CENTRAL BANK.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12454, 21 September 1933, Page 7

CENTRAL BANK.

BANK OF NEW ZEALAND. STATEMENT BY CHAIRMAN References made by the Minister of Finance (the Rt. Hon. 3. G. Coates) to the speech of the chairman of the Bank of New Zealand (Mr R. W. Gibbs) at the annual meeting of that institution art included in the Minister’s statement on the Reserve Bank, as will have been seen in the fifth and final section of that statement. They were submitted by “The Post” to both the chairman of the bank and the general manager (Sir Henry Buckleton! for any further comments they were disposed to make on the Reserve Bank proposal, now that it had been fully described by the Minister. The chairman’s comments were brief, but emphatic: He said be considered that the Finance Minister had carefully avoided any useful criticism, and had failed utterly to give any satisfactory reasons for settin £2; up a Central Bank in New Zealand, or the advantages to be derived therefrom, “unless indeed the maze of volubility which his offcial essayists prepared for him to launch on the public is thought to do so. ‘‘Certainly we are told that a uniform note issue would be a ‘‘commercial convenience!’ (Mr Gibbs continued). In what way? The trading public is quite satisfied to get. hold of the well-backed-notes of the trading banks, and would show no greater preference for the i.otes of the proposed new proprietary institution. “The main thing these uays is to got hold of the notes. WAS THERE PRESSURE? ‘"The Minister denies ‘diet at ion 7 of London financiers. Suppose we substitute ‘pressure’—he perhaps may not be so ready to deny that.. Tt \s possible this was couched in diplomatic language, akin to our ‘voluntary’ conversion. He may have been asked to. ‘kindly introduce legislation “voluntarily.” but if you don’t “But my experience of London finance language is that it is invariably strictly honest, straightforward, ■direct, and unequivocal. “The Minister denies- that there should be any restriction of credit due to the requirements of a Central Bank. Another proof of how little he knows about the question, and how deplorably incapable be too often is of seeing the obvious. “The events connected with the South African Reserve Bank are recent history, as also those relating to the American Federal system and my remarks thereon are statements of well-known fact. The proposed dangerous interference with the banking structure in New Zealand at the present time, I still maintain, warrants my repea tin t the Chancellor’s remark that ‘this is no time for rash experiments fit monetarv matters. 5, ”