AUSTRALIA’S FINANCES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25302, 12 August 1943, Page 3

AUSTRALIA’S FINANCES

CHANGES AFTER THE WAR LABOUR PARTY’S POLICY (N.Z.I>.A. Special Aust. Correspondent) • SYDNEY, Aug. 10. Radical changes from Australia’s prewar finance system to deal with postwar reconstruction will be made if the Labour Party is returned to power. This has been disclosed in a special statement on Labour’s finance policy made by Mr Curtin. Large-scale Use will be made of bank credit—as it has been used to finance the war. In the last two years £259,000,000 have been drawn by the Government from the Commonwealth Bank for this purpose. ”My Government has proved that in war-time every demand for money, no matter how great, can be met,” declared Mr Curtin. ,T ln time of war money Is no bar to meeting the demand of work for all who can work. My Government gives Its pledge that when peace returns all the money we require will similarly be found to provide work for all who want It.” Mr Curtin hinted that the carrying out of this policy would inevitably mean continued regimentation- of finance and price-fixing after the war. 'Commenting on the Prime Minister’s statement. Sir Claude Reading, chairman of the Commonwealth Bank Board, said that the improper use of bank credit in peace-time could destroy the purchasing power of the currency and wreck the standard of living. Expressing his personal view. Sir Claude said he believed that a strict limit must be imposed upon the use of bank credit in the post-war period for any purpose. ” Work for all who can work ” was a laudable objective. Bank credit in certain circumstances could help to achieve this end. but if used without full justification could defeat it and do Incalculable harm. Instead of work for all. there could easily be work for none. ”We are now involved in a race between victory and inflation,” comments the Sydney Daily Telegraph in an editorial. “The pound is worth only 15s of its pre-war value because the war-time book, financed with inflatory credit, has given higher wages and left tile public with fewer goods to spend their money on. One of the first jobs of the postwar reconstructionist will be to recover the value of money earned. He will not do that by continuing a process which has destroyed it. Mr Curtin’s post-war financial plans must lead either to complete financial collapse or to a system of increasingly- severe controls on private freedom to spend, heavier taxation, and a vast bureaucracy.” '