N.Z. If .s Saddest Men in Sydney

Northern Advocate, 24 August 1948, Page 5

N.Z. If .s Saddest Men in Sydney

SYDNEY, Tue. (11.30 a.m.).—“The saddest men around Sydney lately are members of the New Zealand Parliamentary delegation on their way to the Empire Parliamentary conference in London,” says a columnist in the Sydney Daily. Telegraph. “They arrived here the day before New Zealand went on to parity with sterling. “The least the New Zealand Prime Minister could have done was to give them the drum—but no, they changed their money on a pound for pound basis with Australian.

“If they had waited a day they would have got 25 per cent more.’’ A leading Sydney bank official says that overseas visitors are cashing letters of credit “just in case” the Australian exchange rate appreciates. American and English visitors have been cashing letters of credit since the New Zealand pound appreciated to parity with sterling. FEW SPECULATORS A Commonwealth Bank official stated that speculators had not apparently made any large-scale attempt to send money to Australia to try to benefit by any change in the Australian exchange rate. The acting manager of the New Zealand Government Tourist Bureau in Sydney (Mr N. F. Gouffe) said that only a few people had cancelled trips to New Zealand because of the exchange, but that as several hundred people had booked, some as far ahead as next February, it was impossible to tell what they would do. Bookings were on a basis of £SO fare and £7O for internal travel in New Zealand. Provided the fares did not alter, the extra exchange would add about £l7 to the cost of internal travel, making the total cost £137.