N.Z. LOAN

Southland Times, Issue 25343, 23 July 1935, Page 8

N.Z. LOAN

RECENT CONVERSION LABOUR CANDIDATE’S ALLEGATIONS REPLY BY MINISTER (Per United Press Association.) Christchurch, July 22. During the /Lyttelton by-election campaign, the Labour candidate, Mr T. H. McCombs, has referred frequently to the recent conversion loan, stating that the operation was not such a signal success as the Government claimed, and stating also that the issue price of £9B 10/- was too low. This, he argued, was proved by the fact that the stock had been resold at a premium of a quarter per cent., so he argued that New Zealand had made a present to the bondholders of £140,000.

To-night, Mr M. E. Lyons, the Government candidate, referred again to the subject, quoting a statement on the subject he had received by telephone from the Acting-Minister of Finance, the Hon. A. Hamilton. Mr Hamilton had stated that at the time of issue, the price of £9B 10/- for three per cent, stock was considered good, having regard to prices on the London market of similar stocks. It was not correct to assume from the news cablegrams that the stocks had been sold at a premium of a quarter per’ cent., that it had been sold for £lOO 5/-, and so to calculate that New Zealand had lost £140,000. Actually the stock had risen to £9B 15/-, a rise of a quarter per cent. Mr McCombs had mentioned that three per cent. New Zealand stock was selling at £lOl 12/6. Actually this was not conversion loan stock, said Mr Hamilton. It was the stock of a loan which had been current for many years and which matured in 1945, whereas the conversion loan matured in 1955. Also on that stock there was four months’ accrued interest.