LOAN CONVERSION

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 83, 4 October 1929, Page 11

LOAN CONVERSION

COST TO DOMINION

A VIGOROUS PROTEST

(By Telegraph.) (Special to "The Evening Post")

CHBISTCHTJRCH, This Day. Attention wa* drawn to the cost to the Dominion involved in the conversion of loans during the past year by Mr. V. E. Hamilton at a meeting of the Council of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce. After reading extracts from the report of the Auditor-General dealing with the matter, Mr. Hamilton said that these conversions involved a direct increase in the Public Debt of the Dominion. "Any business man running his affairs along such lines would not last many years," he added. "How long is this sort of thing going to continue? It is so very important, in "my opinion, that I have brought it up in the hope that the ventilation of the matter might cheek a practice which will run the country into bankruptcy eventually." He moved that the matter be referred to the Economics Committee, with a view to a bulletin being issued. Mr. J. MaeGibbon (manager of the Bank of New Zealand) said that it was a matter entirely beyond the control of Governments. It was a- matter between the borrower and the lender.

Mr. Machin said New Zealand had very good credit, and no one, especially in that chamber, should use the word bankruptcy in regard to the financial position of the Dominion. The virility of the Dominion was so great that bankruptcy was unthinkable. Mr. Maehin said he did not see how the chamber could issue any stronger protest than that contained in the recent bulletin on taxation, but nobody took any notice of it. He was surprised at the ease with which local bodies could borrow money, and emphasised the necessity for adequate sinking funds. They should see that their property was secure against these loans; but what was involved would need a much stronger protest than the strongest? words spoken by the Auditor-General, of which no notice had been taken. The motion to refer the question to the Economics Committee was carried.