No Specific Limit for Loan

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 4, 6 January 1941, Page 8

No Specific Limit for Loan

COMMENT ON NEW ISSUE Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Jan. 4. Approached for his views on the new Issue of Government loans for national development works, Mr Andrew Hamilton, president of the New Zealand Stock Exchange Association and president of the Wellington Stock Exchange, said that his personal views were that the terms were good except for the absence of a specific limit for the amount required. “The way it appears to me is that the Government is doing the right thing in the wrong place,” said Mr Hamilton. “In other words, these are t&rms that should be applied to a loan for war purposes, in which case it would be perfectly correct procedure not to fix a limit. For a war effort there should be no maximum. In the case, however, of a loan for internal purposes, there should be, in my opinion, a definite limit set. The country should know how much it is borrowing, the debt it is incurring, and the specific purposes. “Unlimited loan procedure would be quite excusable, and even approved, if adopted for war purposes. At a time like this, when we cannot tell how much we may be called on to meet the war bill, we should be curtailing domestic spending and saving for the greater effort. The same objectionable feature of unlimited internal borrowing was adopted by a previous Government with one of its issues, and was met with expressions of disapproval at that timej