WHEN SHALL IT END?

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 62, 10 September 1924, Page 4

WHEN SHALL IT END?

It is only-too evident, from the debate in Parliament last night that the Moratorium is' likely to be used for furthering Party ends —a most reprehensible proceeding. -.It was proclaimed as a war measure hi 1914; it has been in existence ten years, and its end promises to coincide with the Greek Kalends. The Moratorium on deposits is ended and done with. In that case, where money placed at call was demanded, in many instances it was paid on demand, no advantage being taken of the protection afforded •in other cases adjustments were made, and so a threatened financial catastrophe was averted. But, while the lifting of the Moratorium on mortgages at 31st December next would entail hardship on some farmershow' many is not known to this day, nor can the Committee to which the Mortgage Final Extension Bill was referred tell us—it would give to many mortgagees'the relief to which, in all justice, they are entitled. Much has been made of the smallman in the dairy business, and tfie special need for him of the still further extension, but on the authority of Mr. Arthur Morton, President of the National Dairy Association— and he ought to know—" the longer the Moratorium is' extended the longer will the trouble of many farmers last." Complaints have been made in and out of Parliament of the diversion of capital from ISTew Zealand to Australia. Is the extension of the MorjiljQi-ium for nearly another twelve mouths likely to turn that

stream again to the broad acres cf New Zealand? It is not, for while one of the largest insurance companies doing business in this Dominion had nearly £300,000 out on mortgage in this country m 1914, its investments in this direction during the past three year's averaged only £56,000. There is another point, and it affects the reputation of the Dominion in London, viz., N shall New Zealand become known there as a country where the Moratorium .on mortgages is to continue indefinitely ? The suggestion to postpone extinction of the Moratorium to 31st July next is ill-advised and likely to defeat the ends it professes to serve.