MR LANG’S REPUDIATION POLICY.

Hawera Star, Volume L, 10 February 1931, Page 4

MR LANG’S REPUDIATION POLICY.

.Mr Lang’s statement to the conference ( of Australian Premiers removes any doubt as to his determination to institute financial reforms based on repudiation of loan commitments. He moved that the Commonwealth Government decide to suspend the payment of interest to British holders of Australian bonds, and in doing so he stated very definitely that New South Wales would adopt such a course, regardless of what the Federal Government did. Mr Lang’s peculiar temperament makes it possible for him to see a picture of a rosy future resulting from such action. He is hopeful of soon being able to say that the depression has truly lifted, for repudiations “means there will be released for circulation in Australia millinns of pounds which arc now sent n-viseas. ” It apparently matters not •“ all to Mr Lang that the millions to be thus released will be .money belonging to other people. The British bondholders whom Mr Lang so calmly proposes to deprive of their interest may include widows and orphans with their all sunk in what they believed to be gilt-edged securities, their interest : guaranteed by the honour and assets of Australia, but such considerations do not weigh with Mr Lang. He anticipates a sympathetic fall of interest rates throughout the Commonwealth, the revival of industry and the absorption of the unemployed as a result of this wholesale robbery. Ho cannot appreciate, apparently, the effect of repudiation on Australia’s credit abroad. If lie cannot, he is merely a fool; if he can, and does not care, in the knowledge that some other Government will have to clear up the mess, ho is something worse. New Zealand is vitally interested in the financial doings of Australia, for, much as we may dislike it, the fact remains that fluctuations there in money values have their repercussions here. It is also highly probable that we shall hear a good deal in this country during the year about.

the necessity for a reduction in interest rates. Out present Government lias brought some of our troubles upon us by setting 5J per cent, as the standard for gilt-edged securities, and it will now have to. face squarely its mistakes. But whatever steps it may take to bring about a lower rate for the immediate future, it is certain that neither the Government nor the Opposition would countenance such wildly extravagant schemes as those being propounded by Labour in New South Wales. The attitude of the Labour Party in this Dominion, however ,is by no means so well-defined. Here, as everywhere else, Labour has some ideas peculiar to itself regarding what it can do with money and securities, and the people of this country should prepare themselves for resistance of “get-rich-quick” schemes submitted by the weird and wonderful “economists” of the Labour Party.