INCREASED DEBT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 86, 8 October 1941, Page 9

INCREASED DEBT

PAST SIX YEARS

INTEREST PAYMENTS

i LATEST FIGURES

The increased indebtedness of New Zealand during the past six years of £42,165,000 had cost 1 per cent., or a fraction less than that, said the Minister of Finance (Mr. Nash) in the House of Representatives last night, in replying to : the second reading debate on the Land and Income Tax Amendment Bill. He said that if there was any country in the world which had raised money to increase assets and bad done it for less than 1 per cent., he would like to find it. The actual increase in debt to Government departments and the Reserve Bank was £41,855,391, and the increase in debt to the public was £6,087,184. The decrease that had taken place in the overseas debt was a net advantage to the Dominion. The increase in the internal debt was not a net disadvantage, because someone inside the country received what was paid. The reduction in the overseas debt was £5,777,353, so that the net increase in debt was £42,165,000. Practically all the money used by the Government for the creation of new assets had been obtained either from Government departments or from the Reserve Bank. A REDUCTION IN RATE. In the year ended March 31, 1936, the amount paid in interest to the public of New Zealand was £3,051,785 and the interest payments overseas in sterling amounted to £5,832,843, making a total of £8,884,628. For the year ended March 31 last, interest paid to I the public in New Zealand was £2,861,000, or, roughly speaking, I £190,000 less than was paid in 1936. _ Mr. W. S. Goosman (National, Waikato): That is accounted for by a reduction in rate. Mr. Nash: Yes, mainly. Mr. Nash said that the interest paid overseas in the last financial year was £5,469,000, so that the total interest payments last financial year were £8,330,639. The net interest charge was £407,279, which was the added interest charge on £42,165,000. Small as they were, added Mr. Nash, there was no Government that had a better story to tell with regard to debt accounts than the present Government had. .