DENIAL ISSUED

Taranaki Daily News, 20 June 1931, Page 7

DENIAL ISSUED

BRITISH FINANCE REPORT FORECAST CALLED TRAVESTY BANK OF ENGLAND'S POLICY CRITICISM ANTICIPATED NEEDED CREDIT NOT GIVEN By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright. Rec. 5.5 p.m. London, June 19. Lord Macmillan has officially issued a statement that the Daily Herald’s forecast of the Finance and Industry Committee’s report is entirely unauthorised and a complete travesty of its contents. The committee hopes to present its report next week.

The Daily Herald’s lobbyist forecast that there would be a majority report severely criticising the Bank of England’s policy during the trade depression and suggesting that the bank at present could materially improve trade by making credit more easily available and increasing, the amount of money circulating. This policy should be carried out in co-operation with the Central Reserve Bank of America, the Bank of Franco and other great, central banks. The report did not advocate wage and salary reductions as a practical remedy for the trade crisis, which was diametrically opposed to the view expressed by Dr. Sproule in an address to the Statistical Society, in which he declared that central bankers were of the opinion that they could do nothing for trade until drastic cuts in wages and salaries were effected, added the Herald. The report was likely to create a sensation as the Bank of England’s policy would be openly condemned by the committee, including soipe of the greatest financial experts in Britain. There would also be minority reports, one of which would propose protection and the establishment of a national investment board to issue both short and long-term loans to industry. Despite the official denial the Evening Standard’s financial correspondent agrees that the report will seriously question the Bank of England’s financial policy. _ He says the committee is justified in raising the issue that the bank’s policy has been a major influence in the loss of exports, the growing unemployment and the loss of industrial capital. “Some of the committeemen,” says the paper, “hold that the bank failed to keep in touch with industrial requirements and followed too rigidly pre-war conceptions of the automatic. working of the gold standard. It restricted credit when release would have led to an improvement in trade and injured the export trade by embargoes on foreign loans and the maintenance of unnecessarily high money rates.”

PERSONNEL OF COMMITTEE. WIDE POWERS OF REFERENCE. In November, 1929, it was announced by Mr. Philip Snowden, Chancellor of the Exchequer, that a committee of inquiry into finance and industry would “inquire into banking, finance, and credit, paying regard to the factors both internal and international, -which govern their operation, and to make recommendations calculated to enable these agencies to promote the development of trade and commerce and the employment of labour.” The 'committee consisted of the following members: — Lord Macmillan, K.C. (chairman), who was Lord Advocate of Scotland in 1924, and chairman of the Court of Inquiry into the coal-mining dispute in 1925. Sir Thomas Allen, vice-chairman of the Co-operative Wholesale Society, and chairman of the New Zealand Produce Association. Mr. Ernest ..Bevin, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers’ Union. Lord Bradbury, Permanent Secretary to the Treasury from 1913 to 1919, and principal British representative on the Reparation Commission. Mr. R. H. Brand, managing director of Lazard Brothers and Co., merchant bankers, and a director of Lloyd’s Bank. Professor T. E. Gregory, professor of Banking in London University. Mr. J. M. Keynes, a well-known economist and Treasury representative at the Paris Peace Conference. Mr. Lennox B. Lee, president of the Federation of British Industries. Mr. Cecil Lubbock,, a director and former Deputy-Governor of the Bank of England. Mr. Reginald McKenna, chairman of the Midland Bank, and an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr. J. T. Walton Newbold, editor of the “Social Democrat,” who has been in turn a member of the Fabian Society, and Independent Labourite, and a Communist. Mr. Walter Raine, deputy-president of the Association of British Chambers of Commerce. Mr. J. Frater Taylor, a director of Armstrong, Whitworth’s, and other companies. Mr. A. A. G. Tullock, a director of several banks.