“TRAVESTY OF CONTENTS”

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 20 June 1931, Page 5

“TRAVESTY OF CONTENTS”

FINANCE REPORT FORECAST

COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN’S REPLY EARLY CRITICISM RESENTED. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegriipli Copyright.) LONDON, June 19. Lord Macmillan has officially issued a statement that the “Daily Herald’s ’ forecast of the Finance and Industry Committee’s report is entirely unauthorised and a complete travesty ot its contents. The committee hopes to present its report next week. The “Daily Herald” lobbyist forecast that tliere would be a majority report severely criticising the Bank of England’s policy during the trade depression and suggesting that the bank at present could materially improve trade by making credit more easily available and increasing the amount of money circulating. This policy should be carried out in co-operation with the Central Reserve Bank of America, the Bank of France and other great central banks. The report did not advocate wage and salary reductions as a practical remedy for. the. trade, crisis, whip E-Was diametrically opposed to the view expressed by D l '. Spronle in an address to the Statistical Society, in which lie declared that central hankers were of the opinion that they could do nothing for trade until drastic cuts in wages and salaries were effected, added the “Herald.” The report was likely to create a sensation, as the Bank of England’s policy would he openly condemned by the committee, including some of the greatest financial experts in Britain. There would also be minority reports, one of which would propose protection and the establishment of a national investment hoard to issue both short and long-term loans to industry.

Despite the official denial the ■•Evening Standard’s” fiiianical correspondent agrees that the report vvill seriously question the Bank of England’s financial policy. He says the committee is justified in raising the issue that the bank’s policy has been a major influence in the loss of exports, the growing unemployment and the loss of industrial capital.

“Some of the committeemen,” says the paper, “hold that the bank failed to keep in touch with industrial requirements and followed too rigidly pre-war conceptions of the automatic working of the gold standard. It restricted credit when release would have led to an improvement in trade and injured the export trade by embargoes on foreign loans and the maintenance of unnecessarily high money rates.”

PERSONNEL OF COMMITTEE. In November, 1929, it was announced by Mr Philip Snowden, Chancellor of the Exchequer, that a committee of inquiry into finance and industry would “inquire into banking, finance, and credit, paying regard to the factors, both internal and international, which govern their operation, and to make recommendations calculated to enable these agencies to promote the development of trade and commerce and • the employment of labour.” The committee consisted of j the following members: Lord Macmillan, K.C. (chairman), who was Lord Advocate of Scotland in 1924, and chairman of the Court of Inquiry into the coalmining dispute in 1925. Sir Thomas Allen, vice-chairman of the Co-operative ' Wholesale ‘Society, and chairman of the New Zealand Produce Association. Mr Ernest Bevin, general secretary of the Transport and General-Workers’ Union. Lord Bradbury, Permanent Secretary to the Treasury from 1913 to 1919, and principal British representative on the Reparation Commission. Mr R. H. Brand, managing director of Hazard Brothers and Co., merchant bankers, and a director of Lloyd’s Bank. Professor T. E. Gregory, Professor of- Banking in London University. Mr J. M. Keynes, a well-known economist and Treasury erpresentative at the Paris Peace Conference. Mr Lennox B. Lee, president of the Federation of British Industries. Mr Cecil Lubbock, a director and former Deputy-Governor of the Bank of England. Mr Reginald McKenna, chairman of the Midland Bank, and an ex-Chan-cellor of the Exchequer. Mr J. T. Walton Newbold, editor of the “Social Democrat,” who has lieen in turn a member of the Fabian Society, and Independent Labourite, and a Communist. Mr Walter Baine, deputy-president of the Association of British Chambers of Commerce. Mr J. Prater Taylor, a director of Armstrong, 'Whitworth’s, and other companies. Mr A. A. G. Tullock, a director of several banks.