SOUTHLAND POWER BOARD.

Southland Times, Issue 22156, 26 October 1933, Page 3

SOUTHLAND POWER BOARD.

To the Editor. Sir, —In your footnote you say the Legal Position is that the Board should pay in New Zealand pounds. It may or may not be so. You advise your readers to study well the Meat Board Case. I have done so and came to the conclusion that it veiy clearly contradicts the above statement. New Zealand has literally done as some other countries have done, completely wiped out its old currency and begun anew, only the New Zealand Government has not introduced it under a name other than the New Zealand Pound. If the New Zealand Government considers it desirable as a matter of National Policy, that payment should be made in sterling, “It” should pay. it, and as a matter of National Policy, compel the Southland Power Board Area to reimburse the £150,000 that the New Zealand Government idemnified the banks to pay out over the legal amount of £1,625,000. I condemn the Power Board for trying to coerce the Government into doing something which legally it should not do, paying a further £20,000 over and above the £150,000 it indemnified the banks to pay out. That would be my view in any matter. The Power Board is going beyond its functions and trying to establish a very dangerous precedent. If the Power Board, to assist its own financial ends, discount 20 per cent, off the bond-holders’ interest without authority of the Government and if the Government will allow the Power Board to get away with it, the Government would be going beyond its functions and establishing a very dangerous precedent. They cannot meet the balance by allowing Southland to have exchange at over 126 to 125 of other parts. When we speak about the bonds it is the sterling or London pound we speak

about, not the New Zealand pound and legally we cannot shuffle from the one to the other at will, as is pointed out in the Meat Board Case which says, Taxation is collected in New Zealand currency and all public expenses are paid in New Zealand currency, except interest on oversea debt.—l am, etc., INSIGNIFFENT. [Our correspondent does not grasp the legal situation. If there is any doubt about the legal requirements under the Power Board’s bonds, a test case in the British Courts would settle the matter; but this the Government refuses to permit the board to try. As a matter of fact, the Government’s attitude involves the interpretation of pound as both New Zealand and sterling, the thing our correspondent condemns. Oversea interest is paid in sterling only where the terms of the loan require it. —Ed. S.T.]