LOANS FOR SOLDIERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24102, 22 October 1941, Page 6

LOANS FOR SOLDIERS

The scheme of financial assistance to re-establish soldiers in civil life after the war, outlined by the Minister of Finance yesterday, has much to commend it. New Zealand, caught unprepared for war, should not take the risk of being similarly unprepared for peace when it comes. It is simply common sense to have a policy well-defined, and to be ready to apply it on whatever scale proves necessary. Mr. Nash's plan goes a long way toward this goal. It contemplates helping men to return to their trades, to establish themselves in business and to settle down in homes. It also provides for training inexperienced men to go on the land, and for financing those who may be sufficiently experienced to begin independently as farmers. The objectives are all admirable, and the underlying principle that finance is the key to them is sound. But it is essential that the lessons of the last war should not be forgotten. Mr. Nash speaks of loans for the purchase of farms running up to 100 per cent of the value, and of similar advances, covering both house and section, for home-build-ing. The point to be watched here is that a land and building boom does not develop, with fictitious price levels. It is true Mr. Nash speaks of requiring reasonable prices, having regard to productive capacity, for farms purchased under the loan scheme. Those safeguards are easy to provide in words, but not so simple to apply in practice. Constant watchfulness against the appearance of boom prices must be a first essential in the policy.