"BETTER OF THE DEAL"

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23882, 9 August 1939, Page 7

"BETTER OF THE DEAL"

THE CONVERSION LOAN REPAYMENT BY INSTALMENTS MR ARMSTRONG'S CLAIM (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, Aug. 8. In the repayment of the £17,000,000 loan in London by instalments New Zealand had got the better of the deal with Great Britain, said the Minister of Housing (Mr H. T. Armstrong) during the Financial Debate in the House of Representatives to-day. The financiers, the real rulers of Britain, had, he said, forced on Britain a bad deal. The terms of the repayment of the loan, Mr Armstrong said, were perhaps not so favourable as some would have liked, but they were as good as or better than the terms granted to other countries of the world which had gone to London recently. It was claimed that Mr Nash had failed in his mission, but no one would suggest that the whole £17,000,000 should be paid off in one year, and the next best thing was to renew the loan. "The terms of repayment are better than a high rate of interest," Mr Armstrong said. "At the end of five years we will, at any rate, have paid off £15,000,000 of our debt. It comes down to a question of an exchange of goods for goods and who is going to get the worst of this deal? If we have to pay £3,500,000 a year, it means that we will have to buy £3,500,000 less of goods from Great Britain a year. To that extent the financiers who arranged the loan have hit Britain. They have got the worst of the deal. The conditions imposed force us to take less manufactured goods." Many members of the Opposition, Mr Armstrong said, were trying to belittle the work of the Minister of Finance in London. It was not a very brave thing to do while the Minister was away. No one inside or outside the House could have bandied the negotiations better than Mr Nash had done.