"TRY WALL STREET"

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 1, 1 July 1925, Page 4

"TRY WALL STREET"

Iv the absence of official explanations, it would seem, from the cabled messages published, that the Imperial Government is intimating to the Dominions that for further funds they should try Wall Street. The main reason so far vouchsafed for this suggestion is that Lombard Street's resources are unequal to meeting the Dominions' demands for loans at present and in the immediate future, at any rate. There is something unpleasant in the idea of any British country going outside the Empire of which 1 it forms part to obtain money, and especially so as it is not only desirable but essential to conserve as much as possible the monetary resources of the Empire and to confine them to circulation within the Empire. It is evident that early in May, when the last New, Zealand Ipan of £7,000,000 went to the public, that a " rush " of applications from Dominions was expected, and these, if granted, it was feared, would involve a drain on Great Britain's gold resources and be followed by a rise in interest rates., On the other hand, two of the Dominions with which we are most cono«rn«d, N»w Zsaland tad Auitrilii* hiv» duriflf IWfl «d.

1927 to meet the following obligations :—Commonwealth, £83,699,350 (£12,750,000 in London); Australian States, £66,983,256 (£33,858,050 in London) ; New Zealand, £19,709,----331. Much of this indebtedness is domestic in character. But it has to be met. The question that both Australia and New Zealand have to answer before 1927 ends is, Is the local market exhausted] Probably much higher rates will have to be paid in New York than in London, and in any case money from America will cost the borrowing country more than locally raised funds. It should be only in the last and desperate resort that money should be raised outside the British Empire.