MONEY SYSTEM OF THE FUTURE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 22 May 1941, Page 2

MONEY SYSTEM OF THE FUTURE

ACCOUNTANCY VIEWPOINT “The monetary problem is not new; it is as old as organised trade,” state* a New Zealand accountant in a review of the outlook. “What is new is that the practical factors of consumption and of production have been so mastered that their rational co-ordination ia becoming more and more a physical possibility, and that the facilities at the service of the recorders of the fact* lof commerce allow the records to be kept which the changed conditions demand. If new accountancy conception* are needed to destroy the money illusion, we must get down to the task and do it. First we shall have to be sure and interpret our facts as correctly as possible, then we shall have to be insistent in the telling of them to the banker and the business man so that they will be acted upon. The time is opportune as the structure of the monetary systems throughout the world are at present being refashioned, in New Zealand no less than elsewhere. “Accountancy must contribute it* part in fashioning the whole structure, which will slowly evolve from tradit.onal practice and not be made by legislative methods. I am satisfied that eventually, notwithstanding even the interference of the politician, it will be based on true accountancy conceptions. The business controller, employing statistical methods, is even now making his influence felt. He recognise* present-day condiitons with his planning and his control. He is seeking for stabilised sales, which depend on a more rational flow of consumers’ income and of investment; and unconsciously, but none the less definitely by his efforts in controlling production and the financial structure of his business. he is contributing to that end. "Also his efforts are giving the bankers new conceptions with which to I control the volume of credit. Short I term credit, for example., should be proportionate to trade, not to security, though security no doubt will alway* be necessary; or, to take an even broader view, the basis of all credit should be qualitative not quantitive, as ha* been the case up to the present. Thi* changed basis for credit must come if we arc to get that balanced production which essentially must be the basis of | a stabilised currency. The proportion* which the factors in a balanced production will bear to each other will constantly alter, but efficient statistic* should just as constantly record the changes almost as soon as their effect* begin to be felt.”