TO PAY IN STERLING

Evening Star, Issue 21508, 5 September 1933, Page 6

TO PAY IN STERLING

TRANSPORT BOARD RATIFIES DECISION KEENLY DEBATED [Pe* United Press Association.] AUCKLAND, September 5. The Transport Board, at a special meeting, confirmed its committee’s decision to pay the half-year’s interest on its loan in British currency “ without right of recovery in terms of the telegrams exchanged with Mr Coates,” and to send its chairman (Mr J. A. C. Allum) to London to negotiate with the bondholders. There was a keen debate.

Mr W. H. Nagle pointed out that payment! of the half-year’s interest in full (£6,000), plus tho expenses of Mr Allum’s trip, would raise the board’s estimated deficit to £16,000. Mr T. Bloodworth declared that there was no legal or moral obligation to pay in sterling. The bondholders had their remedy in the courts. He referred to Mr Allum’s “ problematical mission,” and said that if the board had remained firm it would have achieved its object. Mr G. R. Hutchinson agreed that tho board had no legal right to pay in sterling, but ho said there was a prospect of recovering more than the extra expenditure as the result of negotiations. Tho board had no right to jeofardiso big conversions and transfers, ts decision was in the national interest.