REDUCED PROFITS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21196, 29 November 1930, Page 13

REDUCED PROFITS

BANK OF NEW SOUTH WALES. (United Press Association.) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) N SYDNEY, November 28. (Received Nov. 28, at 10 p.m.) The Bank of New South Wales net profit for the past year was £734.699, ur £260,126 less than the previous year, A dividend at the rate of 10 per cent! was paid for the first three quarters and 9 per cent, in the fourth, absorbing in all £731,250, while £166,928 was earned forward. The president (Mr T. Buckland) in the course of his address at the annual meeting, denied that the banks were pegging the exchange rates at a point above the true level of the Australian pound. He said that the rates quoted by the banks were those-at which the banks were prepared to do business. . It seemed to be generally overlooked bv those who asked for higher rates of exchange that every additional 1 per cent, of discount, to which the Australian pound dropped involved additional taxation in Australia amounting to £360,000 annually, This waa the added exchange cost to Australian Governments of providing interest in sterling on external loans. Mr Buckland declared that as the result of procrastination on the part of the Legislatures to face the position confronting Australia the economic position was rapidly becoming worse. On the other hand, the present serious trouble could have been avoided by cutting costa by from 10 to 20 per cent., and possibly within a period of three to live years the Commonwealth would have emerged from the depression. ■