NATIONAL CREDIT

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 11, 14 January 1933, Page 13

NATIONAL CREDIT

USED BY THE PUBLIC

The New Zealand Welfare Leagu« writes:-— ,W<3 still find people talking of "credit"as if it were something which is being • misused. "Let the people take, control of the public credit out of the hands of private finance aiid place it at the service of the people who own it" sums up a, policy which is frequently advocated. No one has taken the control of the public credit from the public. It is still under the control and at the service' of the people who own it. There is no difference between private and public credit. • Everyone realises -what private credit is, namely, the confidence reposed in a man by, say, a shopkeeper, which enables him to obtain the delivery of goods before he pays for them, li his credit is bad he must pay cash. Public credit in the same way depends on the nation being able to -satisfy its debts and is based upon the belief that it can, and will out of taxation honestly meet its liabilities. In the case of New Zealand this public credit has already been used to the utmost, and upon it we have borrowed possibly more money that is actually warranted. It has already been used for the people, and has been under-public control from the start. This slogan of "mobilising our national credit" is merely a meaningless catch cry, for we have always -worked on the national credit and can do nothing else. ■ .