, because of the increase in the value of money. Now, Sir, if an np-conntry draper or a backblocks storekeeper measured or ■weighed his goods by a variable standard and was found out, especially if that standard varied in his own favour, he would be punished and held up to execration as an unworthy and dishonourable man. And in the public opinion he would be regarded as a. very mean and despicable man indeed if he were found to be giving under-weight and short-measure when times were specially hard. Yet those who deal in the world’s wealth and dole it out to their clients do so in accord with a varying standard —a standard which varies all the time and every time in their own favour. No inspector may assess that standard or test its equity, no customer may impugn it, no legislation may regulate it. It cannot be kept under lock and key by Act of Parliament like a yard-stiek or a pound weight. I want to know, Sir, whether the professors, of economic science, or its students, hare not something better with which to provide us than this elastic standard and measures of value which seems to stretch, automatically, as it were, against the poorer sort of man in the harder sort of times. Surely this not unimportant matter should be taken out of the hands of those who are. this present year 1931. receiving £500,000.000 more than their due. These people, whoever they be, are not likely, out of their unearned increment, to make loans free of interest to the ten or twenty million workers who are just now out of work, for instance. Hoping for a more or less satisfactory solution. —I am. etc.. 11. M. B. MARSHALL. Pahiatua, March 9.