LONDON LOAN

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 42, 18 August 1939, Page 6

LONDON LOAN

ECONOMIST'S VIEW

QUESTION IN THE HOUSE

In the House of Representatives yesterday Mr. J. A. Lee (Government, Grey Lynn) gave notice to ask the acting Prime Minister (the Hon. P. Fraser) the following question:—

Whether his attention had been called* to an article appearing in the "New Zealand Financial Times"' for August, and written by the wellknown Nationalist economist Professor B. E. Murphy, in which the professor said of the London settlement that "The settlement is onerous and temporary only; that in all probability it cannot be completely carried cut, as it merely papers over the cracks and adjourns a definite showdown to the future; that there is not going to be much of a surplus for imports unless export prices rise to an extent that cannot be reasonably anticipated at the present time; that the additional loading on to our balance of accounts of large capital insjcalments turns the transaction into an almost hopeless gamble on the level of future export prices; that if the £13,000,000 loan constitutes : a "precedent for future maturities it seems to load our balance of trade with an almost impossible task; that the conditions are onerous if not definitely harsh; that, in the absence of economic miracles the arrangement cannot be of a permanent nature"; and whether Mr. Fraser would give the Opposition an opportunity to move a motion dissenting from this opinion.