OUR GOOD NAME

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 97, 26 April 1932, Page 8

OUR GOOD NAME

Reference was made in "The Post" Trade and Finance columns on Saturday to the sensitive response of the London investment market to disturbing reports from New Zealand. One instance given was the suspension of negotiations for disposal of securities when news of the Auckland rioting was received. This confirms a report received by the Government of the effect of such trouble, on the investment market. Another instance referred to the proposal to exercise a censorship on New Zealand news cabled abroad. A financial institution received inquiries concerning this proposal, and it was added that the proposal had caused considerable uneasiness on the i part of investors in New Zealand Government securities, an.d tho recent New Zealand loan opened that day at £2 discount, as compared,with £1 5a discount the day before. The fact plainly disclosed by these two instances is that disturbances in the Dominion and the proposal to censor news of such disturbances are equally harmful, to the country's reputation. When investors hear, mention of censorship they immediately fear that something is being hidden. The position of the investor must be taken into account.' He is thousands of miles away from the country, with.no means of making personal investigations. A financial institution can immediately cable to its representatives for information; but the small investor cannot do this. Why should he? His easiest course is to decide that he will not buy New Zealand securities, but will put his money into British bonds or .local government securities. Censorship does;,not restore confidence. ■> Rather it undermines it because the investor is always fearing that he has not been told. It is better to'trust the good sense and discretion of the Press and Press correspondents. There may be harmful exaggeration in some instances, but, this is corrected by the news available . ; from other correspondents. New Zealand has, in truth, little cause to complain. Those who now make demand for censorship overlook the fact that the Murchison and Hawkes Bay earthquakes I and the Auckland riot were alarming events, and that they were presented to the great majority of British readers with sober restraint and accuracy. If public men wish to put a curb on exaggeration they should see what they can do here by counselling all to consider the effect of their words. Any correspondent anxious to make a sensation could find ample material in the statements of local organisations and politicians. If we were

to take the utterances of many farmers and Labour leaders and set them out baldly it would be easy to give a picture of a country on the verge of bankruptcy, of farmers walking jbff the land and ruined, of starvation, and a people on the brink of insurrection. Do die people who thus exaggerate think what effect their words might have if correspondents had not the good sense to tone down the alarming statements made?