A KNOTTY PROBLEM

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 109, 9 May 1924, Page 6

A KNOTTY PROBLEM

Further reference is made in today's. Press cablegrams to the present exchange rates between Lorn don and New Zealand and Australia. At the same time it is announced that the Associated Australian Banks have increased their selling rates, London on Australia and New Zealand. The problem of the high current rates charged for the remission of money to these countries is a legacy of the war. any case, the system of exchanges is so complicated that only few laymen and not all bankers are,really fully conversant with it; indeed in every bank's service there are specialists in exchanges. But the position that has arisen asone of so complicated and hampering a character that, as announced, the Association of British Chambers of Commerce will give special attention to the matter in London .on the 21st of this month. It will then be proposed that all Governments concerned—Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa—shall seriously consider the position with a view to establishing a favourable rate. Not only are funds from the realisation of Australian and New Zealarld produce piling up in London, but in addition there is a large sum in the aggregate standing to the credit of the Governments, the results of loans.

Formerly, with a free gold market, differences between imports and exports were adjustable by shipments of gold. The result of the altered circumstances following the war,, without going into details, is that the banks trading in Australia and New Zealand find, their funds steadily and solidly mounting up, but not so in the countries where they transact by far the .greater part of their business. To restore something like the pre-war equilibrium is undoubtedly difficult, but the problem has to be tackled. It is one for experts, and, unfortunately, they do not generally agree, even on the practicability of the scheme recommended by the Special Committee to the Imperial Economic' Conference. Meantime, the problem is becoming more and more difficult; therefore, anything that the Associated Chambers of C4reat Britain can do towards facilitatiug ils solution will bo very

welcome here, in New Zealand, as well as in Australia to those requiring to have funds remitted here or letters of credit taken out on their behalf. ■