DOMINION FINANCES

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIV, Issue 1038, 10 June 1924, Page 5

DOMINION FINANCES

REPLY TO CRITICISM,

SOUNDNESS OF ITS CREDIT.

Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, June 10. Replying to criticisms of New Zealand finance, at a banquet to the Hon. C J. Parr, Mr Massey spoke of the success of the last loan when it showed how sound the credit of the country in according to the most competent judges. The Government had been criticised for ending the year with a surplus. "Heaven only knows," he said, "what the critics would say if we had a deficit." In the present position, with heavy expenditure to be Faced, it was necessary to have a surplus. He hoped to be able to induce Parliament to make considerable reductions in taxation within the next few months. He maintained that exemption from tax of mortgages up to £4OOO was right and showed that Government Was concerned with the small settler struggling along. He believed that the trade of New Zealand, per head of the population, was higher than that of any other country. Yet people were going about saying the country was going to "blue ruin." While the country owed £218,000,000, the interest earning assets, reduced the dead weight to only £63,000,000, and much of it was also productive.