MORTGAGE CORPORATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22366, 13 September 1934, Page 7

MORTGAGE CORPORATION

SUPPORT FOR THE PROPOSAL MR POISON’S VIEWS THE IDEAL INSTITUTION (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, September 12. Support for the proposed National Mortgage Corporation was given by Mr W. J. Poison (Stratford), speaking in the Financial Debate in the House of Representatives to-night. Mr Poison said lie believed tbe ideal institution would lie a State-aided corporation, the Slate at first t taking a substantial interest in the business and ultimately giving way to a co-operative organisation °such as those operating successfully in other parts of. the world. It would be necessary, he said, to prevent gambling with securities. Mr Poison said that Mr Downie Stewart and Mr A. D, M'Lcod professed to see grave danger in State control of the Reserve Bank and the suggested National Mortgage Corporation. Both, he thought, were confusing the issue with political control. He suggested that Mr Stewart’s view was one of extreme conservatism. He was the champion of the orthodox and a persistent opponent of change. “We find him sounding an alarm in the matter of the National Mortgage Corporation just as he lias done in the control of the Reserve Bank. Sooner or later the Mortgagors and Tenants Relief Act. must end, and provision must be made for transition from sheltered to unsheltered conditions, otherwise we shall have a great deal of dislocation.” Mr Poison said he was that cheaper money must be made available for the primary producers. The Government would have to stand behind the proposal to bring down interest rates. He suggested that the rate should come down to 3 per cent, for long-term mortgages. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr M. J. Savage) had suggested that it was the intention of the Government to hand over the whole of the State lending institutions to the National Mortgage Corporation, but Mr Poison said this would not take place. The State would have to bear its responsibility. The ideal would be a half-way plan. Government institutions had • loaned something like £75,000,000 on mortgage in New Zealand. He did not know what proportion of that sum was still good, but there was probably a loss of at least 10 per cent. It would be impossible to hand over that enormous body of money to any independent corporation dissociated from the Government. The Government had borrowed most of the money now _on mortgage, and was responsible for its repayment. He thought that too much attention had been paid to that aspect of the question and not enough to the purpose for which the machine was to be created.