£l4 MILLION PASSED

Evening Star, Issue 25495, 28 May 1945, Page 4

£l4 MILLION PASSED

PROGRESS OF VICTORY LOAN MINISTER URGES NECESSITY TO SUBSCRIBE (P.A.) WELLINGTON, May 27. The Reserve Bank announced last night that the total of the 1945 Victory Loan was,now £14,087,631. The cash subscriptions during the day amounted to £148,248, including £1,413 of redeemed promises. The, amounts and percentages of the objectives qf the 20 war loan districts are now:—

" Inflation, which is the alternative to stabilisation, would heyond all doubt wreck our prospect of a happy and successful beginning to our servicemen's rehabilitation," declared the Minister of Supply and Munitions (Hon. D. G. Sullivan) in a broadcast address last night. Mr Sullivan is Minister in charge of Stabilisataion, and most of his address stressed the value of War Loan investment in maintaining "the purchasing power of the country's currency. In some respects, he said, the successful stabilisation of our economic life now was the key to our welfare for many years to come, particularly in the years immediately : following final victory.

" Those of you who remember what happened in the early 'twenties after the last war," continued the Minister, "will appreciate what I say when 1 recall soaring prices and depreciating wages, and ultimately depression and bankruptcy. In Wellington on Armistice Day in 1918 bread was sid for a 2lb loaf, and butter was Is 8d- uer lb, buij with the end of the war those prices started rising rapidly, and they kept on going up for three years uutil in 1921 bread was 7d for the standard loaf and butter was 2s 4d per lb. Sugar was even worse. By 1921 the price of sugar was double what it was en Armistice Day, and it ivas the same with other things. So you see that the last time prices went on rising long after the war ended, and some prices —the ones for which war-time controls were suddenly relaxed—rose more after the war than they did during the war.

" There is a point for farmers in this, too. Prices for most farm products (kept on going up after the war till 1921. Then came the break, and the long, dismal slide of prices that went down to the depths of the depression in the 'thirties, and it was a somewhat similar story with wheat and wool. The immediate post-war inflation of 1918-21 was no good for the farmer, just as the rise in retail prices was no good for, the ordinary consumer. The time has now come for stabilisation to help us to prevent that kind of trouble, but how much it will help depends on all of us actively supporting stabilisation, and the one way of doing that is to invest in this Victory Loan.

" By doing that," concluded Mr Sullivan, " you will be helping to pay for victory and helping to make victory worth while."

As Minister of Supply, Mr Sullivan had something to say regarding the future prospects for consumer goods. " The trouble is," he said, " that the arrival of V.E.-Day did not automatically fill the shops with all the goods wc are short of. We will have to wait until sufficient civilian goods are being made again in the world's factories, and while we are fighting Japan we shall have to wait till shipping can be spared from military jobs in the Pacilic.

" So the simple fact is," ho added, " that the inflationary danger, the tendency for prices to rise out of the people's reach, is still with us. The A 7 ictory Loan calls merely for the postponement of the enjoyment of some of your surplus purchasing power, ouly a temporary self-denial, and surely a small thankoffering for the victories we have secured."

£ p.c. Wellington . 2,515,186 68 Auckland . 3,559,113 01 Southland 766,826 60 Taranaki 531,947 57 Wairarupa , . 220,625 57 South Canterbury ... 329,161 55 North Otago 131,918 55 Otago . 1,225,695 54 Wanganui . 421,607 54 Hawke's Bay 499,431 52 Gisbome-East Coast .. 226,460 52 Northland , 232,283 51 Marlborough . 127,659 50 Waikato-King Country . 666,901 49 Thames - Bav of Plenty , . 271,907 49 Nelson ... 250,176 48 Manawatu 524,388 48 Westland 161,786 48 Canterbury . 1,376,330 46 Buller 48,232 46