STATE ADVANCES

Otago Witness, Issue 3576, 26 September 1922, Page 26

STATE ADVANCES

PRIME MINISTER’S PROPOSALS. (From Oup. Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, September 12. When moving the second reading of the State Advances Amendment Bill to-night the Prime Minister said that repatriation moneys were to come under the control of the State Advances Department, but not till the end of this financial year. The present form of repatriation administration would continue to the end of the yea-. By that time the greater part of the work would be. over. He then proposed to make the Repatriation Department permanent; not under that name, perhaps. It was not the intention of the Government to lend money for the purchase of such things as expensive furniture, but he proposed to widen the department so that the industrious man of small means, and the man of good character, would be able to go to the department and get a reasonable loan. A Member; For business as well as land? The Prime Minister replied that that would be for th-o department to consider. He was not tied in anv way. He had no doubt there would be a maximum fixed, perhaps £250, though there again he was not binding himself down at the moment. The scheme was for the benefit of the industrious man, who found a difficulty in obtaining sufficient capital to carry on business at present. Mr Massey went on to refer to the fact that in the not far distant future it would be necessary to renew some of the loans raised to furnish the department originally with its funds. The Government could not hope, he said, to effect the renewals on the same terms as it had raised the original loans. It would have to pay 5 per cent, at least, and that would make it necessary to charge a higher rate of interest for advances. He did not think that this would seriously affect, if it affected at all, the people who had borrowed under the present legislation. He did not think so because the difference would be so very small that it could be made no in a different direction. One of the greatest needs of the country to-day, the Prime Minister continued, was money for mortgage purposes. Farmers!" even with good security, were finding great difficulty in obtaining the money they required at a reasonable rate of interest. He proposed + o strengthen the Advances Department- byadding two millions of new money to its funds.