BUSINESS OUTLOOK

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 143, 14 December 1938, Page 10

BUSINESS OUTLOOK

WHAT CAPITAL IS

ENCOURAGEMENT NEEDED

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

AUCKLAND, This Day.

"In many respects this has been a year, when business has taken stock of its position, curbed its tendency to extravagance, and set put to hold an improved turnover rather than extend to new fields," said Mr. G. A. Buttle, chairman of the Auckland Stock Exchange, at the annual meeting today. He added that the outlook for the more popular companies was not unfavourable in spite of the lower prices that would probably rule for primary products.

"We look to our Government to exercise a little more patience and a little less haste in^developing its policy now it is in its second term of office," said Mr. Buttle. "We are reluctant to believe that at a time when the leading nations are making prodigious efforts to. extend international trade New Zealand industry and enterprise are to be shackled beyond the point of absolute necessity, or as an enduring policy measure. New Zealand is not yet in a position when the experience of ages may safely be jettisoned for an experiment." t

Referring to the low interest rates, he said that little could be said i in support of fixed interest rates kept artificially low. The effect of an artificially low rate was to discourage capital and send it in search of a more healthy atmosphere. It was because capital was the savings of the people that it was so sensitive. To deny it a fair return was to discourage thrift and to deride the desire to save was to deride the source to which all borrowers, including' Governments, must ultimately look to finance their undertakings.