TOURISTS’ TROUBLES

Evening Star, Issue 23351, 22 August 1939, Page 8

TOURISTS’ TROUBLES

DIFFICULTY IN SECURING NEEDS THAT DRAFT FROM SINGAPORE ONLY HALF PAID TO AGENT Judging by the present trend of affairs, there will be very few people leaving the Dominion on holiday jaunts for some time to come. With the very meagre supply of sterling funds available in London to meet payments on urgent imports to this country, letters, of credit and travellers’ cheques are going to be extremely difficult to obtain. J.respective of what funds a man may have in New Zealand, or how wealthy he may be, his local currency will bo no good to him if he cannot exchange it for sterling, and this he cannot do at the moment. As an instance of tho difficulty experienced in getting tho necessary funds to travel overseas may be cited a little transaction last week.

A mining firm in Singapore, through its agent in Dunedin, engaged two mining engineers for work in the Malay States. To provide the funds necessary to pay expenses to their work, the company telegraphed a draft of £BO sterling, equivalent to £lO5 New Zealand currency. * However, when the agent went to uplift the funds ho found ho could not do so, and had to make application to the requisite quarters. After some delay, permission was granted to uplift £SO only, barely sufficient to meet requirements. Tho rest of the money must remain here, despite the fact that sterling funds to meet tho draft were made available in London. It is hoped to get the rest of tho money when the occasion arises to send further labour to the Malay States. When this amount is used up, other methods will be devised to supply employees with sufficient travelling funds.