THE BOROUGH LOAN.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 2084, 27 March 1922, Page 4

THE BOROUGH LOAN.

A Wellington visitor to Palmerston North, whose vocation entails a wide experience In finance, considers that Ministerial approval of the payment of 7 per cent for our borough loan of £189,000 should have been withheld. The effect upon the finance of the Dominion, both with regard to public and private loans, will, he thinks, be quite appreciable. It will retard the downward tendency of the rate of interest, and with it the various enterprises which await the consummation of that event. The bank rate in England was lately lowered by a half per cent, and there ar e signs that the comparatively high bank rate in New Zealand is about to undergo a similar change. Already some of those institutions which were allowed to raise money at a high rate of interest are beginning to find that they were altogether too precipitate, though in many cases they may havo had a more urgent need for immediate action. The gold standard of the linancial barometer is even more sensitive to such influences than the quicksilver is to atmospheric pressure. Financiers should have a care how they depress this column of liquid gold.