MR.MASSEY'S SPEECH

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 35, 11 February 1914, Page 8

MR. MASSEY'S SPEECH

SOME FIGURES & EXPLANATIONS As several obvious errors occur in the figures a 6 they appear in the telegraphed report of the Prime Minister's speech, a representative of The Po6t aeked tho Minister of Finance if he would verify the amounts quoted by Mr. Ma.ssey, and this Mr. Allen consented to do. Referring to the paragraph dealing with short-dated debentures, Hon. Mr. Allen explained, . first, that the special difficulty was that the eight millions was in the hands of the speculator, and not in the hands of the investor ; and the speculator would not renew it. "So we have to r aise new loans to pay off this eight millions, with all the consequent costs of underwriting, brokerage charges, stamp duty, etc., and every time a Short-dated loan 16 renewed, this process has to be gone over again; and there is where the cost comes in. As to the four and a-half million-loan, those figures are right. It costs in the firet instance £144,000, but it wae a two-year loan, and when it became due. afte.r running the course of two years, the cost occurred again, and this is approximately the actual result : That it will cost probably another £230,000 to £240,,000 to put it in the same position as the loan that I raiEed in London twelve months ago. The total cost, therefore, of this f oat and a-half million-loan to put it in the same position as the loan that was floated a year ago would be approximately £380,000, whereas the total charges and < expenses of the threemillion loan, which runs for thirty or fifty years were £156,000. If the four and a-half millions had been three millions, the extra, cost of raising it as a short-dated loan would be approximately £100,000. "There are some obvious misprint© in the paragraph dealing with more liberal advances. The report says that the Government proposes to increase advances to worker*, from £400 to £500. That is clearly a misprint. The maximum is £450 by law, and we propose to go up to the maximum of £450. And then there is another very obvious misprint in this paragraph in reference to advances to local authorities. We do not propose to increase the amount from £200 to £500, but from £2000 to £5000."