LENGTHY BATTLE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22438, 19 September 1947, Page 5

LENGTHY BATTLE

INITIAL_MOVES BANKS PREPARING REFERENDUM SOUGHT SYDNEY, Sept. 18. While the debate on the censure motion is being held today in the House of Representatives State and banking authorities throughout Australia are preparing for what will almost inevitably be a lengthy battle. In New South Wales the leader of the State Opposition, Mr. Treatt, has announced that he will initiate a debate on the proposal to nationalise the banks in the State Parliament. In Victoria the leader of the Opposition, Mr. J. G. McDonald, announced that all future Victorian protests would be addressed to the Governor-General, Mr. W. J. McKell, asking him to withhold his assent from the Government’s Banking Bill until the people have expressed their views either by a referendum or by a general election. In Canberra the Prime Minister, Mr. J. B. Chifley, confirmed newspaper reports that the two trustee savings banks in Tasmania would be exempt. The general manager of the Bank of New South Wales, Mr. T. B. Heffer, said in Sydney that the trading banks would continue to fight in the public interest against any form of nationalisation.

“The Government is seeking to destroy the present financial system under chloroform,” he said. “Mr. Chifley is endeavouring to make the people feel that his move is a gradual and painless process of transition. But the fact is that a major permanent injury to a healthy body is ultimately devastating in its effects whether or not the body feels it at the time it is inflicted.”