INTEREST PAYMENTS

Southland Times, Issue 21657, 19 March 1932, Page 5

INTEREST PAYMENTS

GOVERNMENT’S PROPOSALS. STOCK EXCHANGE ALARMED. (Per United Press Association.) / Wellington, March 18. The Wellington Stock Exchange has .sent a letter to the Premier and the Minister of Finance expressing in the strongest terms its fears of the consequences should the Government reduce the return to internal lenders who have invested in Government loans. The letter says that on a previous occasion the Wellington Stock Exchange said that such a solution of the present difficulties should only be applied as the very’ last resource and out of dire necessity. The meaning then was, and still was, a necessity arising after every’ other source of revenue had been drained to the utmost drop. In the past the credit of the Dominion had stood high in the money market and the appeal was made to maintain that high standard ijp matter how we might be pressed and what the other dominions might do. “It is submitted,” states the letter, “with all due respect to the members of the commission, that the suggestion as affecting interest'payments, if acted upon, will not make for equality of sacrifice. The effect of reduced interest will be so farreaching as to embarrass the Dominion for many years and [dace a stigma for all time on New Zealand. The members of the exchange are really alarmed at the consequence's in the immediate and distant future if the sanctity of national contracts is sacrificed.”