LOAN AND MORTGAGE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3619, 24 July 1923, Page 62

LOAN AND MORTGAGE.

MR MASSEY AND MR WILFORD. (From Ora Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, July 17. The Prime Minister, in his reply to the criticism on the Budget in Parliament, dealt at some length with the arguments adduced by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr T. M. Wilford) in regard to loans and mortgages. That gentleman had, said Mr Massey, made a good deal of capital out of the fact that a large proportion of the loans falling due were on behalf of the Government departments, but he overlooked the difficulty there was connected with the balance of £3O,COO,CCO. “I should like to suggest,” said Air .Massey, “that the rearrangement of those £30,000,C00 wiil require very careful handling on the part of the Government. In the last year's loans that were arranged there was, from this point of view, a small item of £500,000 owing to Australia. The exchanges had all gone wrong, and an offer was made at 5i per cent., but they changed their minds and put it up to 54 per cent. Of course, we could have cabled the money, but it would have cost a good deal in the way of ! exchange, and, as I have said, the exchanges were all wrong and no one knows what is going to happen with a huge sum like £30.000,000 within the next six years.” The Prime Minister added that the moratorium would need careful handling also. If they had been called upon during the war, the settlers would have been at the mercy of the mortgagees, and might have had to vacate their holdings, losing years of valuable work. He had made every possible inquiry from financial instil tutions, and they had told him that in j all probability at the end of this year ; everything connected with the lifting of the moratorium would be arranged. There would be some bad securities, but he had a scheme for dealing with them. “Most people lock at the huge sum mentioned in the statistics and ask how is it going to be met,” said Mr Massey, “mit there are no mortgages included in the moratorium since 1919. and that is a big cut made in it. We have very good security in the money owing to the different departments, and no one imagines that we are going to turn those people out. When I was speaking at Hamilton I asked the mortgagees who might be listening, or who might read what I had said, to remember the golden rule 'to do unto others as you would l>e done by.’ and T sakl if they did that there would be little difficulty in arranging these matters.”

The Waitangi has been abandoned to the underwriters (says an exchange). The vessel now lies broad-side on to the sea at Patea, and is well up on the tecaeb, with the stern firmly embedded in sand.