NATIONAL CONTRACTS

Evening Star, Issue 21055, 18 March 1932, Page 8

NATIONAL CONTRACTS

THEIR SANCTITY URGED INTEREST REDUCTION CRITICISED ‘ [Be* United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, March 18. The Wellington Stock Exchange has sent a letter to the Premier and the Minister of Finance expressing in tho strongest terms its fears of the con. sequences should the Government reduco tho return to internal lenders who have invested in Government loans. The letter says that on a previous occasion the Wellington Exchange said that such a solution of present difficulties should only be applied as a very last resource, and out of dire necessity, (its meaning was, and still was, a necessity arising after every other source of revenue had been drained to the utmost drop). In the past the credit of tho dominion has stood high in the money markets, and an appeal is made to maintain that high standard,no matter how we might he pressed,and what other dominions might do. It is submitted with all due _ respect to the members of the Commission that tho suggestion, as affecting interest payments, if acted upon will not make for equality of sacrifice. The effect of reduced interest will be so far-reaching as to embarrass the dominion for many years, and- place a stigma for all time on New Zealand.

The members of the Exchange are alarmed at tho consequences in the immediate and distant future if the sanctity of national contracts is sacrificed.