“CUT ACROSS OUR ECONOMIC LIFE”

Southland Times, Issue 23839, 9 June 1939, Page 5

“CUT ACROSS OUR ECONOMIC LIFE”

EXCHANGE CONTROL IN N.Z. MR MULHOLLAND’S FEARS FOR FUTURE “We have an exchange control which has cut across the whole of our economic life as we knew it previously, stated the Dominion president of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union (Mr W. W. Mulholland) during a brief address to the Invercargill Chamber of Commerce yesterday. Mr Mulholland was introduced by the president, Mr W. Grieve, who said that he recognized that there must be the closest co-operation between the primary industries and commerce. Whether the exchange control was an emergency measure or a permanent measure was not clear, Mr Mulholland said. Considering its effects on business and finance one of the things that impressed him was the interference with the individual carrying out his own activities and the resulting dislocation of business in and out of the Dominion.

It had soon become apparent that the measures introduced were ineffective, so they were faced with more restrictions, Mr Mulholland continued. The most important thing that had occurred was that they had had a dam set against the flow of finance and at present there was no connection between the inside and outside values of their _ money. There was no indication of the value of internal currency because the indicator had been done away with. Today the value of their money internally j was heavily reduced. The fact that that indicator had been abolished was a serious matter to the farmers. Its importance to them lay in the fact that the farmers depended on the returns from their exports. The inevitable effect of the abolition of the indicator was a decrease in the value of the money internally. Industry and commerce were threatened with absolute disaster. This was a matter of vital interest to the farmers and those in the commerce world. He did not think that any measure taken in the economic field in recent years was as important as the exchange control steps taken by the Government. Hie matter was one of paramount interest.

“I realize that the farmers and the men of the commerce world have many interests in common,” said Mr Mulholland. “They must stand together in many things and if they follow divergent paths they must be prepared to take the • consequences.” A vote of thanks was moved by Mr J. H. Reed and was carried.