REHABILITATION FINANCE HAS PASSED PEAK

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 October 1948, Page 3

REHABILITATION FINANCE HAS PASSED PEAK

[SPECIAL TO STAR]

WELLINGTON, This Day.

The peak of rehabilitation lending has now been passed, according to the annual report of the State Advances Corporation of New Zealand, presented in the House of Representatives today. The demand for loans is nevertheless still heavy, but indications are 'that with the passing of the years since general demobilisation, the downward trend of applications from ex-servicemen would continue, until the basic level was reached. A review of the year’s operations discloses that 19,958 applications for .loans under various headings were dealt with, as against a total of 22,676 for the preceding year. “For the first time in the history of the corporation the total capital investment in respect of mortgages and other accounts under administration is in excess of £110,000,000, and there seems to be little question but that the corporation is the largest institution of its type in the British Commonwealth,” states the report. “From time to time suggestions are made that the interest rates and the lending margin should be reduced. It is, however, obvious that money alone will not build houses and the provision of cheap finance, which could not be related in any way to the rate at which either the corporation or the Government could borrow from the genuine savings of people, would merely create a greater demand for labour and goods already in short supply, and’ would assuredly cause building costs to harden fuither against the very people a more liberal lending policy would' be intended to assist.”